Hey friends. Life is changing over here for us so fast that we can’t keep up. Not only are we expecting a sweet little girl, we also BOUGHT a house. With the Good Lord’s hand, we bought a house. It has been the craziest year so far. I legitimately have had no time to sit down and write a post. You may get an overload of posts here soon while I catch back up. I have quite a bit to update and share. We have been in our home for about two months now, and I am finally to point that I can slow down a bit. It’s so crazy, because not only did we move, our entire family bought new homes. My brother/sister-in-law and my in-laws all bought new houses and moved basically at the same time. We have been BUSY.
For most, this is old news, but we moved out of our Cammack Village house in March. It was equal parts bittersweet and such a relief. We rented that home for three and half years. It was our home and what we were used to, so of course it was hard to leave it. It was also such a relief to be out from under the clutches of renter life. To own your own home feel so good. Last year, we were in talks with the owner about buying that home. That went south pretty quickly. We wanted to get it as a fixer upper. Make no mistake, it was FULL of problems. When the owner gave us a ridiculous price for it, we started second guessing the thought of buying it. Then, I kid you not, the entire house started falling apart around us. Since we were still renting it, we presented some of the issues to the owner, and they weren’t willing to work with us. It was just an all around bad deal. Also, we were having a ton of issues with the realty company. It was just time to wash our hands of the whole situation.
I do not have the emotional capacity or energy to write a post about the entire situation right now. It was just so bad. Maybe later I will. I will say this though. When you choose to use a rental company, I have some tips. Document everything. Video yourself walking on the property for the first time. Video any problems. Video the fixes that are made. Record every detail of the entire property that you are obtaining. Document (and do not lose) every single conversation and transaction that you have with the company. Do not make repairs yourself. Do not paint. Read your entire lease, and know it front to back. Know what you are responsible for and do that. Also, hold the company responsible for what they are liable for. Most importantly, do not let a company cheat you out of what is due to you, but be honest. Again, document EVERYTHING. It is what saved us from being cheated in the end.
Basically this entire year thus far has just flown by. Between baby and moving chaos there has been no down time. At least not emotionally anyways. We had been looking for a house for awhile; heavily since about Christmas. The market was so crazy that houses would pop up daily and before we could get an appointment to go see the house, it would sell. It happened to us so many times. It happened to our brother-in-law (Jordan) and sister-in-law (Briana) even more. It was even a battle with them, because we were both looking for houses in the same price range at the same exact time. Basically flip a coin to see who would get to go see the new house first. The market was CRAZY.
Since our realty company had given us no choice but to leave, we had a deadline to be out of the house by March. Looking since December, I thought for sure that we would find something. By February, I had all but given up on our search. In my mind I was prepared to just find a different rental because every house kept falling through. I thought maybe it just was not the right time to buy, and we were running out of time.
We were gifted a little trip to Big Cedar Lodge for Christmas and it just so happened to fall at the beginning of February. I was over all of the house drama, and we needed that break. We decided that we weren’t going to worry about anything to do with houses and moving until we got back from the trip. THEN….. our house showed up.
Our mom and dad called us the last night we were at Big Cedar. They said they found a house just popped on the market that we needed to move on and we needed to come home early. It was right were we wanted to be, in the price range, and in the style we liked. They sent it to us and sure enough it was. I was immediately so sad because I knew it would sell before we could get back into town. Plus, we had promised my niece that we would take her to the Disney store for her birthday after checkout. (Jordan and Briana were also at BC too with their kiddos.) There was no way I was going to blow her off. I was so sad because I just knew the house was perfect and it was going to sell immediately.
As a last resort, Jereme asked his parents to go with our amazing Realtor Allison to see the house on our behalf. He really felt a connection to this home. I also must mention, this house had OUR signs in it. Signs that our family business had made. It truly felt meant-to-be. Thankfully, they all agreed to go to the house for us. Allison is also their realtor, so it wasn’t weird. Ha. They Face-timed us to walk us through it and they really inspected it over the best they could. Man what a time to live in. We fell in love with it even more. So we put an offer in without even stepping on to the property. Are we crazy?
We offered asking price but there were already three other offers on the table. Keep in mind this was the DAY that the house listed. Ours was the fourth and we got outbid. That’s how crazy the market was. People knew it too, so it really wasn’t a shock that someone else offered above asking. I was crushed, but Jereme was still hopeful. He said that he had a feeling it would come back to us. We countered immediately. The owner let us know that he was nervous about accepting our offer since we had not actually seen the home in person. Which is understandable if you don’t know our family dynamic. I would totally let my mother-in-law, Hope pick out a house for me. We have very similar tastes and I totally trust her ability to pick out something that I would like. We fully trust their opinions, but I get that the owner didn’t know that. So we managed to get a later appointment that day to see it. After a few more back and fourths, WE GOT IT. I have to hand it to Allison, she got us the home. If it weren’t for her, we would still be renting.
As soon as they accepted our offer, we finished packing. I had started that process before Christmas and boy am I glad I did. We took the rest of February to move all of our stuff into storage until our home was ready. We moved out of the Cammack Village house on March third and moved in with our in-laws. Our owners had delayed occupancy because they were building a home and it wasn’t quite finished. We stayed at their house for about a month. It was even crazy then because they were in the house buying process too. They had to be out of their house right when we were moving in. There were so many moving parts, but Praise the Lord it all worked out.
Here we are at closing. <3
SO… Here is our house
AND HERE IS WHAT WE PLAN TO DO TO IT:
Of course I have big dreams for this house. This is what we will be working towards. It won’t happen overnight, especially with a new baby on the way. I am also prioritizing a few things inside first. I just can’t wait to put our stamp on it. My hope is to start phase one of this next summer. That is my hope anyways. Since we are welcoming our sweet baby girl this summer, I don’t foresee us starting until next year. We did make a change to this design though. Instead of two garage doors we want to change it into one. We will start with paint. Then do shutters and faux wood columns. Then phase two will be a new door, lighting fixture, and windows. All the while slowly working to get transform the already existing landscaping into something that compliments the new look. I have already started that slow process. Between now and then, we will probably work on a new mailbox too. I have a phase three in mind that is not shown here, but my goal is to at least make it to this first.
I am curious to hear your thoughts on this design plan. Also, would you be interested in seeing more design plans for the inside? Thank you so much for following along. Until next time.
-Sarah <3