Our House!

Well, we did it. Last August we closed on our very first house! Thank you to everyone who has been asking how it's been going; here's the story and how things are going so far:

Look who got their very own house!

We figured that after Tygan had been working here for a couple of years or so, we'd have a good idea whether we'd want to settle down in this area. Coupled with the fact that we were really pushing the capacity of our one-bedroom apartment with Levi sleeping in our closet, we decided to take the plunge and buy a house!

Signing for our house!

We wanted a starter-home with 3 beds and 2 baths. The top three features we wanted were: 1. a lot of kitchen counter space; 2. a good space for playing tabletop games; and 3. in the Verona school district, so we could send Levi to the Mandarin Chinese immersion elementary school.

We started looking in about February, so we definitely took our time, but we used our apartment complex's real estate agent, so they would let us out of our apartment contract whenever we closed. The market was crazy this summer, but not as bad as the year before. We put in an offer on a couple of Verona homes over the course of the spring/summer, but both were outbid. Finally, in July we took a look at a house that wasn't in the Verona school district but had a large kitchen island and decent bonus room, and our offer was accepted!

Other things we like about this house include:

• Great neighborhood (when we first moved to Wisconsin, I did a bunch of research and noticed that this area has low crime rates)
• Medium-sized backyard with a deck, small patio, and two garden boxes
• Lots of natural light
• South-facing driveway
• Elementary school has a Spanish dual-language immersion program, and is well-liked overall
• Open between kitchen, dining, and living room

Some things we dislike are:

• Split-level (lots of stairs!)
• Not in Verona school district, which has a better middle school
• Several years older than our apartment
• Not a lot of overhead lights--requires floor lamps
• A little more expensive than we expected, but at least we didn't have to go over list price
• We have to fight bugs more...might just be a first-floor thing? Since we lived in a second-floor apartment before, we're not used to so much...wildlife. But things really calmed down after the move was really finished and mosquito season ended.

Moving went well, thanks to all our friends who came to help! We also had the walls painted and carpets cleaned before we moved in, which was a little pricey but really helped it to feel clean and ready for our family. The first couple of weeks of unpacking were rough because I couldn't find anything I needed for our everyday tasks, but once that was sorted out, we really like the rhythm we've found here, and Levi did great with the adjustment.

Levi helping me pack.

Now that the basics are set up, I've started decorating and adding some personality to the house, which is really helping it feel like home. I still  miss our apartment and the memories we made there. Especially with many of our friends building brand-new houses, it sometimes feels like we've made a downgrade, but I think once we find solutions for our house's little quirks and start to get attached, we're going to be super happy here. (Heck, it took me quite a while to get attached to my own child, so I'm not surprised that I need time to adjust.)

In a couple of future posts, I'll go over all the steps we took to buy our house for those of you who are curious, and I'll talk more about painting our interior and other home projects on the table!