After months of non-eventful blogging, we finally have some news. We bought a house! We are so excited. In order to answer
some of the questions my mother has been asking me some frequently asked questions, I thought I would share this interview I am giving to myself from the comfort of my bed as we speak.
SK: So Shanna, tell us what prompted your decision to start looking into purchasing a home
SK: Thank you for asking. I have a longstanding hobby of looking at things on Craigslist that I have no intention of buying, mostly just out of curiosity of what those things would cost. A few months ago, I looked at houses. I stumbled on a house that I loved. I showed it to Erik, just to show him the style I like. He plugged the home into a mortgage calculator because he wanted me to see how far out of range the house was for us. The mortgage payment came out to be less than our monthly rent. We about died. After looking at that particular house, we realized it wasn't the one for us, but we were officially in the house-hunting game.
SK: About how many houses did you look at before making your decision?
SK: Well I scoured the internet every day for two months. So if we are counting the number of homes that I did "virtual tours" of, then the number is probably between 70 and 100. If we are only looking at the number of houses we made appointments and went and saw, then 11. The house we ended up buying was actually the first one we visited. I was distracted by the Craigslist house, and blew it off. When we revisited it 10 houses later, I couldn't believe all the things I missed the first time.
SK: What did you think of the buying process? Of making an offer? Securing financing?
SK: I loved looking at the homes, and at the beginning I was in charge of finding an agent, setting up appointments, etc. I really liked our agent, Ryan. I HATED the offer process. I was very concerned about offending the current owners, and not compromising enough. My car-salesman-turned-manager
husband did not share these concerns. In hindsight, I am glad because Erik was awesome and saved us a ton of money. However it was very stressful and nerve wracking and gave me hives.
Securing financing is the most boring thing ever. I mostly deferred to Erik on this one, though signing all the papers gave me a great opportunity to practice signing our last name, which I have yet to get the hang of despite approaching 2 years of marriage and 6 months of doodling it in the margins of my notes before that.
SK: Tell us about your new home.
SK: We love it. It is 4 bed/4 bath spread over a finished basement and two floors. I am excited about the wood floors and the granite counter tops, and also that I will have a designated "music room" for piano and harp lessons. Erik is excited because the previous owners, who built the house, designed it with minimal home maintenance in
mind so there's lots of little perks like a porch that never has to be restained and sprinklers that don't have to be winterized.
SK: Sounds great. When do you move in?
SK: This is still a little vague. Sometime between April 6th and April 16th. Our lease is up on our rental in the middle of April, so this is perfect timing. My mom is coming to help with the move and I am sooooooooo excited.
SK: What changes do you foresee making to the home?
SK: Well. This is where Erik and I differ. Ever since the purchase I have been all over home blogs. I am very interested in beadboard wallpaper (backsplash, counter base), wainscoting, painting (especially the kids' rooms because they are painted stripey right now), molding (I will need my Dad to come visit for that one), etc. The color schemes I like have been deemed "old ladyish" by Erik, so this is yet to be determined. Erik is interested in replicating the home theater that the previous owner have up, but this is lower on my priority list. Stay tuned for updates where we practice all our marriage compromising skills.
SK: Do you happen to have some pictures that you would like to share?
SK: Why yes I do! These are some of the pictures taken off the listing website. I am very excited to get in there and makes the decor a little less masculine.
Those two are basement photos. At the bottom of the stairs is the home theater room, which is separated by a half wall from a little built-in office area and wetbar.
Girls bedroom. This will be a nursery, because we really do intend to have children eventually.
I am in need of decorating ideas for the master bedroom. As you can see, it's kind of two rooms, and I really don't know what to do with it. Any input would be super.
This is the future music room. See the pretty floors?
This is the home of my future craft room.
One of the best parts about this is we will have plenty of room for visitors. Come see us and help me with a project!
