Our Very Own Idahome

One year ago we decided to become official grown-ups and purchase our first home.  I cannot believe it has already been a year.  We all know time goes fast, but with both baby milestones and the fading smell of new carpet acting as constant reminders of each day passing, this year seemed to fade far too quickly for my liking.

But it has been a good year in our home.  We love it so much, and feel so grateful to call it ours.  Overall, home ownership has been a very positive experience for us, and we can't wait to make more memories with our growing family in our happy home.

Finding this home and deciding to purchase it happened very quickly.  As in we decided we were sort of finally serious about looking at homes, looked at three, and put in an offer.  What?!  Yes, I've questioned our decision making skills many times in our marriage.  It's either hot or cold with us, no in between.  But over twelve months later I feel grateful and confident in that seemingly crazy decision.

When we first walked through the house, it wasn't much more than a giant sheetrocked box.  But as soon as we walked in the front door we knew this place had everything we wanted.  An open floor plan, three car garage, and soon-to-be finished basement--all which were at the top of our wish list when we talked about our future home.  Those three selling points, plus the fact that the home was still in the stage where we could potentially pick out all of the finishes we wanted, really tempted us to make an offer.  But after thinking about if for a day, we decided not to do it.  The home was at the very top of our budget, and we just weren't sure we were ready. 

 A few days later we received a call from the builder, offering to let us pick the finishes we would want if we were to put an offer in.  Kind of strange, but it seemed like a fun afternoon activity to walk through home improvement stores dreaming of the home we wanted.  In reality I'm sure the builder knew that if we could truly imagine the home of our dreams, we would be pretty likely to put an offer in.  And he was right.  After a few hours spent picking paint colors, cabinets and floors for a home we still weren't even sure we would be putting in an offer for (or even officially approved for), we couldn't help but feel like putting in an offer was the right thing.  

And let's just take a moment to recognize that we literally picked the finishes for our entire house in one day.  It's not like we had been looking and thinking about these things for months, either.  While I was excited about the colors and textures we chose, I couldn't help but be completely fearful that I had made awful choices in the few months we waited to put all of the pieces together in the house.  There were also a few things that I feel like I didn't fight the builder on style-wise (like my vision of stark white cabinets vs. his style of more classic, white cabinets with a glaze), mostly because I wasn't sure we were actually buying the house when the decision was made.  But even with a few things not being exactly how I might design my dream home (no mudroom, small bathrooms, cabinet color, and directional layout of the home being the main ones) we feel lucky to have gotten so many of the items on our wish list in our very first home.

Once the offer was made and accepted, the real stress began.  Buying a house is STRESSFUL!  Even if your husband has a great job and is making good money, if you have as much student debt as we do getting a loan can be tricky.  It was quite the process and I don't think I have ever been happier than knowing everything was official and we could close on schedule.  Besides the financial side of things we were picking light fixtures, furniture and making lots of evening trips to the house to check progress and to Lowe's to try and choose the perfect refrigerator.  Sort of fun and sort of exhausting.

March 20th finally arrived, and with the help of our awesome families we were able to close on our house and begin the move-in process.  We had quite the crew helping us, and my heart was so full as I captured the moment above with all my favorite people sharing lunch in our new home.  I love that we have enough space to host our families when they come to visit.  A very happy and exhausting day.

Our families even took the older girls for a few days so that we could spend time unpacking and organizing.  Twelve months later and we are still organizing and slowly decorating.  I still have hardly anything hanging on the walls, we added a chair to the living room and while we upgraded to a king-sized mattress, we have no bedding or headboard to make it beautiful.  I'm guessing our bedroom will be the last place that gets finished.  

We feel so lucky to have found this home when we did.  It has been a wonderful fit for our family, and as will be growing into a family of six a bit sooner than we expected, I am grateful that we were able to find a place with ample space to grow into.  We love our neighborhood park that is only a few houses away, the kids will get to attend a brand new elementary school which is being built only a few blocks down the road, and we have great friends within walking distance for afternoon play dates.

Putting down roots has been a scary and fulfilling process.  Of course there are always projects and purchases on our wish list, but we have felt so much love and already made so many great memories in our home.