Our First House

I'm having a hard time figuring out where to begin this post. As you've heard here and here, our house hunting process was more frustrating than I had anticipated. I'll spare you most of the ups and downs of the whole process, but would love to share some pictures of our {awesome!} new house.

When we started our search, we had hopes of buying an older house in the Broad Ripple area. We were looking for a house with lots of charm and really wanted things like hardwood floors, a fun neighborhood, and possibly brick. After {way too much!} stress and looking through all of the houses in the area that fit our criteria, I was venting to our friend Meredith. {Her mom is a realtor and she always seemed to have great advice for me!} We didn't know what to do -- wait around for something in the area to get put on the market or for the price to be lowered or should we change our criteria?

Meredith and Josh had recently bought a house in an up and coming neighborhood two miles north of downtown Indy. As we were talking, she suggested that we look around that neighborhood. After talking about it, I couldn't wait to get home and see if there were any houses in the area in our price range. {Long story short} we fell in love with the area and the {new} houses!

As you may have read, we found a house that we really liked and decided to put an offer on it. This whole process was a huge ordeal for a variety of reasons. Finally, after a week of suspense {and driving Kurt nuts because of my insanity}, the deal fell through. While we were going through this process, houses continued coming on the market. So, back to looking it was.

The night {Tuesday} the deal fell through, I found another house in the neighborhood that had just been put on the market that day. That Thursday, we set out for another l.o.n.g. day of house hunting. We started downtown {at the house we later would buy} and made our way north while looking at a variety of houses. We quickly came to the conclusion that we love the neighborhood downtown for a plethora of reasons {as well as the house}. So, we decided to put an offer on the first house we looked at that day. After one counter offer, we accepted and had a new house! It really sounds like it wasn't a huge, long, incredibly stressful process, but trust me I'm sparing you many of the details! {And probably being a little dramatic, too!}

OH, I forgot to mention, that our house just so happens to be 5 houses north of Josh and Meredith's house! {According to Josh and MapQuest -- 200 ft.} I could go on and on about how exciting it is to be buying this amazing house with Kurt AND THEN to have it so close to our best friends.....crazy.

Ok, so the house is perfect. {Minus the fact of only having 2 bedrooms, but it's really ok...for boring reasons that don't matter.} It is practically brand spankin' new. Only five years old. And we will only be the second owners. The builder/owner made some fabulous choices while building the house...it's so perfect for us. Unlike the many older houses we looked at, this house is 100% move-in ready. Of course, we're going to want to change some cosmetic things in the future, but wouldn't have to if we didn't want. {Trust me, I can't wait to do small projects to spruce things up. I've started my mental list already! Hopefully, you'll be hearing about our projects here!}

Without further ado, here are {a few} of our new {'IU'-look at the colors} house:
{Sorry in advance if I'm bragging!}
{Oh! Remember it's not our stuff yet....}

Our House!
View from the front lawn.
Notice fairly big trees (compared to many new neighborhoods).
Take a good look at the awesome porch.

Porch Up Close.
I can't wait to find some cute furniture to spruce it up!

Living Room/Dining Room/Office
Walk inside the front door and you will find a very cozy open layout.
Check out those amazing hardwoods!

This is the office area {not shown above}.
Notice the half bath to the right.

Kitchen
It has tons of working space and cabinets.
I hope to make some improvements on some things in the future, but it's better than most we've seen in our price range!

Guest Bedroom
At the top of the stairs, you'll find a cute {nice sized} guest bedroom.
I love the windows and the closet is a decent size, too.

Guest Bathroom {Full}
Across the hall from the guest bedroom for better access.
Look carefully at the sink hardware {they are beautiful in each bathroom!}.
Storage under the sink is key.

Master
Down the hall a few steps, you'll find our {soon to be} retreat.
It's big enough for all our furniture AND Cooper's dog bed.
{There's even room for another dog bed that we'll hopefully need soon!?!}
The two very tall windows provide tons of warm sunlight!

The master bathroom is large enough for a third bedroom, but we love that we will have tons more space than any other place we toured.
{It's hard to imagine with pictures...}

HALF of the Walk-in Closet!
Yes, it's huge.
Hopefully, it'll fit all of our stuff. If not, Kurt may have to use some of the guest closet! :)

The bathroom has a huge wall of windows that provide tons of sunlight.
The sink is a little tall for me, but the storage is wonderful!!!

{There is also another room -to the left of the sink- where the shower/bathtub and toilet are housed}

Backyard
A great backyard was a deal breaker for us while looking for a house.
Coop will have SO much room to run around and play {with a sister...who knows?!?}
We also plan on adding a patio on the left side you can't see.

Two Car Garage
It's huge and CLEAN!
We will be able to store many things in there along with our cars.

I could go on and on while showing other pictures, but I don't want to bore you! I hope you are as smitten for our house as we are! We can't wait to move-in and start making it our own.

5 more weeks and we'll be back together as one very happy little family :)
{This makes me giddy thinking about it!}