The New House

The hubby and I have been married for almost two years, and we have lived that entire time in an apartment that's part of a complex of high-rise buildings. The apartment itself is nice and pretty spacious, we have a balcony, washer/dryer in the unit, etc. The complex has nice amenities too: tennis courts, a pool, a gym, and it's located near grocery stores, restaurants, fast food, liquor stores (crucial), etc. Neither my commute nor the husband's are particularly stellar, but it's hard to find a good commute in this area. Our complex allows pets, so we have ourselves a 2-year-old cairn terrier named Bilbo (because we're nerds).

Anyway, the place is nice enough, and it has served us well, but we're interested in moving on. Bilbo is not super well-suited for apartment life; he barks at kids in the hallway and has a truly epic hatred of bicycles, which he (so very helpfully) warns us about from his vigilant post on the balcony. Taking a dog downstairs to pee/walk from the 12th floor is not exactly fun either. Hubby and I are generally okay with apartments, but both of us have been itching to have more of our own space lately, and as we approach our late twenties (AUGH) we are increasingly interested in expanding our little corner of the world. Also, as hubby-dearest inches closer to finishing his PhD, our income has increased in the last 6 months and we have yet to devote it toward anything in particular.

Plus we like throwing BBQs. I mean, who doesn't?

So: we want to rent a house. Cue frantic and stressful search. We decided to move to a nicer area, which is also more affluent and thus in high demand. That means that rental properties go FAST. I spent about 3 weeks constantly, and I do mean constantly, checking craigslist and a bunch of other online housing sites for houses. Some of them would disappear literally in hours. On top of all that, these sites are also riddled with scams, full of listings that can be really quite sneaky, with legitimate-looking phone numbers and email addresses. Legitimate-looking, that is, until the "landlord" responds to your email by claiming that you can drive by the house but you can't go in. Yeah, okay buddy.

Anyway, after several failed attempts at securing a house in time, and a couple of awkward visits to some totally undesirable properties, I finally found a keeper: 9603 was built in the 50s, and clearly last redecorated in the 70s. It's got 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths upstairs, hardwood floors, a basement, lots of storage space, in-home washer/dryer, etc. The yard is huge, fully-fenced for Bilbo, and has a lovely patio and a shed. The house has some odd "quirks" of decor and design, and the gardens have run amok (we'll talk about all that later), but overall it's a good property.

In the coming weeks, I am planning to post some before/progress photos as we slowly move in. We've decided to gradually move stuff to the house, both because of overlapping leases and because the landlady will be doing some very necessary upgrades to the house. Like the oh-so-70s kitchen, oy.

I am just ITCHING to get in that house so I can at least measure the rooms and start making plans! We will be getting the keys on June 1st, and it can't come soon enough!