We Bought A House!

We bought a house — actually a month ago, but quarantine happened the same weekend. I wanted the house to be more “set up” before I shared anything, but this is the new normal so we are just rolling with it!

Michael proposed in January and we decided to list both our separate homes for sale and find a new one. We thought it would take months to sell our houses. Our wedding isn’t until August, so our goal was to sell at least one house before the wedding!

My house sold WITHIN A DAY, then Michael’s sold within a week. Right after my house got an offer, we looked at 3 houses and made an offer on our favorite one that same day.

I had been looking at our new house DAILY on Zillow and felt a little bummed because it was out of our price range — especially still paying two mortages.

But it was meant to be because right after my house sold, the price on our new house dropped! The sellers scheduled an open house, and we knew we needed to (a) go look at it in real life and (b) put in an offer before the open house.

Spoiler: We put in an offer and they accepted. Then a month later we moved in. Then the whole world shut down, but here we are!

Our house had everything we said we wanted in a house! I have a full post here of what we were looking for.

A pool was a top priority, which our new house has! We only looked at homes with pools — it was THAT important. And this has definitely been our favorite part of quarantine. We spend more time outside than inside. The water has been a little cold, but we’re still hanging out by the pool or laying on our (many) pool floats on a daily basis.

Having 4 bedrooms was another requirement. I work from home all the time, so I needed a room for a real office. We got really lucky with our new house. It’s 4 bedrooms with a pool house / mother-in-law suite that we converted into my office. (can’t wait to share the update!!!)

We’re using an extra bedroom as Michael’s home office now. His employer is discussing continuing to work from home even after quarantine, so this will be a great set-up for us.

We’re able to work all day separately, then “meet” for lunch, snack time and walks lol. But I have been catching Michael out in the pool during our working hours, so I think I’m going to get employee of the month.

We’re also obsessed with all the windows, our master bath and our neighborhood.

What’s Next:

We’ve managed to go through most of our boxes and get somewhat organized, but I CANNOT WAIT for Home Goods or World Market to open again so I can do some serious decorating and more organizing. We have a hodgepodge of our furniture and decor now, so there’s definitely work to be done.

Our Master Bedroom will need the most TLC. I’m not sure the direction I want to take it, but I’ve been saving some ideas on Pinterest. I want it to be pretty gender neutral so it’s not overly girly, which is going to be the biggest challenge. You know me… I like bright colors (especially pink and yellows), so I’ll have to really put some thought into this.

Before summer, I want to focus more on our backyard and around the pool. My dad built us the best fence ever and it was SUCH a game changer. Now, we want to add some lighting, new pool furniture and maybe even a fire pit area. Stay tuned!

I also want to replace most of the light fixtures in the house. Our house was built in 1996, so the chandeliers and ceiling fans are very 90s. I know these changes will make our house look SO much more up-to-date. We’ll get it done slowly but surely!

The guest bedrooms, kitchen, and bathrooms are pretty much good to go! I’ll plan to share more room makeovers as we do them post-quarantine.