Homeowners!!?

Can you believe it? We can't. Well, we kind of can now that we have spent a week working at the house.

It all started in early October when we contacted a friend who is a realtor. We had her over for dinner and told her that we wanted to start looking for a house. We weren't willing to budge on our price range, we ideally wanted a foreclosure/short sale (aka a good deal), a place within 3ish miles of campus, the crappy house in a nice neighborhood, and we told her we were in absolutely no hurry as Josh's job provides us with housing and we are just looking to buy so we could rent it out until we decided to be done with RezLife. That was a Thursday.

Monday - she sent us a list of houses that met our criteria.

Tuesday - we drove by said houses.

Thursday - we went and looked at a house. Seemed like too good of a deal to pass up so we put in an offer.

Saturday - offer accepted.

Now, this was a short sale, and so an accepted offer by the seller means basically nothing until the bank accepts the offer...which can take anywhere from 10 days to 9 months. We were totally fine with waiting months and months.

Twelve days later...our realtor calls to tell us the bank has accepted our offer and we have 30 days to close. Can you say MADNESS?!?

So...as of 2pm on Monday, November 17th (yes, even our closing process went incredibly fast), we are officially homeowners!!

This house needs a lot of TLC, and thankfully we have made incredible and servant-hearted friends out here, and we have parents who are willing to drive and fly out, to help us get this place up to par so we can get renters in.

Here are some BEFORE and DURING pics for y'all...we still have a long ways to go, but it is definitely rewarding to buy a house that needs so much work that every hour of work you put in, you can see major results...haha!

BEFORE

     

 DURING

The backyard was beautifully landscaped...we think...10 years ago. Now we sing "Welcome to the Jungle" when people come to see the house :)

BEFORE

  

This patio had 'settled' almost 8 inches since it was poured and was now slanted down toward the house, meaning all rain and snow run-off seeped down the foundation of the house...so it needed removed immediately.

DURING

So thanks to Josh, our friend Debo, and 8 hours with a jackhammer...that patio is now in pile under a pine tree on the side of the house. A 5 ft tall and 15 ft wide pile.

The kitchen was disgusting. These pictures do not totally do the disgusting-ness justice, but you can ask anyone that visited the house before this week for verification.

BEFORE

 

And that front closet had to go in my opinion to get this room as open as possible!

DURING

  

And we are going to open up this room even more by making this wall a half wall to separate the kitchen and living room!

NEXT POST: Upstairs and the Basement (once we get a little more done there so you can tell a difference between the before and during pictures).

If you're wanting to come visit in January...please make sure you pack your paint clothes and yard tools ;-)