Choosing a home

When my husband and I were house hunting we knew we wanted an older home that had charm but that we could put our personal stamp on.  He liked ranch homes but I liked bungalows.  He finally agreed to a bungalow as long as there was ample garage space.  We started looking in the urban areas that I liked and quickly became overwhelmed by the potential mortgage payments.  We broadened our search horizons to some of the older suburbs and were much happier with the direction the payments took.

Right before Christmas in 2006 we found our first home and closed on it at the end of January, 2007.  We knew we would want to do some work but at that point had no idea how much work would be in store. 

I had so much fun choosing all the paint colors so that everything would flow since the home was small.  It was great to be able to vent that decorating need since my husband wouldn't let me do much to the apartment we had before buying.  And it needed paint badly as one of the rooms was fluorescent pink and another was royal blue.

We stripped a wallpaper border in the bathroom and replaced the upside down, Dr. Seuss chandelier
in the dining room with one I found at a vintage store.

We loved the hardwood floors and all of the windows and light.  We spent a few weeks hunting down hooks for the picture rail so we wouldn't have to hammer into our plaster walls.  Then we lived with it for awhile so we could see what we wanted and could afford to do.

The house had great bones but if we had only known what we were getting into!