I said the other day that we had some big news coming and I think today I can officially let the cat out of the bag: WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! Yeah, I know, we already have a house, I will get to that in a second. The house is in Johnstown, specifically in Richland, which is a nicer part of the area (and where Lindsey is from).
Do you want to hear the whole story? Sure, you love my stories. Sometime in July something came up and we basically ended up with a property in Johnstown (I will not go into the details). I called contractors to get some prices on possibly remodeling and putting on an addition to the house. It took forever to reach anyone and the ones that came over gave us some insanely high prices.
We decided the best option was to sell that house and our house and look for something. We listed our house (we figured it would take a few weeks to sell) while we were on vacation. The next day there were two showings and both people put offers in for the house. The first offer was actually super close to what we listed, so we accepted. There are so many houses in Ebensburg that have been on the market for more than a year, I was terrified that would be us.
We started looking at houses and we immediately realized a problem: there was not much out there we liked. Some of the bigger, more expensive ones needed work inside. Some had awful yards. Others had tons of square footage, but it was useless space (seriously, how high were people in the 1970s? Some of the split-level homes we looked at were big, but each room was tiny).
We actually looked at this house first and I was not sold on it. Lindsey really liked it and I figured after we looked at a few more homes, we would find something we liked more. I was wrong. Also, one of the problems I have is that I like looking at homes when they are empty, whereas Lindsey likes looking at them when they have stuff in them. This house was full of stuff and it made me feel like it was smaller than it was.
After looking at a bunch of other houses, we looked at a house that was just built. It was more expensive, but it was brand new. It was definitely nice, but it was not without issues. For one thing, this house would need a deck. Also, they counted the basement as finished, but in reality, it had finished walls, but we would need to do the ceiling and floor. Once you took that into consideration, the square footage dropped a decent bit. Also, there is no landscaping. I hate doing landscaping.
Lindsey wanted to look at the first house again. As we walked through it again, I realized that it was pretty perfect. The basement is finished and a very nice size. The best part of the house is the yard. It is big, flat, and totally able to be fenced in. There is already a nice patio and an enclosed porch. Yep, it is definitely perfect. We were supposed to go to another house after (another one that we already looked at), but I said to not bother, we should just make an offer.
We made an offer (there was already one on the house, but it was dependent upon the person selling their house) and it was immediately accepted. The other party withdrew their offer the next day (he had 72 hours to come up with the money from his offer, I am guessing that was not going to happen).
So now we need to prepare to move. I am excited. And at the same time, I am sad. I have great memories in this house. So many cool moments–basically all of the best stuff that has happened to us has happened here. I put in a patio, installed a thermostat, painted, and whatever else Lindsey made me do. This has been Payton, Logan, and Samson’s only home (okay, Samson lived somewhere else for the first few weeks of his life, but he does not remember–I asked).
I will share actual pictures of the house when we move in.
