10 days into Homeownership

Whew!  Need I say more?  Moving is crazy, add in a toddler to that and oh my!  Did I ever mention V and I have never moved together before, talk about learning experience! LOL! We are all settling in well now, Liam is fully adjusted to the new house, it's so sweet how happy he is here with all the extra room. 

For the most part we are fully unpacked, aside from odds and ends, the kind of stuff that probably should get donated anyway.  I've been putting off getting shades for the house, there is another oh my but a different kind all together, they are so expensive!  Luckily V's work started selling them (and area rugs!!!) so we'll take full advantage of his employee discount!  Here are a couple rugs I'm considering and the shades I want: ( take it back I couldn't get the website for the rugs we are considering to load, here is a pic of the shades, lame I know but I love that you can pull them down from the top and just let some light in!).

I have to admit I've been terrible about decorating.  I pulled our a few things I was given for my birthday but have yet to hang a single thing... I'm sorta overwhelmed with all the decisions (where to put things, what walls to paint accent colors, colors of rugs/curtains/plates).  I just need to start making some decisions and the rest will come. So far the only thing I've decided is the tree I want to plant (we need to let the dirt settle for another few weeks before we can sod and do flowers which is yet another decision). Our tree will be an Autumn Blaze Maple with turns, as the name suggests, a very bright red in the fall.  I can not wait!

What else could I share? I've got my first few runs in here in the new 'hood.  It's not the same as the our old rental, it's one saving grace was that I could step out our front door and run along the river which as you can imagine was beautiful.  I could still jump in my car and drive 15 mins (at most) and run along the river but I choose to just run in my new neighborhood, which isn't all that bad....we are out on the edge of town, out here I notice the mountains much more and can appreciate their beauty. 

Ok, it's late and I'm rambling.

Until next time, much love-
Jen

Building Our Home: Offer Accepted

Oh my tummy turned a little as I type that, in a good way of course.  I literally just received an email from our realtor that our offer will be countered in the morning, the developer will pay 70% of our closing, good enough for us!  I called V and we agreed we would accept his counter......holy cow, we are really building our first home!

So it begins, I can not wait for all the things we get to pick out, I know it will be totally overwhelming at times but I think I'm ready!!!   I know I'm more than ready for Liam to have more room to run and play!

Building a Home: Selecting Our Lot

Last night after work V and I scurried over to a meeting with the developer of the subdivision where we plan to build our home.  Our realtor is out of town so one of his associates went with us, unfortunately we arrived before her.  BUT fortunately the developer was waiting for us and one of the nicest people I have ever encountered! He even shared with us a story about how he came up with the names of a few of the floor plans, the cheapest one was for his father and when he told his father about that he said "that was alright" with a smile....the floor plan we like is after his mother because she would have liked all the storage and the vaulted ceilings!

Once our stand-in-realtor arrived we began discussing all of our options.  V and I already knew what floor plan we want because it's the same as the home we made the unaccepted offer on.  We  will make a few changes to differentiate our home from that one.  Then we reviewed the upgrade options and were given a list of options for our lot.  We all agreed that V and I would drive out over the weekend and select our lot then we'd write up our buy-sell with a closing date roughly 120 days out.

This morning V let me sneak away for a workout, I got home just in time for Liam to snuggle and go down for a 3hr nap.   Once Liam finally woke up we all ate lunch and headed out to look at lots.  Since we had reviewed them the night before I *thought* I knew which one I liked but we both wanted to look and make sure.  I am SO glad we did!  We drove up and down the street, through the ally, parked and looked at the homes surrounding each lot and took into consideration distance to the park.....and we BOTH agreed on one.  Can we just take a minute to soak up the fact that we both agreed on something with ease?!  Whew!  I have a lot of peace about it, I really (REALLY) like our lot.

So now we just need our realtor to get home and write up our buy-sell agreement so they can break land!  Good thing he gets home tomorrow because it's snowing as we speak!

After that we'll have a million decisions to make on decor, so far V says it's all in my hands but I don't buy that for a minute, he's too opinionated! 

On House Hunting and {Potentially} Building

The house hunt has been.....interesting.  A few weeks ago we went out with our realtor and saw four homes, three of which were foreclosures.  It was slightly depressing to see these homes and know that someone had lived in them, loved them and lost them.  But if we found the right one we were ready to do some work and love it ourselves.

Unfortunately we didn't find one that was love worthy.  I must admit there was one I really wanted V to love, the backyard was to die for!  This was nearly twice the size we'd get with any new(er) construction and backed to undevelopable property (simply because of location).  But the house needed more love than either V or I was really willing to give.  The other homes weren't really worth mentioning here.

So a few weeks have gone on, V and I have been doing a lot of research and have been looking at every real estate site under the sun.  But nothing new popped up, nothing worth looking at anyway.  There are only a couple of subdivision here, one of which that you can build in....but V and I are using his Veteran loan and bank in our area aren't doing VA construction loans.  We felt stuck, at least for the Winter, maybe something would come on the market in the Spring? We hoped.  On a whim V emailed the developer of the subdivision where we put an offer in on a house that wasn't accepted, he explained our situation and asked simply if they planned to build any more houses of the layout we liked.  One hour later the developer emailed us back to tell us that they have worked with VA loan people before and will carry all the building cost until the house is built then we can buy it!  We can even pick out several variables, we'd sign a contract before they break ground with a closing date of about 120 days out.  V and I spoke with our realtor to make sure he'd be paid (yes, through the developer like the sale of a already built home) and discusses some other concerns and everything came up roses!  It's almost too good to be true!

So that is where we are, we meet with the builder this week.  It's pretty likely that we will sign our contract this week and break ground next week.  It's hard to believe that we will likely be building our first home, the home Liam will grow up in.  I'm totally in shock!

Has anyone else out there built?  Advice?!