We closed on our house!!!

It's finally official! The Peusters are homeowners!

After nearly three years of marriage, we have overcome some very trying times, and now it's time to celebrate!

In the three years we've been married, Brad finally landed a full time teaching position, Liz received two promotions at work, several additions have been made to our extended families, and amazingly (and knock on wood) we have not had to say good bye to anyone. We are also nearly debt free, with the exception of a little bit of student loan, and of course, our new house!

The process of home buying has been seemingly more difficult than necessary. In November, we found a house we thought we loved. We went through the loan pre-approval process, found a real estate agent, etc etc. When we took a closer look at the house, our realtor basically said "Guys, you can do better than this house." So we kept looking. Almost immediately we found another house we loved. We put an offer on it. Immediately rejected. Back to the drawing board.

We find another house and get an offer accepted just before Christmas. The inspector comes out and points out several very expensive problems. Unfortunately, we could not manage to see eye to eye with the sellers on what they should or should not fix, and terminated the contract.

Back to the drawing board, albeit with a very bad taste in our mouths about the whole idea of buying a house.

At the beginning of February, I went to stay with a dear friend of mine who had recently delivered her second child. While I was away, Brad went with Mike, our Realtor, to see a couple more houses. He said he would call me if they were worth anything.

"Liz, you have to see this house."

So, upon my return, Mike takes me out to see this little house. The cosmetics of it are a little...unappealing, but overall, it's an adorable house with plenty of space in a seemingly nice neighborhood.

Brad and I decide to take it.

Two days later, our contract is accepted. Let's not get too excited. There's still a building inspection to go through.

House in decent shape...22 years old...original furnace and AC...that might need replacing.....original roof too...that needs replacing as well.

So, let's try to get it all - new roof, furnace, AC. Maybe the executor of the estate (previous owner is deceased...) will at least give us one or the other.

Guess what! The roof has hail damage!!! The insurance company (the SELLER'S insurance company) will tear off the old and replace it.

We have a new 25-year roof.

DONE.

So we closed on Tuesday, the 18th. And immediately went to work.

We started with the kitchen, which we felt was probably the most offensive. Here are some progress pics:

This is what we accomplished in three hours....with one of us having never stripped wallpaper before.

I can't wait to see what we get done over the weekend!