Well, last Friday was a one of those monumental days in our family history. Our house hunting days are over! After an hour of signing papers, we were handed keys to our new home.
Now, out of the three keys they gave us, only one actually works... But I feel like that's kind of how it goes for us. We bought a house we won't be moving into for a couple more months, but boy do we have plans.
Our sweet realtor has unlocked quite a few homes for us and had to break the news two different times that "the one" was no longer available for our purchase. And as the market has changed around here and homes started selling in days after they were listed, she's had to tell us homes were off the market before we could even see them.
Such was the case for a house that popped up in a great spot but was under contract before we could peek inside. The location was so appealing to us that we drove by it at least twice to gaze forlornly at the "under contract" sign in the yard. When this house popped back up online I thought for sure it was a mistake and texted Angela to see what was going on. A few texts later she confirmed that the deal had fallen through with the first seller and it was indeed available again! Unfortunately, all of this went down as we were driving to Matt's parents' house for the weekend. We were over halfway there when we made the decision to turn around and drive back home to look at the house. Being a Saturday, we knew there would be other buyers out and we didn't want to risk it. During the drive back, we were so nervous and excited. I commented that this was "Just like a movie!" And Matt corrected that it was like aborning movie where the characters sat in the car the whole time. Angela met us there 90 minutes later, on her birthday. Moose was in the car and Bo had just spent 3 hours driving nowhere, which were not ideal house looking conditions.
But we liked what we saw and could envision what the house could become.
We got back in the car and pointed West again, back to Murray! We signed an offer on that drive (oh, technology!). And a few (stressful) weeks later, here we are!
We love the street of older homes and being walking distance to both downtown Franklin and a local park. We love the stone exterior and mature trees.
We can envision the trees and bushes trimmed up, new shutters, trim painted white.
Inside the home has the quirks of a 1940's cottage that will hopefully translate to "character." There are two living areas- this one will be our family room/play room.
Those doorways above lead to a small kitchen that we will hopefully be expanding.
Below is the wood-paneled wonder of a living room. You can bet the first thing I did was take down those heavy curtains! We might be able to knock down some walls but we will certainly be brightening up the room with some paint.
Outside the house has a large carport, which is typically not my favorite but it does the trick and I really don't mind it. The garden is overgrown but we've identified some great plants- hydrangea, peonies, and lavender among them. It's a wild jungle now but give us a year.
The yard is a big wild dream. I never thought we'd have this much space. Of course now that it's ours the reality of caring for it sinks in! But there is a spot for a garden and anything else we could dream up.
Possibly a zipline.
Bo has been at grandparent camp in Oklahoma this week. I miss him terribly but the timing was great. We shopped appliance sales, hit up the hardware store, and have spent hours at the new house. We are waiting on approval from the city before our contractor can start the big demo but we can plink around a bit ourselves. I've tried to rescue the magnolia from death by vine strangling:
And Matt's been framing out a storage space in the garage.
