| The house? Well, it's dreamy.  It's open and bright and has charm. It was built in 1955, but has been completely updated. Rick and I daydream everyday about moving in and putting our family in there and making it our own. April 20th can't get here soon enough. The room I'm most excited about? The garage. And not for why you might think. Well, maybe. Everything that should be in a garage, is currently in our apartment. Loudoun's bike and scooter? In his bedroom. The cat carrier and rick's saw? In the bathroom linen closet (they are huge spaces and we don't have that many towels). The Christmas decorations and camping gear? In Loudoun's bedroom closet. The beach cart and snowboards? In the hall closet. The bike cart? In our living room. Once we have a garage, all of those things can go outside, and we can have our living space back to LIVE in. It will be nice. The most exciting part about the house? the POOL. Rick's compromise for moving to the Valley (away from our lovely beach city) was it had to have a pool. And we picked a gorgeous one. We looked at several houses that had pools, and none of them came close to this one. We can't wait for our kids to swim in it, have weekend pool parties and BBQs, summer get-togethers out there, ahhhh. The memories we will create with our family and friends. I grew up in a house with a pool, and those were some of my fondest memories. I can't wait to create new ones as an adult. With my family. The process? Well, it's been a bit scary, as any new homeowner knows from experience. We are going the FHA route, because our credit is less than perfect  , we don't have a ton of money saved up (althought we have been working sooo hard the last year), but we make decent salaries that allow us to afford a monthly mortgage. We are picking a great time to buy, so we feel confident about that. But waiting for approval has taken a toll on my nerves. Yes, we were pre-approved before we even started shopping. But once you submit an offer and have to sit back and wait as the paperwork makes its rounds, it can get quite scary wondering if someone, in some office, is going to say, "Nope, I don't think these people should get this loan." But final approval came last night, and the weight has been lifted. The paperwork? Ohhh, the paperwork. The only thing I can say about that is, "How the hell did people buy houses back in the ol' days?" Seriously? When my lender asked for a paystub, I went online to my HR website, clicked on my paystub, hit the button that made it a pdf, and emailed it to the lender. I can't even imagine having to gather paper copies of all the documents and driving them over to the lender's office. I mean, what if you missed one? You would have to go all the way back! I can get my signature, Rick's signature and the realtor's signature on one document in the matter of 12 minutes. Thank you, technology. The kids? Loudoun is sooo excited about it all. He is old enough to understand everything. We have even told him several times in the past 6 months "we can't buy that right now, we are saving to buy a house." And he totally "got it." He is mostly excited about the pool, but a close second is that he gets to pick which bedroom he gets. Avalon isn't going to care, so why not give that perk to Loudoun? I just hope he picks the room that has the sunnier morning window, because I want Avalon's room darker in the morning. Gosh that kid needs to sleep in longer. 6am is no good. She of course has no idea any of this is happening, but it's interesting to me that most likely, this new house will be the only house she rememberes. I sure as hell don't remember anything from age 21 months.  We have a few more steps to go in the home buying process, but we are well on our way. Monday marks the day we cannot turn back without losing our deposit, so I think it's safe to say I can start packing up some boxes this weekend. I know moving sucks, but this is a move I can get VERY excited about and start doing early. "New home, here we come!" 
Look! I can carry groceries straight from my car into the house, instead of going up an elevator 3 flights from the parking structure!)
The sunlight hits the pool from about 10am until the sun goes down. The white fence is West. This was taken at 11am.
Nice protective gate to keep the kids out of the pool area. We are going to add alarms on the gate and in the water.
Upgraded kitchen. We're going to need to get nicer looking dishes to put in the glass cabinets!
My fav spot in the whole house-I love that the living room and dining room are so open with the patio. And the sunlight. Ahhhh.
|
