Yep, that’s right. We moved!
Which is the real reason as to why there’s been a lack of posts. But new house = new posts!
The decision to move wasn’t exactly the most planned. It wasn’t a crazy spontaneous decision either, but we did move a few years before we had ever planned to. I had been keeping an eye on the market for at least a year – just to see what was out there, keeping track of what homes were selling for in the parts of town that we’d consider moving to, how fast houses were selling. Our old house was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch from the 50’s. We gutted and refinished the basement, new driveway, new landscaping, refinished the hardwood floors and so many other projects. We loved that house for the 7+ years we had lived there. It was suppose to be our “10 year house”.
However, our beloved ranch was only 1,000 sq ft (plus the basement) and when you add a baby in to the mix, things get to feeling more than just cozy. We got curious as to what realtors would say about our house, so we had a couple over to walk through. We wanted to see what it could be listed for and what projects would we need to do over the next year to get it ready to sell. Both realtors told us that we needed to know where we were moving to before listing our house (that’s how fast houses in STL were selling this summer) and we had next to nothing to do before listing. A good, deep cleaning and touching up a few areas of paint. So that’s when we decided to go full steam ahead and just try our hands with the market. We didn’t HAVE to sell, so if we needed to take the house off the market and try it again in a year, we would.
Spoiler alert: We got an offer for full list price the day our house hit the market. Thank goodness because we already had an offer on a new house accepted with a close date on the calendar.
The house we bought is not my dream home. In fact, I didn’t even want to look at this house. I wanted a 100 yr old house with creaky floors and all the charm. We ended up with a builder grade home from from the 90’s (which I consider a brand new house). I really, really don’t care for builder grade homes or neighborhoods. Tim, however, is all about it. Even though it’s not my style of house, there were so many positives compared to the negatives—the basement is finished, the yard is fenced in, the garage, the bedrooms, the schools. The neighborhood is actually pretty great too. We had more neighbors come say hi and introduce themselves within the first two weeks than we ever had in the 7+ years at our old house.
Tim really had to talk me into seeing the possibilities with this house, and now after being here for 2.5 months I’m actually starting to see them! We have already made a big dent in our to-do list. Light fixtures, ceiling fans, pant, door knobs and some carpet have been updated. (Full before & after posts coming!) But we have some big projects ahead of us – new kitchen, new master bath, flooring. We’re planning on this being our forever home so all will happen in due time. Pretty excited to get some charm and character in this place!
–m.