Scott and I had been hoping and praying that this would be the year that we felt financially stable enough to venture into the land of home ownership. After much praying and with the noise of the two loud dogs upstairs at our apartment ringing in our ears, we knew that this was the time. Our lease at the apartment was set to expire at the end of August. All along I kept saying that finding the right house was going to be about "timing." That was our biggest prayer, timing! That we wouldn't start looking at houses too soon, fall in love with something and have to walk away because our lease wasn't up yet. Timing that Scott would hopefully be off work to move us, etc, etc, etc. All about timing.
Around the end of April we decided to have our friend Kerri, who's a realtor, start sending us emails with listings for homes in the area. We looked for about 2 weeks or so and saw several houses that interested us but once again the timing just wasn't right. We never went and viewed any of the houses because we once agian didn't want to fall in love with something that wouldn't work in our time frame....Isn't it so easy to put our timeframe on God?! He had it all lined out just like we needed.
On Friday, May 13, I saw a house online that I really liked. However, we hadn't received it on our listings from Kerri yet so I just knew that it already had a sale pending. On Saturday, May 14, the listing for the house showed up on Kerri's listings. We were so excited. She did let us know that it was a foreclosure and bids were due the next weekend, May 21!! Crazy! On Sunday, May 15, we viewed the house. Between Scott, Kerri and myself, we kept waiting for the bottom to drop out with every corner that we turned in the house. We kept waiting to see one of the big red flags like most foreclosures have. We never saw any! The house was basically a blank slate other than a few cosmetic paint jobs that could be easily fixed.
After much prayer, we submitted our bid on Saturday, May 21. (Scott had only viewed the house once at this point!) We felt very confident in our decision that if this was our house, God would pave the way. He certainly did just that!! Our bid was accepted on Monday, May 23. That started the 45 day closing process which led us to now...homeowners!
This home is more that I could have dreamed of being able to own. It has four bedrooms, 2 baths, a dining room which we made into a playroom and lots of room for our family to grow into. Such a blessing!!
Here's our home....the before pictures that is. Let me introduce you to our blank slate. Before we painted and fancied up the place.
Here's the front of the house...yes we removed the plastic white picket fence in the flower bed!
The dining room...now a playroom.
My spacious kitchen and mini office....the crazy diamond has been painted over. Don't worry! Oh and the sponge paainted backsplash under the cabinets. No that's not tile!
Breakfast room with the lovely table cloths on the window before our blinds came in.
Living room.
Oh the mantel!!....That is dark chocolate brown sponge paint you see. Your eyes aren't deceiving you!
Master bedroom
Master bathroom
Guest bedroom/Office/Craft Room!! Can you hear my giddy laughter as I write "Craft Room"?
Griffen's Room
Extra Bedroom
Like I said...It's a blank canvas ready to be painted and fancied up! I'll post pics soon of the "after."
