Home Sweet Home

So last week, this happened….

I told you there were some big changes coming this year and this is definitely going to be one of them. 

(And yes there is a real sign in our yard and we are using an agent, but for privacy reasons I am choosing to not share it and created this fun clipart version in Picmonkey. 🙂

So let’s back up a little and I will explain how we made this decision and why now.  When my husband and I bought our house in our first year year of marriage, we intended to live here for 5-6 years, build up some equity, do some improvements, and then move to something a bit nicer, different layout/more room, maybe a bit more land, etc.  Well at the 5-6 year point was when the economy completely crashed and our house wasn’t worth anything.  So we waited.  I learned how to do lots of DIY projects and honestly just enjoyed making inexpensive but big impact changes to our home.  I truly have fallen in love with my home more and more as I have made it mine, strived to keep the clutter to a minimum, and made improvements.  But there has always been things we wished we could change too – a larger living room, more storage space, workshop space…

We have been watching the market and a few times a year checking selling prices in our area and they have been steadily climbing.  Last January things really got better and we started talking about even putting the house on the market last fall.  I was still working on completely repainting the inside, finishing up a few rooms, and the timing just wasn’t right.

Then we got the news that our home would be growing by two little feet early this summer.   Why does it seem that such a little tiny person is going to require SO. MUCH. STUFF. and room?  

I had already finished repainting every room except one and got that painted the week of New Years and then we spent the last 2-3 weeks and MANY, many hours doing all those pesky little homeowner things that you just live with but have to be cared for before you can sell.  You know the banister hanging by one screw, stains in the carpet, touching up paint, purging even more stuff, cleaning out the garage, and the list goes on and on.  My husband even took a few days off work and we pulled a marathon weekend of yard work, cleaning, garage purging, hauling off trash, and more.  Until we were finally done and a few days later that sign appeared in our yard.

I have to say that evening that the sign was finally in our yard and it hit that this was REALLY happening, I shed quite a few tears.  Oh I am so excited to find and make another house ours and I think it will help when we actually find that house.  But I really do love my home, we have made so many memories here in the last 12 years, and there is not really an inch of it that has not been touched by me with a paintbrush, yard sale find, or some white molding over the years.   Definitely bittersweet. 

So here’s the kicker.  We are hoping and praying that we have a contract in the next 10-12 weeks and not only that, but that we find a house to BUY as well and have that under contract too.  If we get no offers and/or can’t find anything we will take the house off the market and wait till after the baby is born to relist and try again. 

I have some fun things planned to sort of take you along on the journey as we house hunt too.  I hope to take pictures of homes/rooms that I love and sort of share my vision of what I would do to that room if we were to buy that house.  Everyone’s home is different and my home and layout maybe totally different than yours so maybe it will help as I show different homes and styles and in various stages of “fixing up” to gain a vision for a room in your home.

I also plan to share complete before/after pictures of our entire home once we have a contract and are ready to move.  I honestly can’t wait to go back and remember the before of some the rooms!  I even found some pictures I thought had gotten lost of our home before we even moved in.  So that will be fun to compare.   And I have several rooms and pieces of furniture that I completed just recently that I will be sharing in the coming weeks. 

Lot of exciting changes!  We have never sold a house either – only bought this one – so if you have any tips on how to sell a house and quick, I would love to hear them!