we bought our house!

Yes! It’s true! We bought our house from our landlord. It’s actually something that’s been in the works for nearly a whole year, and finally last Friday we signed a heck of a lot of papers and came back to our house as homeowners. Which made for a really anti-climatic experience. Typically first time home buyers can’t wait to get the keys and finally head over to an empty house just waiting for the new owners to come in. After we got another our set of keys, we came home, opened up the fridge, heated up some leftovers and sat back on the same old couch we’ve sat on for the past four years. So how did this all happen? Let me start at the beginning…

One Friday night back in March of last year, B and I were just hanging out at home and we heard a loud *crack* come from the kitchen. We went down to inspect and saw nothing out of sorts, chalked it up to an old house just settling and went on with our night. The next day while we were cleaning up I was wiping down the cupboard next to the microwave when I noticed the cupboard didn’t close all the way.

Upon further inspection we noticed the microwave that hangs above the stove was angling toward the floor. The loud crack from the night before was the wall cabinet breaking apart and actually falling off the wall, and it was taking the microwave with it. We knew we had to get that fixed and planned on emailing our landlord on Monday about it. We finished cleaning and went about our Saturday.

We ended up falling asleep on the couch that night while watching whatever Netflix show we were hooked on at the time and woke up after 1 am to head up to bed. I was in the bedroom half asleep and about to get in bed when I hear B yell out from the bathroom, “OH MY GOD, HELP!” I run in and see him covering the faucet at the sink with his body and water is spraying everywhere. The faucet had blown off while he was brushing his teeth. B says to block the water while he goes under the sink to turn off the water. I think I grabbed a shampoo bottle and tried to block the water with that. Which did absolutely nothing. But hey, it’s 1am and I was still coming out of sleep mode. Oh, and by the way, it was the hot water that was spraying out, and the longer it sprayed, the hotter it got.

After about 20 seconds of B’s head under the vanity I start wondering what the heck he’s doing under there only to find out that there were no shut off valves under the sink. B runs downstairs, outside, and into the basement to turn off the water to the whole house. Finally the water stops. We are soaked. The bathroom is soaked. And we are pissed. Screw waiting until Monday to email the landlord, we’re emailing now, because we have no water, the faucet blew off and the microwave is falling off the wall.

Well, we had a plumber in the house by noon on Sunday and quickly got a new faucet and added shut off valves to the sink. Our landlord came by to check in and see how things were going probably since we sounded slightly less than happy in our email sent early that morning. As she was getting ready to leave she said in passing, “you know, I should sell this house to you guys.”

“Ha!”

I actually said that. I laughed out loud at the absurdity of that statement.  “No, we’re not going to buy this house.”

Later that week B and I started actually thinking about it, and realized that if we got the house for a good price, we could afford to fix it up and make it a house we’d really love to own. It’s a short commute to work, we are close to everything we need, and the neighborhood is only getting better.

We got the house inspected, found no major issues and began talking to contractors and getting estimates for work we would want to do to the house. Finally by the end of summer we had a contractor picked out, a realistic scope of work figured out and we were totally ready to move forward.

But wait, remember this post? Yeah, 2014 was already crazy and this was another thing going on that I hadn’t even mentioned yet. We weren’t about to squeeze in a home renovation 3 months before our wedding (although I actually wanted to). Good thing B quickly burst that bubble of mine and knocked some sense into me, because looking back on it, there was no way we could have handled it on top of everything else.

So house buying/renovations were put on hold until after the wedding and honeymoon, but by the beginning of January we had a contract and we were ready to actually do this!

So that’s where we are now! I’ve been so excited to share this and talk about everything we plan to do, but I didn’t want to say anything until it was all official. But now it’s official! So get ready for a whole slew of house posts. Because, really, that’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past couple months anyway.

Renovations are on the horizon and I couldn’t be more excited!

Oh yeah, the microwave cabinet was fixed later that week. However, it’s a slight variation of our original cabinets and also much whiter than the others, so now we’re sporting the two-tone kitchen look but not in the trendy way. Just you wait.