A Walk Down Memory Lane: Our First Home Reno

One of the best things about keeping up a blog is that it becomes a history of us. The ups and downs. The accomplishments. The growth. 

This is my 10th year of keeping an account of our life together and it can be such a blessing to look back on where we've been as we also look ahead to where we are going.

Recently Daniel got curious about the first house we ever owned. He was not in Charlotte for the final weeks of getting a new roof, siding and windows, and he also missed out on the actual closing. So he has always felt he didn't get closure when we left Charlotte.

To quench his curiousity, he decided to google our old house to see if he could find photos of the siding updates. It's been 6 years and he was surprised to discover that it is currently on the market. 

We checked out the interior photos online and were pleasantly surprised to learn that very few changes had been made. All of the updates we had worked so hard on have withstood the test of time. 

Which makes us feel good about all of those decisions we haggled so much over!

We have updates we need to make to our current home (some minor, some not so minor), but every once in a while I get the itch to work on a big renovation again (I just don't want to live in it while we do it!). You can click here to read about our renovation process and see finished photos.

Chasing Unicorns

Our house hunting experience has been quite an arduous process. We looked at a ridiculous number of properties in person (not to mention the ones we drove by and crossed off of our list or the ones we perused on Trulia), and didn't feel like we had a good fit with anything.

It was starting to feel like we were chasing some magical unicorn that didn't exist. It didn't help that we were feeling antsy about needing to make a decision about where to live, while simultaneously being worried that we would miss out on the "perfect" house.

This week, we agreed that after our Tuesday house viewings, we would buckle down, make a list, check it twice, and choose a house to buy. If you know Daniel, this involved Excel spreadsheets and comparing numbers and assigning values to commute time, size of garage, property value, etc.

Late on Monday night (around midnight), I happened to check my email and saw a new listing from our realtor. Daniel was already asleep, so on a whim, I made the decision that we should view the new listing. I sent an email to our realtor and hoped she would be able to schedule the additional house for the next afternoon.

Fingers crossed, I went to bed around 1am.

After lunch, we met up with our realtor and took our upteenth tour of the Chattanooga housing market. Thankfully our realtor managed to schedule my last minute pick... it was the very last house we looked at.

That last house... the one I asked to add at midnight the night before? The brand new listing, that had just gone on the market? Well, it's our unicorn.

We walked in and I think we both knew. I was a little skeptical because it didn't have a usable yard (it's built into the side of a gorge with lots of rocks and trees). There are giant boulders and a deck and screened porch, but no real area for playing. On the flip side, it does have a playground and community park across the street.

It is an 1970s house that has been partially renovated. It has an amazing kitchen and fantastic trim work that we love. The basement still needs to be updated, but the garage offers a ton of storage, and we already have experience with renovating. The house feels like a cabin in the woods and just generally feels like us. It was the first house in the Chattanooga area that we really felt like we had a connection with.

It seems like it was worth waiting and dragging our realtor to close to 60 houses! As with most things that work out for the best in our lives, we are thankful for God's timing in this house hunt and that we waited for the right house to come along. If all goes well, we will be moving in the last week in February.

How I Met My House

We met our house almost 5 years ago. We had been in Charlotte for about 6 months and decided that we were ready to start looking for our first home. We knew that we wanted to renovate, so we were looking for something with good bones. I thought we would flip it and Daniel wanted something we could stay in for a while.

We started out searching the internet and agreed to go to an open house. We were the only viewers and didn't particularly care for the house. But we did sit down with the realtor, Mike, and honestly discussed what we were looking for. Mike was a veteran realtor and lifetime Charlotte native {a rare find}. He didn't pressure us and offered to take us to look at some houses.

We viewed one fixer upper and then Mike called us about Morganford. We drove through the neighborhood and loved it. It was in South Charlotte, not too expensive and had no Home Owner's Association {a plus for us}. We were able to look at it the next day. It seriously needed work, but we were sold. We immediately began dreaming of all the things we could do to it.

The day after our first viewing, we found out that other offers had been made, so we decided to throw our offer in as well. There were a total of three offers on the table and we were allowed the opportunity to rebid. This was a tough decision and we were sad to find out that our offer came in second.

So we went back to the drawing board. We scoured the internet for our perfect fixer upper. And Mike kindly took us to look at potential homes. But we couldn't finding anything that felt right. Not like Morganford did.

A month later, we got a call from Mike asking if we were still interested in the Morganford house. Are you kidding!?!?! YES. We. Still. Wanted. It. The buyer's financing had fallen through AND the seller was willing to sell us the home at our ORIGINAL offer price. We were ecstatic.

We immediately started dreaming again. We have spent the last 4.5 years perfecting those dreams. Through blood {several trips to the ER, including one for a chainsaw accident}, sweat {tons and tons of sweat}, and tears {arguing over paint colors or tile patterns or wanting to be DONE with this never-ending project}, we have finally achieved a home that we adore.

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And now we are moving. 

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It is bittersweet. Daniel was unemployed for one year, before landing a job based out of Chattanooga, TN. He moved March 1 and I am in Charlotte trying to sell our beloved house. We are sad to go. But also looking forward to meeting our next house and all that it has to offer.

The next house has a lot to live up to... 
But God is good and we are trusting that everything will work out.

Join the How I Met My House Party at SuburbanCottage.