We bought our first house at the beginning of June. Below is the picture of us after we signed our lives away. Seth has a Real Estate Licence and acted as our agent. The whole process was definitely a learning process for both of us.
The house was a short sale...which if you haven't heard is anything but short. We first saw the house back in December. We submitted an offer and never heard anything. About a week after our initial offer the MLS stated that an offer was under review and we thought for sure we had missed out on the house. We casually continued looking at other houses...and I found myself comparing them to "the house" each time we did a walk through. It was a pretty discouraging process.
Then in February the MLS indicated that the bank had pre-approved a higher asking price on "the house." We submitted another offer...and didn't hear anything for two weeks. Then the seller's agent called and said that the sellers would like to accept our offer and would we be willing to re-submit and give them a week to officially accept. We re-submitted and the date for the sellers to accept came and went. Several weeks later we received a signed acceptance...but it was on our offer that had lapsed. After a little coaxing we finally got the sellers to sign an addendum so all the paperwork would be official...that was near the beginning of March. Then we waited for the bank to approve the short sale.
We started to talk more and more about "the house." We walked by "the house" when we were out on walks and hoped that it would be ours. Our lives seemed to be on hold during the 90 days that the bank had to approve the short sale. I should mention that "the house" was just half a block from my best friend Amy's house....and in her ward. For all the waiting that we did things sure came together quickly when we got word in the middle of May that the bank had approved the sale. We ended up closing on the house in less than 30 days.
We spent our first Saturday as homeowners working in the yard. Here is a picture of our first trip to Home Depot. I have teased Seth since that we should just have his paycheck directly deposited to Home Depot. We have made countless trips back...sometimes taking more than one trip a day.
Seth's parents, my parents and Joe offered some much needed help. We got the lawn that hadn't been mowed all year mowed, the flowerbeds weeded, trees trimmed, raingutters cleaned out and sprinkling system started. Phin ran around and loved to be outside...at one point he actually climbed our new ladder all the way to the roof...scary but true. One of the seller's agents dropped by a key during the day...and told us that at one point they had multiple signed offers on the house...but we were the only ones patient enough to wait for it.
The next two weeks we spent painting the upstairs. My mom was AMAZING and we wouldn't have been ready to move in without her. She patched the ceiling in the kitchen where there had been water damaged as well as a spot in our front entry where the previous owners had removed a pony wall. We patched the spots in the walls where nails had been placed and did lots and lots of sanding.
Seth would come over in the evenings when he was off from work to help out.
As we were preparing the walls I found that the previous owners had just painted over some vinyl lettering.
Phin loved to be right next to me as I worked.
Here he is taking his first nap in his room. He learned how to climb out of his playpen the next day...boo.
My dad took a day off of work and Mom, Dad and I primed the whole house.
Here is a picture of the hard workers.
Seth dug up one of the garden beds to get ready for a garden...that never happened...maybe next year.
The walls are plaster and the previous owners had tried to glue the baseboards on...which didn't quite work. JB came to our rescue with his compressor and nail gun. JB was also our mortgage officer and was a champ with all of the paperwork he had to collect from us.
While JB worked Max, Ben, Andrew, Phin and James played croquet in the backyard.
Phin fell asleep sitting the shopping cart at Home Depot one day.
Our second Saturday of home ownership we were finally ready to paint. Bart, Mom and Dad all helped and we got the ceilings and walls painted...woo hoo.
The next week Mom and I worked on the kitchen. Mom was taking off drawer pulls one day with her power screwdriver and Phin ran to find his to help.
Phin was often right up on the ladder with me...not easy when you are pregnant and have a belly that sticks out anyway.
Popeye!
A nap on the comfortable kitchen floor...at least he was in front of the fan.
We decided to get a gas range so we had to get a plummer to run a gas line. Seth drilled a hole through the tile and tore up some drywall to get access...Phin loved playing peek-a-boo through the hole.
Moving day finally came over Father's Day weekend. We had help from our home teachers, next door neighbor, Scott, Mary, Max, Ben and my parents. Andrew, Phin and James were content to play with toys on the lawn of our apartment.
Loading up the truck. We ended up taking two loads from our apartment and a load from Scott's garage where we were storing some furniture we bought at a sale. You really don't know how much stuff you have until you have to move it.
Phin and James also enjoyed playing in the truck once it was all emptied.
The week after we moved in was a whirlwind. We set up a toddler bed and the crib in Phin's room and let him decide which one he wanted to sleep in. Seth put his changing pad on the floor just in case Phin fell out...Phin decided to sleep on the changing pad.
The morning after we moved in I took a shower and Seth came upstairs and said that we had several inches of water on the bathroom floor. He spent his Father's Day morning bailing water out of the bathroom. The next day we had someone come and auger the sewer line. The day after that we had them bring a camera to look down the line. We were expecting the worst...and actually got good news that everything looked okay. There must have been some residual blockage from the previous owners.
I also spent a couple of days cleaning our old apartment. Phin loved running around the empty apartment and hiding in all of the closets.
He also spent quite a bit of time watching shows on Amazon Prime...until he was tuckered out enough to fall asleep.
His second night in the house he ended up in the toddler bed...progress.
We also spent time painting all of the drawers and doors.
We didn't really measure doorways when we ordered our appliances...a novel homeowner mistake. I wanted the largest fridge we could get...and Seth was determined to get it in. We took the doors off when the fridge was first delivered. The delivery guys tried to get it in but failed...so we had them just leave the fridge in our carport. Seth called his brother Matt for help. Matt was sweet enough to come up after work and they ended up building a platform to lift the fridge onto.
Then they turned the fridge around.
Then we realized the fridge really was to big...so Seth took off the door jam.
Lowered the fridge down...then pushed it back up...and then spent several hours trying to put the doors back on. His determination paid off and we now have a fridge.
Here is a photo of Phin on the platform that Seth and Matt built.
Thank you to everyone that helped our dream come true. Thanks for helping us to mow, weed, sand, paint, pack, move, install appliances etc. We couldn't have done it without you. We love our little nest.
