We Have News!!! | Another DIY Journey
It's the final countdown and I'm finally ready to make the public announcement to everyone!
We are closing on a house in a week!! EEEE!
As you know I moved back up to MN with the kids beginning of March, and my husband and I immediately jumped on the house hunting wagon. We discussed back and forth a few different options and paths we wanted to move forward for our next home. We discussed the opportunity to get a 203K loan (a home renovation loan) to help us get instant equity in a home and really be able to get a fixer upper to our preferred style in a short amount of time. With a 203K loan all financed renovations need to be completed within 6 months of closing. That alone made it so tempting to push forward with getting a 203K.
You, and everyone else, all know that I LOVE DIY projects (obviously) but there was a part of me that was not excited about the overwhelming idea of buying a home that was "less than turn key" and planning out years and years of renovations. We have had a very unsettled life for the past 6 years.. in fact it's been quite hectic. And now that my husband was out of the Navy and finally home with us, plus we were back in Minnesota with all our family and friends.. I wasn't quite sure how much I wanted to keep living in "limbo" with tons of renovations going on.
BUT, that was a small stubborn part of me, because we all know even if we bought a turn key home I'd still do renovations, even superficial ones. If I'm going to be spending our money and alte nights up working on home projects, they might as be ones that are going to truly build sweat equity into our home.
We started looking in cities that were about half hour - 45 minutes from our parents location (our parents live minutes from one another - pretty convenient). We wanted to be "comfortably distant" but still be in a great area with great schools. Well a few weekends after another of seeing homes that were "okay" but nothing jumping out at us, I was starting to feel that frustration and wonder if "we'll ever find what we're looking for".
Well, one day we were out driving around and my husband wanted to go look at a home that was for sale in the same city as our parents. I rolled my eyes and said ooookay but I knew it was outside our budget. We drove down the street to see a big "sold" sign, but happened to notice right across the street was another For Sale sign. Out of curiosity I Googled the address to see listing price... fun for us there happened to be an open house going on right then. We thought it'd just be a for fun walk in, see the home and leave. We walked in and I knew instantly we both had that "oh crap" feeling. That feeling of you just fell in love with something you know you can't have.
We walked around and I INSTANTLY was dreaming up ideas for each room.
It has charm, it has character and it has potential. And in one week it'll be OUR potential.
It all happened really fast! We called our realtor and gave him a heads up about the home. Billy and I came back and instantly started crunching numbers, we put in an offer that night. The next day we went back for the second open house and showed both our parents the home as we were "patiently" waiting for the answer to our offer.
After a couple days we finally received the final call that offer was accepted!
Now this home doesn't have any shiny new things to show you... but it does have endless potential of amazing DIY projects that I will do to it.
It needs help from head to toe, exterior to interior, major demolition renovations to easy cosmetic changes. There's even some big downer fixes that need to happen like foundation repair and tree removal.
Want a long laundry list of pictures of inside?! I snapped a few quick pictures the other day when we were there taking measurements... they're phone pictures but they'll work :)
This is the living room right when you walk in
Then off there is a "spare" room they they considered a part of the kitchen but we'll make into the dining room/eat-in kitchen
Next to there is this little room that has slate floors, scary built-ins and this weird other built in shelf. They used this as the office... do you see all that paneling? Yah.
The first picture is the master bedroom, the second (where you see my kids) will be Jackson's room, and the little cloud room will be Baby Girl's room.
In Jackson's room was this little closet that gives you a surprise when you open it:
Both my dad and my father in law had this curious expression on their face when they saw it and were like, "how have I seen this wallpaper before?" Apparently both had it in their home growing up. #yikes
Then there's 1 bathroom that we'll ALL be sharing, including any guests. YAY. (it's a scary thought)
Then the backyard is a pretty good size but needs major landscaping. There's a small little deck off the dining room/kitchen area and to the left of that is a screened in patio:
That will be taken down... it isn't the safest of dwellings. In fact during the walk through the inspector just looked at the footings (or lack there of) and just turned to me and says, "Just rip it down...just rip it down). Done.
I wasn't able to snap any pictures of the basement, but it's a dungeon as-is. We'll be gutting and redoing walls, carpet, ceiling the whole sha-bang down there.
Guess what that means for you guys! LOTS OF NEW AMAZING DIY PROJECTS COMING YOUR WAY!
Stay tuned because I truly want to take this home and use it as a teaching opportunity. I am going to be learning so much and every little trick, tip, and tutorial I can share - I will be.
Want to know what's craziest of all.... our children will be going to the same exact elementary, middle, and high school that I attended. Never in a million years did I expect that to happen. In addition we're less than a minute from both our parents houses. NEVER did I expect that to happen.
Are you as excited as we are for House #2?! What should we call this bad boy?
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