10.19.2012

New Home, New Baby, Blessed Life!

My oh my! It's been 9 months since I've written a post. We've had a busy year this year to say the very least! With two kids I barley find time to take photos of them let alone edit them. I'll take a batch and get a few edited and then bury myself in month's worth of photos needing to be worked on and backed up. Sheesh.
Anyways...back to reality. Since January (which is when I made my last post) we have bought a new home, new vehicle and added a new member to our family! That's a lot of excitement right?! SO MUCH in fact I need to divide the posts up to fully explain each one and not bore you to tears in one post.
First things first. We purchased our VERY FIRST home in March of this year! We had been yearning to own our own home for three years (of those, we lived in a small single wide trailer). It was the best experience we could have asked for, and the opportunity fell into our laps when we least expected!
Early in 2011 we had found the 'perfect' home for us listed by a real estate company in the city we currently resided in (which is where we wanted to stay). We went to see it..fell in love but knew we weren't financially ready for it--so we watched as it sold not long after. Broken hearted we decided we'd try again in several months while we worked on our credit and debts.
Sure enough..we got back in contact with our real estate agent who had been working with us and showing us homes in our area for the past year in Spring of 2012, we viewed a few homes in the area..none of which suited us exactly in some way..then she mentioned that the same contractor who had built the home we fell in love with the year before built another right next door. He had acquired a foreclosed mobile home on 3 acres and removed the mobile home. The house we looked at before was set on 2 of the 3 acres and he built another on the one that was left. It wasn't up for sale but she made some calls to the contractors agent and she said he'd allow a showing.
So we went down to see and it was built in the exact same layout/style as the one we loved but had different exterior colors and interior finishes (which we preferred over the other) and we were sold! We KNEW it was the home for us! Quiet neighborhood, perfect location...perfect size and not to mention it was only three months old! So we were hooked up with a company in the state to our north who had a mortgage lady who was AWESOME for us and our needs. She helped us get our USDA loan on 3.7% with our property taxes, down payment and closing costs rolled in. It took two weeks from start to close and we were moving in the day of closing.
Its been seven months since we made our move. We've slowly been remodeling and painting as we go. The entire house was painted a flat neutral tan and so far we've completed both boy's rooms, their bathroom and are currently in progress on our master bath and garage! I have taken photos of the work we've done and will try to start sharing the transformation of our home regularly! The befores/afters..etc. I love DIY projects, I love making my visions a reality. I can't wait until we have everything we'd like done-done. Though that may take months or even years, it's something I enjoy and can't wait to tackle as a team with my husband and watch our kids grow up in it! Here are the photos taken when we moved in!
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This was our mortgage papers folder and the keys to our new home the day we closed<3
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Our real estate agent had gotten us a card and Lowe's gift card. She is local to our city too and grew up with my Mom and her siblings. Very sweet lady.
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Finally!
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In living room looking into the kitchen. (This was taken before the old owner's stuff was moved...so excuse the random stuff)
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Other side/corner of kitchen.
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The fridge we purchased from the owners..
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Laundry room
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Boy's/Guest Bath
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What is now Lawson's room. Dillons room is the exact same across the hall..I don't think I took a photo looking in it but it's the same setup minus that hideous bead curtain lol.
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Looking into our living room from the dining area.
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The somewhat dirty door looking into our backyard. There you have it...minus a few things like our bathroom, bedroom and the garage lol! I only have a 50mm prime on my camera so I was limited on space but you get the jist! It feels so awesome to be homeowners, HUGE responsibilty but awesome nonetheless. Hope you have a great day and check out the other posts I'll add catching up the busy year! :)

2 Lovely Reader(s) Said:

Unknown said...

It truly is a big responsibility, Natalie! But owning a house is such a fulfilling accomplishment, right? Once you see your family creating memories in your new house, you’ll forget about the reality of paying bills, even for just a few seconds. It’s not only affording a house that matters, but starting a ‘home’ of your own.

Javier Bonnell

Antony Shuler said...

As long as your family is happy, then it’s all gonna be worth it! I agree with Javier about owning a house, paying in cash brings a different kind of sense of fulfillment. I hope you’ll have a lot of good memories with your new house. Cheers!

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