Home Ownership: Because renting is a drag.

So I have had several negative experiences with the management of my apartment. March marked the final straw in negative experiences. I made the decision that I was no longer going to live in Country Springs. As this was processing, I decided to also considered the possibility of home ownership. Before I knew it, I had been pre-approved for a loan and I was in contact with an extremely proactive Realtor. The next week we had an appointment to go look at homes. The sixth and final home we saw was the one I liked above all. Prepare for a

LOT of pictures :)

The house from the Street

A VERY yellow kitchen upstairs.

The family room upstairs.

The on-suite bath to the master bedroom upstairs.

The Master Bedroom upstairs.

The yellow room to become both pink and Ansley's.

So now we've seen the upstairs of the house. I show you the upstairs first and insert this intermission because of the fun happenings that occurred downstairs.

I put an offer on the house and found out a week later that the offer was accepted. AWESOME! What next Kristi? (My Realtor)

"Well Levin, we need to send in your earnest money. The next step will be to have that home inspection done that we talked about. Once you feel good about the house (the inspection comes back clean) we'll finalize the loan details and set a date for closing."

We contact the home inspection company in order to set up a time and a date. We had it scheduled for Wednesday May 4th. He advises us to have the utilities cut on so that he can do a thorough inspection of the property. We call the utilities companies and request the utilities be cut on on May 3rd so that they would for sure be on when the inspector came on the 4th. After calling both the gas and the water/electric companies, we received word that we weren't allowed to turn the water on. I knew that the house was missing a hot water heater, and so I thought nothing of it as they could have likely been concerned that without a water heater in place, the results of turning the water on could be bad. So we called up the water/electric company and asked them to cancel the request to turn on the water... Can ya guess where this is going? Someone didn't notice the note on the original order, and the water was cut on Tuesday May 3rd. Wednesday May 4th rolls around and my inspector finds the basement flooding in grand form. Turns out the missing water heater wasn't the only concern with turning on the water. The house had been winterized significantly late, and the integrity of the pipes was compromised in two places such that they burst when the water was turned on.

Introducing, the basement of the house :)

(Utah Disaster Kleenup has removed the carpets and 2 feet of drywall around the whole basement in an attempt to deter mold from growing.)

A smaller bedroom downstairs. (a.k.a. the original scene of the crime with pipes bursting etc...)

What will be the master bedroom with on-suite bathroom.

The Downstairs Family room.

There will be a full kitchen in this space.

I sure am glad that I love a good project. This is going to take a bit of time to finish up on an after-work basis. The positive side of things is that there were changes in flooring and paint colors that I was going to be making anyway. This way, the utilities company is going to assume liability for these damages and as I'll be making most of the repairs myself, this is going to give me the extra money necessary to furnish the kitchen downstairs and make some upgrades along the way.

Ansley is excited about "our new house!" She keeps talking about wanting to paint her room to be pink and purple. I'm not sure exactly what shades we'll be going with, but there may be a hint of princess pink and purple in my little princess's room.

As progress happens with the house I'll be posting the "after shots" along the way.