WE’VE GOT HISTORY

The first house my husband and I purchased was a three story home built in the 90’s.  It sat on a little over an acre and had a country feel. It was move in ready, so we didn’t do more with it than paint a few walls.  The main floor was great for entertaining, but had a lot of wasted space. All of the bedrooms were on the third floor, which proved to be a challenge when we had our first son.  

My husband’s favorite part of the home was the first floor…which was a massive garage. He really enjoys working on cars, so it was the perfect space for him. About two years after we purchased the house, we decided it was too far from his work and it was time to consider moving.

WARNING: It was at this point that I discovered my love for moving..

I really enjoy the house hunting process as well as getting our home in showing order.  There is something gratifying about finally cleaning up all of the little messes that we so often overlook.  I’ve noticed that we also tend to take care of all the little issues that we just didn’t have the time or energy to deal with prior to listing.

We had a brief conversation with our realtor about the option of renovating our current house or searching for a new one…we decided to put our home on the market.  Within two weeks of this conversation, our home was on the market with several showings scheduled. (I tend to move REALLY quickly once I’ve made a decision.) We received several offers within one week of listing and were then on the fast track of finding a new home.

We looked at several homes closer to the city, but houses were moving fast and a few of our offers were not accepted.  We finally decided to expand our search area and found a house that was much nicer than all of the other homes we looked at previously.  We quickly made an offer on a home that we liked, and two years after purchasing our first home together, we had our second home.

The neighborhood was very cookie cutter, with a strict HOA.  (There are pros and cons to HOA’s, but we determined that strict HOA’s certainly are not for us.)  Our home sat on about a third acre lot and only had a two car garage, which was a huge sacrifice my husband made in the move.  The house had an unfinished third floor that we decided to finish. After finishing out our third floor (almost exactly two years after we purchased the house), we determined that this would not be our forever home…and so began my “casual” search for a new home.

We looked at a few houses in the most prestigious school districts in the area and were quite depressed with the houses that our search yielded.  Not long after we decided to expand our search area…it happened! I fell in love with a house that I found on Zillow. We hadn’t listed our home, but I desperately wanted THIS house!  

The house was a sprawling ranch that was built in the 80’s, but had recently been renovated.  It had large rooms, dark wood floors, white walls, an all white kitchen, sat on over an acre, and had a separate three car garage for my husband…it checked all of the boxes!  Some people thought we were crazy because it was less than 5 miles from our current home. After lots of headaches and almost losing the house (a few times), it was ours!! I honestly have never felt more at home. Two years after we purchased our second home, we owned our third (and hopefully forever) home!

  1. Kathi says:

    Love the story and love you !!!! Great decisions on all 3.