Thank you to all the sweet friends who congratulated us on our new home!
Truly, from the bottom of my heart, all the sweet words mean so much to me.
I figured I'd share the journey of us becoming homeowners, considering we kept it pretty quiet for the most part. We hit a few bumps along the way, so we wanted to make sure it was a sure thing before we shared too much. It might be a little wordy, but for memory purposes, I don't want to leave too much out.
So hang in there if you care to. :)
We decided back in September that buying a home was something we wanted to start taking seriously. And really, it all started pretty quickly. After being approved by the lender, we started the house hunting process. I had found some pretty cute houses online, and Cody and I decided to check them out one evening with our realtor. We really loved the houses, they were in our price range, but we weren't crazy about the lots and houses built prior to new construction. On our way out of the neighborhood, we decided to stop in one last house and ran into the realtor for the neighborhood. She quickly let us know about a newer neighborhood up the street that the same builder was building in. The lots were huge and wooded, which sounded great to us.
We quickly headed up to the new neighborhood, and fell in love with the beautiful lots and quiet neighborhood. We decided on a lot that we thought was perfect for us and signed the contract within the next couple of days. Lot 13 to be exact. (the lot number itself should have been a warning) We picked our brick color, house colors, flooring, cabinet color, the whole nine yards. We were completely ecstatic.
Our original closing date was mid-December. But we quickly came to realize that that would only be a dream, because they were delayed with getting the lot grated. By the beginning of November, our lot was finally grated, but with one very large, muddy problem.
When we chose the lot initially, the land was relatively flat with small rolling hills. When the lot was grated, they dug our lot into a hole. The lot directly next to us was on a 15-foot mud wall incline above us. Not what we envisioned. The pictures don't even do it justice. When we asked for a retention wall, we were quickly shut down by the builder and was told it would be smoothed out at a later time. Our closing date became further and further out, and we were just over it.
Our hearts were really torn at this point.
We watched our house being built, but had so many concerns with the placement. Not only was our lot directly next to a giant mud wall, we were in a hole at the bottom of a hill. We really worried about water draining properly, and of course, a wall of dirt sliding into our yard and house over time with some good rain. We really wanted to watch our home building process grow from beginning to end, but our hearts were pulling us in a different direction.
We considered breaking contract and leaving the neighborhood completely. We thought about picking a new lot in the neighborhood and starting fresh. But we couldn't make a decision. We decided to watch and wait. See how the house and yard was going to play out. We really didn't want to make a quick, rash decision with such a big, life-changing purchase. We put it into God's hands and did a lot of praying.
The week before Christmas we took a trip over to our neighborhood and looked at our house and other options in the neighborhood. We really loved the house, the layout, the price, the location - we didn't want to abandon this completely. That day, we weighed our options. We walked around our house and the lot one more time, but decided to look around the rest of the neighborhood too.
There was one house that was built down the street, but wasn't sold yet. We actually looked at the lot initially, but opted out. I loved the colors, the yard was flat, and the backyard was beautiful. The house layout was the same as the one we were building on lot 13. We would lose some of our upgrades, but not worrying about a mud wall sliding into our house was worth the trade off. On our way out of the house, we noticed what number the lot was - lot number 7. Our lucky number all along. We figured that was a pretty good sign that the house was meant for us.
After switching our contract over to the new lot and changing a few things around the house, at the end of January our house hunting journey finally came to end. We became homeowners on January 30th and moved in that very weekend.
We feel so relieved with our decision. We love our house. We love the neighborhood. We love knowing that this house will be the place we grow our family. We completely made the right decision and can't wait to make our little house into our home.
