Home sweet home. And the longest post ever. (but good pictures at the end).

Once upon a time, we decided we were tired of living in apartments.

Lucky for us, we live in a place where the housing market is FANTASTIC, at a time when the market favors buyers, and Micah happens to have a wonderful job.  In other words, we are very, very blessed.

So we did it. We bought a house.  It was a miserable, terrifying and elating process.
Let me explain.
No, there is too much.
Let me sum up. (Shameless movie quoting blamed on my brothers... )

We decided (ambitiously? foolishly?) that we really really wanted a project house.  A bit of a fixer-upper, if you will.  But just a bit.  Not a money-pit, but something with definite potential. But how do you know the difference?  Especially being inexperienced, naive first-time home buyers like ourselves?

Three months of house-hunting later, we realized we weren't going to find exactly what we had in mind at our price range. We also realized we probably weren't going to be up to as much fixer-uppering as we thought we would, with a baby on the way and all.  Then I went through the discouraged phase (aka emotional pregnant girl "we're never going to find a house" whiny phase).

Then this little beauty dropped $17,000 in asking price overnight, and popped up in our search radar:

Except, it actually looked like this at the time:

Kinda scraggly. With a jungle for a yard.
No, really.

 

But three-foot-tall weeds aside, the interior of the house was in great shape, the home is less than 5 years old, and the neighborhood is AMAZING.  Definitely not some place we could have normally afforded to be looking, but the fact that this house was a foreclosure and the seller, HUD, was obviously very motivated to sell put it right in our range.  

So we jumped on it. Then things started to fall into place. In less than 24 hours, we found the listing, walked through, placed a bid and were notified that our offer was accepted.

Then things started to go wrong. One thing after another after another.  Things like ZERO appliances (who takes the stove when they move??). And being required to shell out $600 to get the house de-winterized. and then re-winterized. and then de-winterized again (because, you see, all foreclosed properties owned by HUD are required to be winterized until April 1st, even in Southern Texas where Spring is 80 degrees and local plumbers have never even heard the term, "winterize."  And don't even think about asking for an exception because you happen to be closing the last week of March. No way. Winterized until April 1st, no exceptions. And then, after you close, pay somebody to come de-winterize again so you can turn your water on before you move in. Erg.).  

Then there was broken pipe number 1, and a technically unauthorized temporary repair that we were required to pay for, although HUD absolutely refuses to allow ANY repairs to be made to a property prior to closing, and the fact that said broken pipe, even with said temporary repair made it impossible to turn on the water to have a proper inspection so that we could even make an informed decision as to whether or not we wanted to buy the place anyway. 

In short: We managed to get water on for an inspection, found out the entire heating and cooling system was not functional, and got quotes for the potential thousands of dollars in plumbing and HVAC repairs we might encounter. But of course, HUD wouldn't allow any work to be done prior to closing, and absolutely no repair allowances, so we had no way of knowing how much we could expect to actually pay until after we'd sealed the deal.  

Then came number crunching, lots of tears (on my part), and much prayer.  And we decided to go ahead anyway.  

Then the vandalism. Minor, but still infuriating.  Swiping a shower head I maybe understand. But who steals a mirror from the bathroom wall?  And pees in all the toilets?! (Which could not be flushed, because the house had been winterized, mind you).  And all we could do was wait, for weeks, while HUD and our title company took their sweet time processing things, hoping and praying whoever had access to this home we'd already invested so much money into wouldn't decide to do anything worse or steal anything bigger.

And then came closing day.  And on the morning of closing day, we are informed that: one, we will not be closing until a week later; and two, there's been another broken pipe found at the house by HUD's property manager. 

Fortunately, given this new development, HUD decided to again give us the opportunity to break contract and walk away.  Unfortunately, that meant we had to make the decision. Again.

And then I bought myself a gallon of Texas' best Bluebell ice cream, fully intending to let myself wallow.  Because there was just no way.  It was just too much for us to handle, and too much to risk. 

But after a day of more tears, and number crunching, and lots more praying, we both knew it was the right thing to do, despite all the repairs and frustrations and unknowns. We estimated worst case scenario on all costs, and decided-- even though our savings would take quite a hit-- we'd still survive.  This is where we needed to be, and the Lord would provide.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for this: "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence- BYU Devotional, Jeffrey R. Holland)

And here's the happy ending to this story.  We took the leap of faith, and boy oh boy, were we provided for.  After closing we took a week to get everything functioning so we could have the utilities turned on. All the necessary repairs ended up being best case scenario-- costing in total just hundreds of dollars instead of our estimated thousands.  We scored some awesome deals on appliances from Craigslist and Sears Outlet, coming in way under budget.  A professional cleaning took a nasty, unknown stain in the living room right out of the carpet (good thing, because replacing the flooring was WAY down the priority list). A few gallons of paint (and several late nights for Micah) on the walls and ceilings spruced the place right up. A good lawn mowing and some bush clippers tamed the jungle (mostly), and heaven praise pest control.

And now it's just perfect (minus the decorating and improvement projects we want to do, but those things aren't necessary or time-sensitive).  We feel so humbled, and so grateful for the way things worked out.  The whole process taught us so much-- especially about relying on the Lord and trusting His answers to our prayers. 

Here's a little peek at the before:

And where we're at now. A little sparse in the decor department, but I'm on it. :)

We kind of love it!