During May we were house hunting and so as not to leave you hanging by the seat of your pants...we found a house!
I wanted to blog along our house hunting journey, because I fully expected it to take a while, but it only took about 2 weeks! In between looking at houses and everyday goings-ons I was sifting through the house alerts being emailed to us. It was a busy time. So I'll take you through the journey here...it was pretty fun!
Nick and I started with some "must haves" and "nice to haves" for the house itself as well as some things that were important us about the location.
Important Things:
-Good schools. Henrico County and Chesterfield County surrounding Richmond have great schools, so we shopped in those counties.
-Neighborhood that has young families
-Not in the area where I grew up...I needed it to feel somewhat new to me.
-Easy commute for Nick
-Recreation nearby (ymca, pool, etc)
Must Haves:
-Good size yard. Have you seen my dog?
-4 bedrooms
-2 full baths
-Storage (basement, attic, garage...one of these)
Nice to Haves:
-Basement or bonus room
-Garage
-Open, eat in kitchen
-Fence
-Gas stove top
We drove around with our real estate agent to every house that met our criteria in our price range. Some were quickly nixed just by driving up. Transmission power lines in the backyard? No thanks. No backyard? No thanks. On a busy road? No thanks. We probably walked through about 25 houses and some of them twice.
 |
| narrowing down the list |
 |
| working hard at the house search |
 |
| we took a lot of notes while we walked through... |
We saw a huge variety of houses on both sides of town...the southside (south of the James River), West End (northwest of the city), and Near West End (closer to the city but still county schools). Some very old and vacant with overgrown back yards that covered us with inchworms as we walked the perimeter. eeww! Others were old, but had obviously been kept up very nicely and loved over time. One house had a chalkboard that said "We have loved this house and hope you do too! Buy Me!" That made us smile and know there was a happy family there! Some houses were brand new and some were just an empty lot!
 |
| the one with the "dressing rooms". we liked this house a lot and looked at it twice, but the upstairs had a weird layout! |
 |
| near the city, but too small! |
 |
| inside of west franklin...love that exposed brick! |
 |
| the one in need of major backyard work. |
 |
| holy ivy. |
 |
| the cute one with 3 bedrooms...too small. |
 |
| the one that backed up to a busy street. |
Over time I began to realize that 1 thing was keeping me from wanting to put an offer on some great houses. Location. That has always been my sticking point with everywhere I have lived. If we're going to live in NYC, let's live in the best neighborhood - west village! I found myself analyzing the location of every house and really thinking about the neighborhoods. It's the hardest thing to figure out when you are new to an area, but I wanted to make sure that we would have some younger neighbors and kids for Waverly to play with! The last thing I wanted was to have a great big house in a neighborhood of empty nesters.
I also couldn't imagine myself in a 3000+ square foot house. Maybe it's because I have lived in small spaces, but it seemed daunting and like a lot of house to furnish and keep up with. We stood in one great house in a nice neighborhood on the southside and Nick said, "This is great!" But I said "It feels too big". Am I crazy?! I just didn't want my first house to be my last house...and that's how this one felt.
 |
| the BIG one...saw this one twice. |
Finally after nixing some of those that we saw twice, we felt ready to jump quickly on a house that went on the market. The market right now is definitely active and if a good house in a good location for the right price comes up, you have to be ready!
That is exactly what happened with the house we bought. It was Mother's Day weekend and we had spent Saturday looking at houses. I decided that I didn't want to look at houses on Mother's Day and we would just keep an eye out online for anything new. After coming home from brunch, Nick saw a new listing in a neighborhood we liked! He called our real estate agent. She looked into the house, contacted the seller's agent and told us we should see it that night! It had just gone on the market that same morning.
That night we looked at the house and knew it was pretty great. It was in a nice neighborhood with kids, it backed up to the neighborhood pool, it was toward the end of the street with a cal-de-sac and had a great flat lot with a fenced in back yard! The house itself is a transitional with a 2 car garage and 4 bedrooms. It's not huge - 2100 square feet - so in our real estate agent's words "we will live in every inch of this house". But it will feel cozy while having enough room (and a big deck!) to entertain. Plus it's not a forever house...we can always go bigger! It was built in the mid 90's and has been well cared for, so we have some updates we'd like to make, but no MAJOR renovations which is nice.
That night we decided to make an offer! It's a good thing we put our offer in, because the next day the agent had 6 other people who wanted to make offers as well. After some negotiating, they accepted ours by the end of the day! It was a little nerve racking knowing that they might have gotten more from other offers....thank goodness they honored us as the first offer. Lucky for them, they sold their house in about 24 hours.
We close and move mid July! whoop. whoop. Here she is...in all her blue glory!
 |
| blue on blue on blue! we plan to paint! |
 |
| blue deck! |
 |
| kitchen with a sweet light fixture |
 |
| bad angle of the living room |
 |
| bad angle of the master...sorry for my photography skills. |
 |
| room over the garage that I plan to make a guest room/office/playroom |
 |
| yellow bedroom |
There is 1 other bedroom I don't have a picture of which is cotton candy pink! It will be Waverly's room, but we're going to paint it. Eventually we are going to paint the whole house inside and out...just needs a fresh coat and some new colors!
So there you have it! In a couple weeks we will finally be homeowners. Makes me reminisce about all the past rentals. I'll always think of the girls chats in the Ballston apartment, the Arlington townhouse where Nick and I moved into together and got a puppy, the NYC balcony loft, the quiet suburban Jersey townhouse where we brought Waverly home, and the Alexandria townhouse along a noisy, busy road.
This is the home where we will put some roots down and settle into life as a family. It's been worth the wait!
Love from Richmond!
