A lot of this i'm sure will be about what may be my biggest and most important grown up adventure yet... My new house.
Signing contracts tomorrow and closing by the end of the month... Still hasn't totally set in. A year ago - despite my unfounded desire to be independent - I decided it was best to continue living with the roommates (don't kid yourself Laura - everyone knows you live with your parents). I didn't want to live alone in a sketchy Middletown apartment and the comforts of a home... my home... were still important. So I continued to function as daughter/employee/cleaning lady/personal chef with the parentals. I think they liked having me around until I decided I wanted to start redecorating... everything. They tried to hold of my redecorating energy - which is mostly fueled by my deep love for HGTV - by letting me redecorate the office. That went very quickly even with all the desk assembly and painting on my part (and the assistance of some not so willing coworkers... beer bribes work like a charm).
Eventually the roommates took a break from traveling which meant we had a lot of quality time together. It was then that we began to realize living & working together all day everyday may have worked for them in their 26 years of marriage but it wasn't going to continue working for the three of us. I began researching, budgeting, and planning for the day I would get to move on to my own house.
Somehow on a magical day I convinced Brad to go look at a house. It was a foreclosure and in ROUGH shape. Holes, mold, dirt, and more holes. It wasn't pretty but the potential was endless. The bank still hasn't made any moves on that house so House #1 was out.
House #2 was a bit better but those tricky banks forced all the potential buyers into a bidding war... a war I lost by a very slim margin.
House #3 was yet another foreclosure in rough shape... surprisingly enough right down the road from the 1st. Bank, bidding war, no winner declared yet? I gave up at this point - I thought, maybe it isn't the right time? Keep saving and keep dreaming.
Then House #4 came up with the disclaimer "There is already an offer that they like but let's have a look anyway". Going in and not really caring because I knew I wouldn't get it I thought it was really a waste of my time.
House #4 was it... I fell in love. That feeling everyone says you get when you meet your true love or try on your perfect wedding dress - "you just know". Well I knew. I was meant to have this house. Plenty of rooms, Bathrooms for guests, a kitchen that was screaming "please make me your dream kitchen!", a bedroom that was poised to be my dream closet, and all the "character & charm" an HGTV lover could ask for. I heard my dad whisper to the real estate agent "She really loves this one - what are our options." I always knew my dad knew me well but in this moment I was so happy he could read the look on my face he even said "this one has a lot of character" - it was like music to my ears. Once he started talking about what we could change and what we could do to spruce it up I knew he loved it just as much as I did.
A few days later we were back at the house again this time with the full entourage - Mom, Dad, Britt, construction manger, subcontractor. It was time to discuss numbers. I was terrified - I get my hopes up entirely too easy in life and this situation was no different. My hopes were high and each balloon holding them up was slowly popping, one by one, with each cost they started discussing. Roof, siding, electric, shutters, windows, kitchen... Terror started to spread across my face as they got down to the offer amount. I knew if we didn't go in strong we weren't going to get it because they had already liked the first offer they got.
Back and forth twice. We held strong after our first counter offer. The seller needed money and needed it quickly - we were the perfect fit. On Monday July 23rd I got the call I was hoping for. "We got the house." I was boarding an airplane back from California and made a scene. A little shriek of excitement followed by nervous embarrassed and excited giggles. I'm so excited to begin this adventure. So much work to be done to make this house what it should be and most importantly an entire house to make my own. It is going to be a crazy ride but I can't wait for it to start!
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