No more rent!

As most of you already know, my reason for delayed posting is that I have been VERY busy with the much awaited move to our first house! It feels great to finally have a house, especially after all we went through to get this far. On top of all that, I think this is the best of the houses we looked at. The last one was close, but the amount of work that it needed was almost too much for us.

After we get more boxes unpacked and things arranged how we like, I will try to take some pictures. We already have a number of projects in mind, so hopefully I can share some before and after pictures down the road. On the summer list are: changing out and updating all the outlets and digging down along the front and back walls of the house to install some foam and plastic and then re-grading the yard to prevent water seepage through the basement wall. We might also install gutters. Those are our two most urgent issues, but we also want to renovate the upstairs/finished attic as soon as feasibly possible. It is a fantastic space that has plenty of room for our king sized bed and dresser plus additional room, still, for the crib, changer, and baby dresser. There are also two fairly deep closets. That said, we think we need to get some proper insulation installed, and I would like to put better doors on the closets. They are made of plywood now. We also want to carpet the floor, which is currently finished with dark brown tile (estimated from the 60's or 70's). The walls and ceiling are a very bold yellow, and the seams are covered with thin pieces of plywood that are painted in two or three different colors, one of which is a soft pink... One section of the wall and coordinating ceiling is painted a creamy color. I suppose you could say it's all a bit... outdated. That said, it screams potential, and we have visions of a beautiful renovation that is just begging us to find money for the needed repairs. It will be a pretty big project, especially since we would like to put up drywall in place of the existing plywood or whatever else is up there, but I am sure it will be an impressive change once we manage to pull it all together.

We already filed for the first-time homeowner tax benefit, and once that comes back we will be heading out to replace our gas stove. The current stove works, but it just looks old, plus it has no timer and no indicator to confirm when the oven has preheated. It also has a broiler on the bottom. (We usually use our over-sized toaster oven's broiler and prefer a drawer.) These are certainly workable issues, I understand; we have been using it in its current state just fine, but along with how old and grungy it looks now, we think it would be a great improvement, and since we both use it so often, we would really appreciate the chance to pick out a stove with all the features we like. We are excited about that and have already researched our most likely pick.

Of course, we just spent all our money on the house and can't afford to do much now other than unpack and enjoy. Even with all the dreaming we do of updating everything from the kitchen to the basement bar room, we already feel quite at home here. It isn't a big house by any means, yet the space works so much better for us than where we came from. We also love the yard, and I am looking forward to learning how to garden just a bit (next summer). We already met a few of our neighbors and like them very much. Sadly some of them are moving out right away, and they just seem like the type of people we would instantly make great friends with, but there are lots of kids in the neighborhood, especially Gabe's age, and it seems like a great place to live.

Here's hoping for the beginning of a great new chapter in our lives, filled with fantastic memories and as few hiccups as possible!

Here, a few pictures I took this week, all in our new back yard:

Have a great weekend!