Saturday, October 25, 2008

Our New House!!!

Yep, I said it. We got a house, and we are super excited about it. We have been looking at houses for a month now--feels like a year. Last night at dinner we counted how many houses we had looked at. The number feels like wayyyy too many. 24 houses. We have looked at 24 houses. OUR house is number 22 out of 24. We were pretty positive that we wanted to put an offer on it when we saw it, but we still had two more houses to look at that night. That is why it is 22 out of 24.

We feel like this house is such a "God thing." We had fallen in love with another house about 2 weeks ago, put in an offer, and they went with someone else. We were pretty upset. It took me a while to get over it. Since then we have liked several other houses enough to put in an offer (just didn't get around to it), but they all sold. We were like, "are we supposed to get a house? Or just rent for another 6 months?" But then this house dropped $28,000 because it is a foreclosure. The bank just wanted to sell it faster. The honest truth is that we had seen the house before, but didn't go in it because we thought the outside was ugly. It was definitely still in our price range before they even dropped the price, but we judged the book by its cover. Kristin, our realtor and my friend from middle/high school really pushed us to see it. We weren't excited about it, but we went ahead and saw it. We were pretty much up for seeing anything. Especially cheap ones.

We loved it. The outside has NO landscaping...which is why we didn't originally go see it. The inside is just what we need for our very first house. We are really excited :) One of the funny things is that it is two streets away from Kristin!! Ha ha.

Friday afternoon Kristin called me and told me that we had gotten the house. I was still at school and there were some students still in my room. They got to see my jump up and down :) I immediately started scheming up a plan to surprise Casey. I decided to make a little "card" out of construction paper from my classroom. I drove from school to the new house and put the card in the mailbox. I then went home and asked Casey if we could just drive by the house. We do that a lot, so it was not out of the ordinary. He didn't even complain-he was totally down for going to look at it again. I told him that I called Kristin to see if she had heard anything, and that since she knew we were going to go by the house she was going to put a copy of the offer in the mailbox since she had forgotten to give it to us the night before. All true so that worked out well. He fell for it all. When we got to the house, Casey got the mail and saw this little card from me :) He was really surprised and happy. I was glad I could surprise him. I never get to surprise him-he always surprises me with stuff. Here are some pictures of the card and our new house! :)

The front of the homemade card I made :)
The back of the card The front of the house! It needs landscaping badly!
The formal living room is the closest and the formal dining room is right behind it with the chandelier that we are going to change out :) LOVE the massive kitchen. The tile back splash is really growing on me, too! :)

The little breakfast nook and a view of the pantry on the right. That is the mud room on the left with the door to the garage. The living room with the hallway on the right. The front door is on the right as well. Also, we are going to get a wood mantel-that fireplace doesn't have one yet!Yea! We are homeowners! :)

10 comments:

Unknown said...

CONGRATULATIONS! Buying your first home is such a great experience...now the fun, decorating!!

Anonymous said...

I'm sooo excited for y'all! YAY! I can't wait to see the house in person! When do y'all move in?

Anonymous said...

we can definitely plan something since it's still a few months away! the only thing we have planned right now is a wedding in Arlington on january 3rd.

Crystal said...

AHHHH!!!! Lauren... you and Caseys first house! That is so exciting!And it's really cute! I love the tile on the floors and the plantation blinds! You are going to make it so cute! When do ya'll move in?

jordanandrachel said...

Lauren,
congrats on your first home! That IS so exciting, and it will be nice to have more room to live in, ect. How did you like your "realtor"=) I'm assuming she did a good job b/c you got the house!! Did yall get that 'teacher discount/deal' she emailed me about a while back? I was wondering about that! So you live right next to Kristin and Landon?? that will be very fun! I'm so happy and I can't wait to see it....ps. do you guys want a new puppy for your new house b/c I have a puppy I'm trying to give away!! lol

Ginni said...

Yay! I am so happy for yall! The card is so cute! And I love the house, landscaping is an easy fix. It is so cute!

Janna said...

Congratulations! I love the house. Yall are going to have so much fun making it your first home! We need to have a housewarming!!!!

jordanandrachel said...

thanks for letting me know about the vacendak thing!!=) lol, I always do that with them for some reason!
hey are yall going to halloween at the harbor?? b/c we are! and we are bringing some of our friends from out where we live...maybe I'll see you there??

jordanandrachel said...

If you don't write a new blog I'm going to write one for you!!! ahh!!=)
Also-when can I see your house!?? Christmas break sometime?
I'm only here for about a week really b/c we are going to vegas. just fyi

jordanandrachel said...

i can teach you scrapblog-just tell me when=)!!!!!