house hunting

A few months ago, when I imagined Will and I buying a house, I imagined that it would be like an episode of house hunters. I can be majorly indecisive, so making a decision as large as needs to happen when you buy a house seemed like it would take a very, very long time. I imagined us visiting lots of different houses. Well, the entire process was quite a bit different than what I had expected. In reality, we ended up skipping the entire "hunting" process of house hunting!


A good family friend lives right across the street from what is now our house. The house was owned by an older man who passed away within the last several years, leaving the house empty. My stepdad called one day to tell me about the house, and I was honestly not interested at all. I was totally convinced that I wanted to stay in the same area as our apartment, despite the long commutes both Will and I have. The idea of the house came up a few more times, enough that Will I started to consider the pros and cons. I told my best friend Diane about the house, and she said we should at least go look at it. That was kind of a light bulb moment.

Yeah, maybe we should go look at it!
^That's what best friends are for!

So we did. It ended up being a lot better than I expected. It needed work without a doubt, a LOT of work, but I immediately saw so much potential. I loved the neighborhood, the small touches in the house like coved ceilings and vintage door knobs, and the back yard where Abby could run and play. By a lot of peoples standards, the house was small, but after living in an apartment for three years, the basement and all of its storage potential looked amazing! I started imagining us having a home so soon because of the amazing price, compared with the years we might have to wait to get into a home in the area I was hoping for, and I was convinced. We put in offer in within the week, and the offer was accepted the very next day.

When it comes time to move to something a little bigger years from now, I feel like in a lot of ways, we will still be very much "property virgins"! I have learned an amazing amount already about the mortgage and inspection process (which was QUITE a process, and I'll go into that later), but we definitely totally skipped out on the hunting and hunting for the perfect place.

It isn't perfect, and if I was comparing it to a list of other houses, it might not even be the one I would pick, but in a lot of ways that's probably for the best. I could obsess over small details and what-if's for days, weeks, months if given the chance! Instead, our house kind of chose us :-)