House Part 2.

We went back and forth so many times on houses and neighborhoods and different cities near by that we could not really find something we loved. Then the issue of buying older again or maybe building was still on our minds.

We then found a house that had a lot of things we loved. I will call this house Cashmere. Cashmere was the perfect size, it had the cutest backyard and the neighborhood was adorable. BUT........the interior wall color was ugly, the kitchen was not our taste at all and the schools were not that great. Also it was in a part of town that was unfamiliar to both of us and still far from his family. We went back and forth on this house so many times. We even saw it a second time with a realtor. After seeing it we would be like "that's it, its the one stop overthinking it" and then we would sleep on it and change our minds in the morning. We really liked this house but we did not love it. So our search continued.

A few weeks later we found a new development in the area where my husband grew up in and super close to his family. Its a brand new neighborhood and it was in our price range. We decided to check it out. We stalked the area, the houses and went through the pamphlets to the point they were falling apart and then the weekend of Thanksgiving on black Friday we drove over and dropped off our deposit for a lot. Thus House 2.0 was born.

Oh wait....we haven't even listed or gotten our house ready to sell.  So between that Friday and December 3rd we hustled and hauled and our beloved first home went on the market, and between December 3rd and January 26th we had 7 offers, 2 of which fell through ruining Christmas eve and Christmas. All of this also happened while we were on vacation in Rome keep in mind. This whole process aged us like nothing else. We ultimately were able to get a solid offer for asking price and we closed on January 30th and we moved out.

While all of this is happening, House 2.0 was going on in the background. So we were really maxed out at stressing. Do we miss our hold house? Yes and no. The process of selling was a lot of work and it was costly. The ups and downs really took a toll on use emotionally. By the time we sold and moved, which moving was another horrible process we were done. We wanted out and done and over. I have a picture of us from when we bought it and then a picture of us one last time after we closed.

We were finally able to breath on January 30th at 12pm. We can finally get excited about House 2.0

House Part 1.

Columbia was our first house together. It was our first HUGE purchase together. It was the next move on the chessboard to grow our relationship. We were young spring chickens when we bought it and we were so excited to not only own a house but own something historic and really really cool.

The house is a 4 sided white brick colonial with original windows and hardwood floors. Its charm and character is what won us over. We also loved the neighborhood it was in. Aged trees shaded every inch of the street and it was walking distance to coffee and restaurants.

The house was also 100 years old and with age comes issues. We didn't run into too many major issues while living in it but with age there is always issues on the horizon. We paid our fair share in expenses and over time we knew that this might not be our forever home.

After living in it for 6 years and having discussions about our future and growing our family I think we realized that we needed to decided if we were going to invest in the house and rehab it and make it truly our own or if we needed to move. We made a pros and cons list and went back and forth on what we hated and loved. What we really wanted and what would be nice. Here were some examples of things we discussed

Pros List

• Beautiful Neighborhood
• Walking distance is 10/10
• Historic and has lots of character
• Short commute to work
• Fenced in yard for dogs
• Gorgeous wood burning fireplace
• Lots of natural light

Cons List

• Detached Garage that is also a tight squeeze
• Cannot open windows during nice weather
• Outdated kitchen
• Layout was not ideal 

I could really go on and on. Chris's number one item was not having a finished basement. Our basement was fine but very compartmentalized. So even though we had decent height and space  it was not open enough to finish it.  My number one item...well more like 3 items was the kitchen was outdated and closed off, and I hated walking outside to our garage. I hated when it was -6 outside and snowing or raining or humid and sticky and walking to the garage. Ugh thinking about it makes me still cringe.

ultimately we realized that if we invested a ton of money into the house we would still have major cons on our list and for that reason we decided it might be best to start looking for something different all together.

So what did we start doing? We started going to open houses on the weekends and then we toyed around with the idea of building new construction so we started going to new communities.

This process was a lot more overwhelming than we thought because now this "idea" of maybe moving opened up path to so many decisions. What area do we want to live in? What are we sacrificing? Can we afford it? Would we really be happy? Can we picture ourselves here? It was like a true maze of if yes turn left if no go back type of path.

We would bring home pamphlets and packets and handouts to the point that the pile turned into a mountain of papers..........to be continued