House of Spaulding

Happy Monday, I hope that you all had a great weekend. I was up to my eyeballs in cleaning and packing because we bought a new house. Well, it’s an older home but it’s new to us. We’re very excited to finally have a home of our own after renting for almost 4 years (more on that below). And you all get to take the journey with me as I turn House of Spaulding from dated to divine.

This picture may seem simple to you but to me, this key symbolize home!

Good-bye Renting! Hello Homeownership

I’m so excited that our long journey of renting has ended. To be honest our experience with renting has been less than thrilling. We have been renting for almost 4 years. That’s 2 years longer than we originally planned.  When we relocated to Georgia from Indiana we decided to rent because we still owned a home in Indiana.

via GIPHY

The reason we didn’t put our home on the market prior to us moving was that the housing market was still recovering. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to get what we wanted for our home, so we decided to rent it out and wait for the market to rebound. I was also adamant that I didn’t want us having two mortgages. Renting also allowed us to get a feel of our community before we committed to making a purchase.  

The original plan was for us to rent for a couple of years. However, a couple of years turned into almost 4 years. It will be 4 years this June that we’ve been living in Georgia. We had to wait for the right moment to sell our home in Indiana. For the past 3 years, I’ve been watching the Indiana real estate market like a hawk. As soon as I noticed that the market had turned into a sellers’ market, I knew it was time to sell our home.  

So, we sold our home in August of 2017, which freed us up to buy a home here in GA. We started looking at houses and wasn’t thrilled with what we were seeing. We live in a very desirable school district, so the competition is fierce. Add to that the fact that inventory is low, which creates bidding wars. We decided to get through the holidays and pick our search back up after the first of the year.

After the new year, we started looking again. Again, we weren’t happy with the homes that were on the market. However, we knew we wanted to find something before spring because that’s when the real estate market really heats up. The spring market, low inventory, and lots of buyers results in multiple offer situations. This is what we wanted to avoid at all cost. All I could think is that I refuse to pay more for a house than what it’s worth.

Let me point out that the choices in our price point weren’t great. Most of the homes in our price point were totally outdated. The home stager in me was appalled at the way most of the homes were presented. But again, we live in a desirable area with excellent schools, so people are willing to overlook that.

This caused us to have to swallow a big pill and adjust our expectations. There was no way we were going to find a home that didn’t need some work.  Therefore, we set out on finding a home that at least had good bones and make it our own. After all, when life gives you lemons, you make a mean lemonade with a splash of tequila. Trust me when I say, I didn’t see 1 home that I fell in love with.

Let me pause here and say that despite the above, I’m so grateful! I’m grateful to finally be a homeowner again. I’m so grateful and thankful to just finally have a home again. It’s not the perfect home, but we’ll make it perfect for us. This won’t be our forever home, but we plan to make lots of memories here. Our motto is, if you can’t have the home you want, love the one you have.  

It’s great to be investing in a home again rather than paying someone else’s mortgage. Our mortgage is only a few bucks more than our rent. Plus, there’s just something about owning your own home. Trust me, I know there are certain parts of the US where renting is the norm. I know there are many cities where homeownership is out of reach for so many. Therefore, I don’t take for granted that we’re blessed to be able to buy a home.

Let’s Talk About The New House

So, let’s talk about our house…the good, the bad, and the ugly. For starters, the house has good bones and is in a great subdivision. Another good thing is that my son won’t have to change schools and will be able to graduate from his high school. Of course, with any home that you didn’t get to custom build for your family, there are always some negatives. I’ll go more into this in another post…but for now, just know the house was built in 2000 and nothing has been changed from the day it was built. Yep, it’s original in all of its year of 2000 builder grade glory.

Nasty, ugly, carpet in the master bathroom is a big hell to the no!

So long old tiles with your dingy self!

So, we will be making lots of changes to this home to bring it current. We’ve already started by ripping out the carpet and tile in the master bathroom. I cannot for the life of me figure out what genius thought carpet in a bathroom was a good idea. Like, eww!

There’s so much we want to do but I’m still hashing all of that out. I promise I’ll share soon. My goal is to share with you how we take this diamond in the rough and turn it into a home that works for us. During this process, I’ll be sharing design tips with you that you can apply in your own home. I’ll also be sharing some of the challenges that we face with this home and how we overcome them. In addition, I’ll also share with you how I organize my home. I love organizing and thrive when my house is neat and organized.

I hope you’ll follow along and maybe even learn some tips that’ll help you with your home. Stay tuned for a follow-up post with more details about our new home. You can also follow along on Instagram. I’m naming this project House of Spaulding and #houseofspaulding, will be the hashtag to follow on Instagram.

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