The Story of Our Home

Whether you’re in a house, condo, apartment, renting or own, your hopes, dreams, and personal touches in your space can make it a home.

The Past

As a single person I jumped around from living with my parents, with friends, and different styled apartments. In each one I took the time and was thoughtful in decorating so that I felt comfortable in my living space. Regardless of the size, this is what makes it feel like a home to me. So when my husband and I decided it was time to upgrade from his former bachelor pad to a house for growing a a family, I didn’t take it lightly. I knew that this next house was going to be our forever home, or at least where our future children would spend most of their lives growing up!

The Plan

We spent a lot of time searching for things we wanted for ourselves and also our kids. We agreed on essential features and compromised on some less important characteristics, but we had a plan; a list to go off of. It wasn’t easy. Most of the houses we liked were out of our price range (of course) or were farther out than the area we needed to be in for my husband’s job.

Finally, one house we viewed checked most of our boxes and we were elated. Some of the tile and other minor aesthetic details were not my favorite, but I was willing to settle on those assuming I would be able to change them eventually. The layout was great and we even liked some features that we hadn’t thought of when making our list! We were ready. This was a house we could grow into.

The Process

So, we started the negotiating process and it did not go so well. The gist of what went down is that the owners also adored their home and were not willing to budge on the price regardless of the much lower appraisal number. I will say I 100% understand this when it comes to loving something so much. It wasn’t just a house to them. It was their HOME. They were so offended by our offer that they literally took the house off of the market. We were in utter shock and disappointment. Not only did we really like the house, we had already imagined growing a family there. We felt defeated because we had looked for so long and nothing seemed to line up for us like this house. Needless to say I was discouraged from looking at houses for a little while and I had a very negative attitude when I started again.

As I was grumpily browsing Zillow for the bazillionth time, changing filters and adjusting the search area ever so slightly only to get the same results, I realized why the universe denied us that last house. That house wasn’t meant to be. It wasn’t our house; it wasn’t our home. I had found it now. THIS was the ONE. It had to be, it was perfect! It had everything we were looking for and more! I wanted no, needed, this sale to work out. I couldn’t imagine anything more ideal for us, EXCEPT the price. It was about $50,000 over our already stretched budget. Ugh. So we kept an eye on it and was like the universe was looking out for us.

The Probability

Every week it went down just a little bit. Every week my hope grew and my attitude changed. I had some anxiety because I had felt hopefully before only to have my feelings hurt. Finally, it was down to about $10,000 above our budget. We scheduled a visit at the house with our realtor and while we were there she got a call that someone else was putting in an offer for the house we were literally still standing in! Those people offered lower than asking price and again, the owners were offended. Probably for the same reason as the others.

Jumping on the opportunity, we offered the asking price. WE felt like the house was worth every penny and it was (it appraised at exactly the final asking price)! Our offer was accepted right away and were overjoyed that the people buying their house loved it as much as they had. We did it. We were owners of our family home, a home where many precious memories would be made. It was meant to be.

The Possibilities

Since then, we have worked hard adding personal touches and décor to create a comfortable and loving environment; to make this house our own. We have painted rooms, updated fixtures, planted trees, and DECORATED like every square inch (I have a problem LOL). All of our memories will be made here and we plan on staying for the long haul.

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Currently, we have lived in this house for about 2.5 years and we love it everyday. We talk about it all the time and appreciate how lucky we are to raise our daughter here. We have big plans for this place and every personal touch of love we put into makes it better than the day we got the keys. We’re home.