All photos taken with my HTC One, and edited with VSCOcam for Android. Because I don’t always use my big fancy camera 🙂
——-
While I knew late in 2013 that 2014 was going to be an amazing year, I had no idea what changes it would bring. I am so super excited to share this next big change with you all — finally! Sorry for the secret keeping.
A while back, I posted this beauty below to Instagram. An image of my feet, standing in the snow. A snow day. Not so uncommon in Spokane. What I didn’t tell you was that they were standing in the back yard of a house we now own.
Yup. As of last week, H and I own our first home. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me well. After all, I’ve been dreaming of tearing down walls and making my own space since I moved out of my parents house. They never let me tear down walls, although my younger brother got to do that when he was three. I’m still a little bitter, Dad. Although, you did let me paint my room crazy colors…so there’s that.
Moving on. I’ve been watching the Spokane housing market for over 18 months. Yes, more than a year before we moved here. Please don’t judge me. Homes came and went. This house was on the market that entire time. We looked at it, we dreamed about it. We talked it over and sketched out ideas. And then? Gone. Foreclosed. And our brand-new-to-us Realtor didn’t have high hopes for when or how it would come back. Foreclosures can be a funny thing, and a lot of them end up being auctioned off in Spokane County. So we moved on. We looked at other houses. We put this one, this perfect for us with old wood floors and great light, out of our minds.
And then, poof. Back on the market. And, in a very uncharacteristic move, I was the one who hesitated. H was ready to buy it the moment we walked through it a second time. I waited. But she called to me. With her location in one of my favorite Spokane neighborhoods, only a few short blocks from my favorite coffeeshop and bar, we really couldn’t have picked a better home for us. She had a history — one I’ve started looking up in the Census reports and hope to research more this spring.
On Christmas Eve, we put in an offer on our 1902 little beauty. And thus began six weeks of back & forth with Fannie Mae.
The first image above I posted a couple weeks ago. That was from the day we put in our first offer. The second image is one I snapped the day we signed all our paperwork and closed on the house.
I took this photo almost two weeks ago. My key. To our house. Sitting on our kitchen counter. Whoa. That was a crazy moment. There were times when I questioned our sanity in purchasing this house. Times I wanted to cry over the headache buying a foreclosed home brought us. But then, I would walk in the house, with it’s 112 year old (original) hardwood floors. With it’s big, beautiful windows that let in so much light. The backyard that begs to host family BBQs, and the park (perfect for a dog, right H? …I’m working on him) just steps away from the front door. I’m not saying it’s perfect. Oh no. This beauty needs a lot of love and TLC. But I do love a good project.
First — our house, the day after we got the keys
Second — those floors, my shoes. the light
Third — me, excited to live in a place with stairs, and the sidewalk I shoved ALL ON MY OWN when H was in San Francisco for work. I’ve rarely been more proud. Seriously. Look at those crisp sides.
————-
I want to promise you this blog won’t be all about the house now, even though I’m SUPER DUPER OH MY GOSH EXCITED. But I might sometimes write about it, because it’s a big part of our lives. Also, please excuse any craziness and slow responses in the next week-ish as we move. It’s been a bit insane to clean a home almost twice the size of the largest place we’ve ever lived.Â
So happy for you Emily (& Hubert)
What a lovely story, great pictures and the joy of owning your own home. Like I said, we could not be more happy for you.