Although we were very lucky that Joey already owned a townhouse, with the wedding happening and our new life as a married couple upon us, we were really feeling the itch for a fresh start in a new home.
Our biggest priorities in a new house were that it had a good sized kitchen with lots of cabinet space, a larger master bedroom than we currently have, and a good sized backyard for future puppies and babies. Another high priority was that it had wood floors, or bad enough carpet that we wouldn’t feel bad about replacing. We secretly coveted a garage as well, but it wasn’t on the must-have list.
We contacted a realtor that came very highly recommended by some friends of ours, named Kelly Vinson, and set up a time to go look at a few houses. We saw four houses on the first day, the first three were terrible, terrible houses. The last house we went to was amazing! It was larger than we ever could have imagined we could afford, had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a commercial kitchen, circular driveway and a three car garage! We were in love, and put an offer down on the spot. Twenty four hours later, the owner countered and we accepted. We were even more thrilled when we found out that our bank would be able to do an expedited closing, and we could close two days before our wedding! We were over the moon with excitement, and everything really seemed to be falling into place.
And then inspection day came…the day when all of our hopes and dreams were crushed. The house had a multitude of things wrong with it, the biggest being a water drainage issue because the house was on a hill, and water was draining straight onto (and into) the house. There was mold growing in the crawl space because of it, and bats living in there too! We were deflated, we contemplated buying it anyway and putting the money into regrading and sealing it. But in the end, and after a few days of depression, we finally decided it was time to let that house go, and put the house hunt on hold until after the honeymoon since things were beginning to get hectic due to the wedding.
As the weeks passed, we began to feel better and better about our decision to walk away, and more and more hopeful at our future possible homes. After the honeymoon it felt like we looked at a million homes. We both searched everyday online, and went at everything that seemed to have potential with our realtor. We looked at things at the top and bottom of our price range, and even one house that was WAAY over our price range. And then we began to get discouraged. I worried that by looking at houses on both ends of our price spectrum, we were having higher expectations for the pricier houses, and grossed out by the ones on the lower end. We were coming to a point where we needed to choose whether we were going to spend more and virtually all of our “renovation” budget, or buy a fixer upper and put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears (and money, don’t forget money) to make it our home.
On the eve of this discussion of narrowing down our options, our amazing realtor sent us a new listing that had just come on the market. We both looked at the pictures separately and thought to ourselves that it had potential, and that we could look at one more house before making a decision on which direction to go. We set up the appointment for the next morning and prayed that the house would be the right house.
And it turned out to be the home of our dreams!! We fell in love with it the minute we walked in the door, and put in an offer minutes later. It was the first day the house was on the market, and only one person had seen it before us. It passed the inspection with flying colors, and virtually everyone that came in told us this was a good house. And on June 14, 2012 we closed on our house, and started to move in!!
It fit all of our qualifications and more!! It has a fantastic sized lot for the area, almost 3/4 of an acre! It also has a garage,a large master, gorgeous wood floors, and a brick front with hardy board siding, which was the next best thing to having all four sides brick. Our favorite part about the house was that it was completely move-in ready! It was crazy clean, and freshly painted in a pretty vanilla color. And the trim!!! Can I rave about all the gorgeous trim in the house, it has nice chunky base boards, and even more gorgeous crown molding throughout the entire house!! It also has a great kitchen that has lots of cabinet space and has good quality cabinets. We’re kind of excited that the kitchen was the only space that truly needs to be updated, and not so badly that it needs to be done immediately. But we’re excited to put in the work on it, and really make it our own.
So now without further ado, some gratuitous pictures of the new Meyer Manor!!
The Meyer Manor 