new house – A Mama's Blog

At 10:45AM this morning, it was official-we closed on the house, and it is ours.

Twelve hours later, it still doesn’t seem like it is real. We have been looking for so long (for years), and nothing ever worked out. You name it, we had it interfere with our new house plans. From not being able to find something we liked, to finding something we liked, only to have it WAY out of our price range. From having a few babies, and not wanting to move, to needing to move, but we weren’t ready financially. To being worried about job security, to having us both injured in car accidents, putting off our plans yet again to move. To finding the perfect house, only to have our offer not accepted. I think we have had every possible obstacle thrown at us, in our house hunting.

But today, none of that mattered. Our long term goal was finally being realized, and everything that had happened in the past, no longer mattered. During the closing, where we signed form after form, after form, it seemed surreal. Like we were buying a car, but not a house. We were almost at the end, and our realtor and title company closer noticed a mistake on Joe’s name, the bank had made on the title deed.

The title company lady got on the phone immediately to correct this, but the person she needed to talk to wasn’t there. That is when my heart started to sink. I just knew something was going to come up. I expected her to get off the phone and say something like, “Sorry. This isn’t going to work out today. We’ll have to reschedule,” or something that would once again, postpone our house buying.

But that didn’t happen. After a short delay, the bank re-did the form, and we had the correct form. After we signed that form, the house was ours! The lady from the title company shook our hands, and told us to enjoy our new house.

Joe and I grabbed a quick bite, and then headed off to work. It still hadn’t really sunk in at that point.

After dinner, we took the boys to the house. They hadn’t seen it yet. They were SO excited. When we pulled up to the house, in the dark, and as Ryan got out of the car, he looked up at the sky and said, “Look Mom. Look how many stars are in the sky.”

I hugged him. Our new house is in the “country” so to speak. It is in a subdivision, but in a small town, with not a lot going on-or lights. Perfect to see the stars. That is a big part of why we wanted a new house. To get out of a bigger city. So our children could see the stars at night.

The boys ran around the house, squealing and exploring. Their favorite feature so far of the new house is the support beam in the basement, which is their fireman pole.

Ryan asked me at one point, if we really were moving here, or if we were just fooling him. I told him we were not fooling him-we really were going to live here. He got a huge smile and said “Good, because I really like it.”

The boys ran around, rolled on the old carpet, which is soon to be replaced, while Joe and I discussed which wood we want for the floors, and tried to talk about paint, but it is hopeless. We are not good paint color pickers. Joe took this picture of the boys and I in front of the fireplace:

When we were leaving, (much to Cole’s dismay-he exclaimed, “I want to stay here all day!”) Ryan looked up at the sky again, and said, “There sure are a lot of shiny stars here at our new house, Mom.”

I hugged him, and as we drove back to our current city, I thought, this was how it was supposed to happen for us. This really is the perfect house for our family, and I think the stars do shine a bit brighter over our new house.

As of last week, we have officially started looking for a new house to accommodate our growing family. When I say growing, I mean as in two little boys, who are quickly outgrowing the space we have in our current house.

We actually put a bid on a house last week in a neighboring town. We started our offer on the lower side of the acceptable range, but we were pretty sure we would be able to come to a “happy medium” with the sellers regarding a price. The house was nice, but it did need some work. However, the sellers didn’t budge at all in their price. Evidently they don’t have to move and are holding out for their asking price.

We were pretty surprised at this. Everything you read says it says it is a buyer’s market, and sellers are willing to move mountains to sell their properties. I guess these sellers didn’t get the memo. 🙂

We are being picky. We don’t have to move right away. We don’t have to sell the house we are in now before we can move, (we are going to rent it), so we can take our time and keep looking.

It has been years since we have bought a house- I had forgotten all the emotional feelings that come up when trying to decide on a house you want to raise your family in. But, I guess you have to go through that in order to find the right place.

I have already decided for us, there is not that elusive “perfect house.” Since we aren’t selling our current place, we will have two mortgages, so we don’t have an unlimited budget to work with. There is a big difference in looking at properties, and then realizing what you can actually afford. We also don’t want to have every last dime tied up in a house payment.

So, we will just have to see what comes our way. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something that is almost perfect. If not, that’s okay- we have done countless home improvement projects over the years, so we can fix, paint, remodel a space, etc. if we have to.

Moving forward even from this one attempt to buy, I have already learned that there isn’t a “perfect” house- there is always something that you don’t like, or want to change, and don’t count your chickens before they hatch. A deal isn’t a done deal until you actually close on the property.

While I am not really excited at the prospect of going through all this again, it is nice to be moving in that direction and hopefully we’ll find a place, sooner than later. We’ll appreciate any good house hunting thoughts you can send our way, and if you have any tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them.