So We Bought A House...

Now that it's officially offical, I can finally stop worrying about jinxing things and let the cat out of the bag: we are [quite!] suddenly homeowners again!

Buying a house wasn't really part of our plans for 2015--and certainly not within the first two months. Granted, we've been renting for the past three years so we've always kept one eye on the market, knowing that we planned to buy our forever home here. There was even a time when I could tell you the price of every home we drove past, because I was scouting listings every day for the "perfect" place. But after all the changes of new jobs and finally selling our house in New York last fall, we were a little exhausted. So we went into this year content to let the dust settle, and I figured it would be another year or two before we would seriously consider making the move. After all, the previous tenants remained for something like eight years, so I figured we had plenty of time. And I wanted to take that time to ensure we could buy the right home at the right price in the right neighborhood (a euphemism for "I was being extremely picky"). So as we rang in the new year, we settled into the comfort that we would be in our rental for a good long while.

(Did you hear that? God laughing?)

Well, barely a week into the new year, the rental agency called seemingly out of the blue to say that our rent was going up just a teensy bit, like only THIRTY PERCENT. 

Our immediate reaction was whaaaaaattttt!?!?!...followed by unimaginable dread, because we knew it was more than our landlord being stingy--the market had likely taken a turn for the crazy across the board.

Sure enough, when I got online to check prices out, I saw just *how much* the rental market had blown up during my short break from watching things like a hawk. Hence the insane hike in rent that matched the going rate for each and every one of the few available places in the area. We could barely get a condo for the same price as our house. Not a bad appreciation in a short three years for our owner, but certainly not good news for us.

To me, the stakes for keeping our family in place felt extremely high; we've worked so, so hard in the past two years create a level of familiarity and confidence in our children's schools and environment that facilitates their progress. I even chose the Reserves over another job so we could have the flexibility of me being home and keeping our kids as stable in their day-to-day routines as possible. 

So, despite the crazy market appearing to force us out, we decided to look and see if buying a home in the area might make more sense than renting.

Turns out, it did.

At least financially. The problem was, for every person who was selling a house, a million bajillion people were flocking to buy it. Right about the time we moved here it became a total seller's market, and there have been fewer and fewer homes for sale as time goes on (especially in winter). The few that are for sale can get snatched up in just a day or two--sometimes even just a few hours. With hundreds of buyers looking at the same houses at the same time, the bidding wars and how fast sales move can be just insane.

So with time and luck not exactly on our side, we jumped into the process like little poster children for House Hunters, with only one day to really look at houses and make a decision, only 3 houses total to look at, and only one house that really even met our criteria. We did end up seeing five houses by the afternoon, but still only that one met our biggest needs, and--let's face it--our wants.

Blessedly, just that one was enough.

We liked the pictures online, and liked it even more in person, so we put in an offer immediately. Despite an open house happening that same day with other buyers rolling through (making us very nervous indeed), the sellers accepted within an hour! We were shocked, excited, overwhelmed...and relieved. Very relieved.

This is my "Holy buckets, we just bought a house! IN A DAY." expression.

The past 45 days since we put in that offer have been a whirlwind to put it mildly, but the doors have continued to open at all the right times every step of the way. I've said over and over that I'm not person who makes rash decisions, least of all when it comes to something like, oh, buying a house. But even with all my hesitation over such rashness (or, as my mom aptly identified, my complete aversion to change), it was impossible to deny as the pieces fell into place one after another that it was absolutely, positively, 100% meant to be.

Packing fun. Send wine. Or chocolate. Or both.

Aside: we decided to pack and move our family of five all by ourselves. In a single weekend. Because we're insane like that. And of course the forecast immediately started calling for one snowstorm after another. But having friends and people we didn't even know (friends-of-friends-of-friends) offering to help us move and watch our kids just proves how unbelievably amazing humanity can be. I don't know how we will ever repay such wonderful people!

Back to the new home: there are a few trade-offs, of course; having rented one of largest models in our old neighborhood, we are losing a little square footage in the bedrooms, and we are having to demote the office to the basement (the office that we had just fully furnished when we got our new jobs...sadface). We'll definitely miss that some, since it had quickly become our favorite room. We will no longer have the luxury of being able to walk to the elementary school (but we can still go to the same school!), and we will definitely have a list of eventual cosmetic updates, like the jungle border and faux-painted sky in Ethan's bedroom. But as of right now he's in love with it and wants to keep it. So whatever. There's so much potential, though, and we finally have the option to take that potential and make it our own--since it's actually ours! (I had re-decorated and renovated our rental about fifty billion times in my head, but of course could do nothing to it...but now, oh the possibilities!).

I'm coming for you one day, fabulous 90s Amazonian border...

And you, Burnt-Sienna faux-painted master bedroom.
Have I got some designs for you...alll over Pinterest.

But we still get four bedrooms upstairs, we get to keep both our formal living and dining rooms, and we have an awesome yard--with space to play and grill and a patio in the side yard already designated for our firepit s'mores nights. I also happily said goodbye to our rental's hideous linoleum and old mismatched appliances and popcorn ceilings and shag carpet in favor of hardwoods in every room and new appliances and bright, open spaces.

I can appreciate your functionality, old kitchen, but that doesn't mean
I had to like your style. Or your tiled countertop grout that 
harbored every last crumb I tried to rescue...

So much lovely potential I can hardly stand it!

And--get this--we have even better mountain views than we had before! Which I never would have considered a possibility (short of buying a million dollar home). When we started looking for a house, that was the first thing we tried to prepare ourselves to let go of: our wonderful west-facing backyard that had been perfect for mountain sunset gazing every night for the past three years.

Well, even though our new backyard faces primarily east, it's a corner lot, and that firepit area on the side yard has a great view of the mountains--which are also visible from the front porch. And then there's the view from our new master bedroom. It is far better than any view we ever had from our old house--and it's in our room, not wasted on a kid's room! We are so excited to relax in our sitting area next to the window or go downstairs to relax on our front porch on summer evenings and enjoy every bit of mountain sunset that will ever grace our Colorado sky.

And the best upgrade of all? Our new next door neighbors...who just happen to be our dearest friends! Their daughter is Marie's best friend from school, and their son is our boys' favorite playmate--now separated only by a fence. We are all ecstatic, and I foresee many happy afternoons playing in our collective yards.

(See? I told you it was meant to be).

The chances of finding the perfect house on such a short timeline with everything we needed (and more) were slim to none, as my anxiety reminded me many times over. So such a turn of events just proves to me that the hand of Providence was putting every piece in place from start to finish.

Even if He had to literally force us into it!

I just hope He doesn't pull another stunt like this until retirement, since we (would like to, pretty please?) plan on staying at least until then!

So that's the story of the home we never planned to buy.
Home Sweet [hopefully-forever] Home has never come as such a surprise, and it's truly never been so sweet!