How to Bounce Back

Here's my remedy for home buying pains: Go to the beach.

That's all.

Grainy self portrait on the beach. I took this right after our last offer was rejected.

It's going to be a beautiful weekend and there is a lounge chair at the Water's Edge Resort in Westbrook with my name on it. The doctor has ordered a vitamin D IV. So I'm packing up my bathing suit, my book and some SPF 30 and heading down route 95 for some sun therapy.

Last time we had an offer rejected, we got right back on the horse and started looking for new listings. Well we're kind of doing that, but I have to admit that my heart's just not in it yet. I need to take a home buying time out. After the inspection report came in I was reluctant to give up on the house. The next day my worry had turned into a bad feeling. I realized withdrawing our offer was the best thing to do. I'm ok leaving the house behind. (I know, I know. There will be others.) However, I'm still really attached to the town. I'm still really attached the cute street and the pretty field across from it. I got excited when I saw how excited our cousins were when they heard we'd be moving near by. And I got excited when they told me how awesome trick-or-treating was on our block. (Trick-or-treaters don't come to apartments. I missed that living in New York.)

Instead of think about what I'll be missing come October, I'm going to indulge in the summer. I'm going to focus on the right now. After all, it's about the journey, not the destination. (<---Look! An uplifting quote that is not annoying me. All hope is not lost.)

I know this is all par for the course, and a real estate deal gone south is not the worst thing that can happen. But if you've ever been in my shoes I'm sure you understand what a frustrating process this can be. Tell me, how you deal with minor let downs in you life?

House Hunting Tactic: Stalking Houses

Making sad playlists and moping around the house may work for heart-broken high school girls, but not for me. So we didn't get the house we wanted. It was a bummer. But the only way to get over it is to get back on the horse again.

So that's what we did. Keith and I spent a rainy Saturday morning trolling the web for listings. Then we plugged the address into our GPS and hit the road to check out the properties. Since our realtor usually needs 24 hours to set up a showing (and we are impatient) this helps us see the area and scope out the yard. You'd be surprised how misleading some of the pictures posted online are! (But then again, if you've ever tried online dating, maybe you wouldn't be.) Stalking the properties we think we are interested in has actually helped us find areas we love and neighborhoods we don't care that much for. Plus, we usually stop for ice cream on these drives.

Here's why I advocate stalking properties:
Saturday we stalked a house in a neighborhood that we LOVED. According to Google maps it was situated pretty close to a major highway and Keith wanted to see if you could hear the traffic from the house. When we drove up to the house I confirmed that I did love the area and I was instantly charmed by the outside. Then Keith rolled down the windows and said, "Shhhh, listen." The optimist in me heard pretty birds chirping. Keith—the realist—heard nothing but the swoosh of speeding cars. He took a quick peek behind the house and confirmed more bad news—the highway was visible through the trees. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered us. Perhaps the noise is barely audible from inside the house, but Keith says having a major highway in your backyard is bad for resale value. It's hard for me to imagine selling a house that we haven't even bought yet, but I have to agree. If it makes us think twice, what will others think five or ten years from now?

A brick house was good enough for the Three Little Pigs, but not for us.

On Sunday we hit the road again. The sun was out so we packed a cooler and spent the morning at the beach. By 2 pm we were on our way to an open house in another one of our top favorite neighborhoods. The whole place smelled like cat pee and the layout was just too weird. And worst of all there was nothing on my checklist to be found in this house. No dining room, no fireplace, no beautiful front entry. An eat-in kitchen alone ain't gonna cut it. But we had two more listings that we wanted to stalk and they were near a Dairy Queen so I kept an open mind as we motored to the next town. Thankfully, we loved the locations of both houses! One was across from a beautiful park and the other was on a pretty side street in our favorite town. If their interiors are true to what we've seen online, I think we might find a winner.

Wish us luck!

Our First House Hunting Let Down

Let me just start by saying this: It's not as bad as it sounds. It's Friday, the sun is shining and I got a free doughnut at Dunkins this morning in honor of National Doughnut Day. All is good in the free world. That's why I'm only slightly disappointed that the offer we put on a house we really loved was not accepted.

Dream house, I know you're out there! 

Let me paint a picture for you: It was a charming Cape with lots of space, a pretty fire place and a dining room. Check, check, check. The upstairs bathroom featured a major bonus—a jacuzzi. And there was an additional 500 square feet and a wet bar downstairs thanks to a beautifully finished basement. The neighborhood was perfect and the schools all checked out.

But I guess someone else loved it more—nine thousand dollars more than we did.

I'm a little bummed. I was already picturing family movie nights and backyard cook outs. In my head I had already made close friends with all the neighbors. I'd invite our new couple friends over for a glass of chardonnay and entertain them with hilarious stories and everyone would laugh and think, "Man, are we glad they bought this house!"

I know that this is not a bad thing. I know there is another house and another neighborhood and other cool couples to entertain on our back patio. I know that when people say this happened for a reason they are right.

I just hope that the reason appears sooner rather than later. Design Star just started again and I'm dying to start decorating!

If you have ever had an offer turned down, tell me how you got over it. What kept your spirits up? And how did you stay patient during the hunt?

New Kitchen Unveiled

It's the moment you've all been waiting for.

Ok, it's really the moment I have been waiting for.

Our new kitchen is finally finished! Still pending the installation of a few pieces of hardware and a small paint touch up, but I felt like today was as good as any to announce the completion.

While everyone else spent the day at the beach, Keith and I had a Memorial cleaning fest. We had moved all of our pantry items and dishes to huge plastic bins for the cabinet installation so we restocked and reorganized. I learned I have way too many spices and also that we will likely be packing up them all up again, very soon, to move. Sigh. But really, it is such a relief to finally be able to see my living room floor now that it is no longer stacked high with boxes and tools. Who needs the beach when you can have a clean house?

The details: We selected a quartz countertop (LG Viatera in Silver Lake) and Sussex cabinets in coco from Cardell Cabinetry. We also decided on an undermount sink and Brainerd Satin Nickel hardware from Lowes. And I am currently falling in love with our faucet: Another Lowes special, the Peerless 1-Handle Kitchen Faucet.

Usually our counter is piled high with mail and West Elm catalogs, but I think this shiny new one is motivation enough to keep it clear.

How did you spent your Memorial Day weekend? Did you make it to the beach or to a cookout, or did you spend some time working on home renovations?

Kitchen Renovations Are Afoot

Part of this whole buying a new house project is the shaping up of our current home so we can sell or rent it for big bucks. I may be a novice at this but I do know that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses. The current state of our kitchen was not doing us any favors so it was time to tear out the ugly, broken cabinets and install something a bit more updated. We started this two weeks ago. It's been 14 long days of take out, paper plates and restaurants. I do love to eat out, but it is starting to get old. I'm so ready to cooks a real meal in our beautiful new kitchen! Here's a look its current state: 

 

1. On May 2 Keith took out our kitchen sink. I've been living sans sink for almost two full weeks. Since I refuse to wash dishes in my bathtub (gross) I've resorted to plastic plates, cups and utensils. It's not my greenest moment, but at least every day feels like a picnic!

2. Our new cabinets arrived in large cardboard boxes and are piled high in the dining room. Pepper is the only family member who will miss them. If you look close enough you can see she's doing little kitty-cat jazz hands up there.

3. Before we can tear out the old cabinets, we have to empty them. This is the worst.

4. New cabinets go in! And a new counter gets installed right on top. It's finally getting pretty around here.

5. Another view of the new cabinets and counter. Note that there's still no working kitchen sink. I think I deserve an award for "Best Attempt At Roughing It".

Has anyone braved a kitchen renovation like this? What was your experience like? 

Homeownership is a Marathon

“Homeownership is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Those were the words that were boldly printed on a billboard on route 95. I'm not sure what this ad was for, but I am sure that it was meant, 100 percent, for me. While I don't want to put an offer on the very first house we look at, I do want it yesterday. I bought the very first wedding dress that I tried on and I don't shop online because the shipping process annoys me. This period from deciding we are going to buy a house to actually buying a house is killing me.

We've only looked at four houses so far and none of them have been right. There were things I liked in all of them (like the closet within a walk-in closet). But there are also things just not right about each. See below:

No the house isn't slanted, the black and white tile floors are just making you dizzy. 

I know we can paint the walls and put down a new floor. (Sorry to disappoint, I know you totally thought I was going to go for black and white tile in my dining room!!) After that there may even be some money left over for new cabinets and granite counter tops. We could turn this into a pretty rad kitchen—but it's too small. I was really excited to see this property and was able to look past the reckless interior design decisions the previous owner made. (Umm there was even glitter painted onto the dining room ceiling.) But I just could not picture myself living here. I want an eat-in kitchen and I'd like to be able to invite a lot of people over for a party on the occasional New Year's Eve. I didn't see us fitting here.

After each showing that's just not right I feel discouraged. I know I need to slow down. Our perfect home is out there and we'll find it because we are diligent house hunters. But I am feeling really impatient.

Any words of advice?
Please leave your comments below! 

The Pre-House Hunting Checklist

Buying a house is not something I know a lot about. Numbers make me nervous, so talking about mortgages cause little beads of sweat to appear on my palms. And I haven’t lived in Connecticut long. I can hardly find my way out of my own driveway, never mind pick out towns with the best school systems.

It goes without saying that I have absolutely no idea where to start.

I wanted to jump right in to the hunting part of this process. Keith has already spoken with a bank and we have been pre-qualified for a loan. And together we’ve done some research on what towns will be good for us. We considered their proximity to our jobs and school systems. We even took a drive last Sunday to scope out some of these towns for ourselves. One we thought we liked ended up having too much of a small-town feel for me, and we ended up discovering another that wasn’t even on our list before.

Pretty house with a wrap around porch, when will you be mine?

So why can’t we just start setting up showings and looking at houses already? 

1. My pinterest board is not done. So far for home inspiration I’ve got colored glassware from West Elm (which I don’t really need because I have a ton of glasses) and these fringe curtains that are not likely to fit in any house we end up purchasing. How can I possibly look for the house of my dreams if I haven’t created the mood board of my dreams?

2. We really should get pre-approved for a loan before we start poking our heads into houses. We went to see a few places, kind of like a test run, but if we want to make a serious offer we need to be able to back it up. We’ve been pre-qualified for a loan, which is just a nice way for the bank to say that unless we are lying about how much we make we will likely get a loan. Now we need to get pre-approved. The bank will run a credit check and do some other more official stuff and if we pass (which they already told us we would) they write a nice letter saying so.

3. We need a realtor. Sure, there’s Google and Zillow and Craigslist and Facebook and a million other places we can find houses we’d like to buy. But when it comes to the actual purchase of a house a realtor will help us through the sale, making sure we get what we want and we pay a fair price. So where do we find the right realtor for us? While I searched Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing, Keith picked up his cell and called the realtor he’d worked with when he bought his condo. One Realtor, check! 

4. I have to wish my brother a Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday, Phil! Sadly, he is still deployed and I doubt he will have much of a birthday celebration. Maybe a picture on the blog will make up for that?

 Phil celebrating his 21st birthday in style.

It’s a close call. Hopefully this and that copy of Catching Fire I send him will help!

Once the pre-home buying checklist has been complete we can start making appointments to view houses. Of course we still have a lot more options to narrow down, like do we want to do a full renovation or do we want a move in ready house? What are our “deal breakers”? And which town do we REALLY want to live in?

Yikes.

But I’m taking it all one step at a time. Tell me, what were some of the first things you did when you bought a house? What steps am I missing?