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Sunday, April 26, 2015

Our Home Journey… Dwelling 6



I am back to finally share the last installment (for now) of Our Home Journey… and bum bum bum bum… our 6th home together and the first home we have bought!

Before you hear about our new home… you may want to catch up on the prior six we have lived in in the past 6 years!

Intro and Dwelling One
Dwelling Two
Dwelling Three
Dwelling Four
Dwelling Five
Dwelling Six

And now here we go… our home!

Dwelling Six

Our First Home with a Mortgage 

We had looked and looked for houses… from the beginning of October until January. Maybe that is normal?  We don't know we had never done this before.  Our budget was on the low side for the area and what we wanted/needed and we just kept walking into houses that just did not cut it.  They were either a MAJOR flip job (think everything in the house had to be replaced) or to way to far out (we knew we wanted to be central).  To boot people kept telling us we should look in this neighborhood or that neighborhood… and the the back of my mind I would say, sure with an extra $50,000-$100,000 we could go there.

Early on, before we were fully ready to buy we found a house we really liked and it was priced right! It was a flipped house with 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths, great open living space.  But we knew it would not last- too good of a deal and it was bought before we were ready to make an offer.

Right at the beginning of January I went back to looking at rentals and was about to give up.  Then Andrew and I talked, crunched numbers and decided we could boost our budget just a tiny bit and see if that made a difference.  We looked one more time and found three houses we liked!  Perfect no, but great for our family.

We decided to put an offer in on another flipped house with a good location for us and the huge blessing- 4 bedrooms/2.5 baths.  We thought there was no way we be able to get that extra bedroom, but there it was!  The only catch was the living area was small and a big space for entertaining was a top priority. We decided we could take down the wall between the kitchen and living room and it would work.

So we put in an offer and after some negotiations the house was ours.  Bought our first home and did our first renovation!  We have been here just more than two months and we are still setting up.  It is taking more time than we expected, but that is okay.  It takes time and a home is never really finished!
View from the front door of the "great room."

View of "great room" from the back.

Eat in area/dining

Kitchen

Master

Master bath (maybe the smallest bathroom you have ever seen but it is so nice to have)

Laundry- super organized right?

Main bath


"Big Kid's" room aka BD's room for now

The totally unfinished nursery and a bad picture at that… it is not actually this yellow in there.
 
And how is this for imperfection… the "back right room" /the office/guest room/who knows!

We Learned…

*People have a lot of thoughts about where you should live/how you should buy/etc… take the good advise and leave the rest.
*Keep to your budget and keep it on the low side as much as possible.  I have heard it said that you should keep it at 30% of your take home pay.  We tried to keep it at 25% or less of just Andrew's income.  The bank will give you a bigger loan than that.  Just because they will does not mean you should or you need a house that is that expensive.
*A home does not have to be perfectly ready to have guests.  We had a meeting at a house the first week we moved in.  Was everything ready?  No.  But one of the points of having a home is the fact that God calls us to be hospitable.
*If you think moving into a rental has a lot of expenses (like we did) just go ahead and buy and get ready for REALLY expensive.  From lawnmowers, to paint, to furniture, to the unexpected.  Make a priority list and take it one day (or year) at a time, it does not have to happen all at once.
*Pick the most lived in rooms and set those up first.  To be honest the office/extra bedroom and the nursery are still a disaster… but we don't need them yet so it has been fine to wait.
*Be patient things don't get set up overnight!
*And I sure there is more to come in the years (hopefully) we will be here.

Catch Up

Intro and Dwelling One
Dwelling Two
Dwelling Three
Dwelling Four
Dwelling Five
Dwelling Six

All that being said come visit us friends! We would love to show you around! :)

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20 comments:

  1. It's so nice! I totally hear you on the pains of buying a house. I'm dreading having to do it again whenever we are ready to move to a new city!! It was such an ordeal buying our first home! You are smart to keep your budget low like that. We were approved for MUCH more than we spent, thankfully! Sure, most of our friends have newer/nicer homes, but I love our house and it's perfect for us at this stage of life. :) Congrats!! And I know you'll make those other two rooms adorable in no time!

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    1. Thanks Christy… it is good to hear affirmation on our decisions and that people are on the same page as us!!!

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  2. I love the kitchen! We bought this house in November 2009. We ended up borrowing a push mower that first summer (big lawn so that was a pain) but had to buy a snowblower right off as we live in Maine. It is definitely those expenses that are forgotten about.

    (visiting from the Monday's Musings link-up)

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    1. I can't imagine needing a snowblower living in Georgia, that is so cool! We just bought our mower last night… the back yard has become such a jungle and we could not get away with just borrowing one anymore!

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  3. What a cute house! This reminds me so much of the house where I grew up.

    And I think you're smart to be conservative on the mortgage. Housing is very expensive in my area, and I see lots of families really struggling because they have housing costs that eat up about half their income.

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    1. You are so right. We just don't want to be house poor… and we try to live in our budget in the montra… just because you can does not mean you should!

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  4. Congrats on your first home. So exciting. God's blessings... #MessyMarriage

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  5. How exciting to have your own home! And it is a great size too! 4 beds/2 bath! Lots of room to grow into! Thank you for your tour and for sharing on the Art of Home-Making Mondays this week! :)

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    1. Thanks Jes… we are so excited! And I always love linking up! :)

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  6. You have done a lot in just two months. I love that front porch!

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    1. Thanks! Hopefully we will find some inexpensive furniture for it soon!

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  7. Thanks for joining the Link Party! Your house is looking great! I remember move after move. Enjoy this precious time. You're doing a beautiful job!

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  8. Love your new house- it is warm and cozy. And it is so wonderful that you were blessed to get it for less. And it is so fun to make a house yours. Continued blessings. Visiting from Blessings Counters Link Up.

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    1. It really has been fun making it ours… and we are still working on it so hopefully more pictures to come!

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  9. Congratulations on your new home! Your blog name caught my eye. My daughter is buying her first home and she will be living on a budget for sure! Your home is beautiful and from looking at your pics, you and your hubby have been working hard. Please bless this new home Lord!

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    1. Yes… our goal is to live as stewards of what God has given us… we are blessed with this new home!

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  10. I love this! We just moved into our home last week, and had people over right away as well. People don't need perfect homes, they need Jesus! And I totally agree about prioritizing what to buy, instead of feeling like you have to have it all at once.

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    1. Yes! Love that… and really homes are meant to be perfect anyways… they are meant to be lived in! :)

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