Home is Whenever I'm With You

The photos of our house on the realty site.

Well, kids. It's the lucky number 13th anniversary of me closing on our house. I honestly never thought I would be able to afford a house, but because of President Obama's $8,000 for a first time home buyer deal, an FHA loan, and my brother fronting me the $8,000 that I paid back once the government sent me the check, it actually happened, Soooo, thanks Obama!...No, really. Thank you so much.

Of course, I could barely afford to pay my mortgage, my insurance, my taxes, and my mortgage insurance (basically a poor tax) when I was single and both my girls were in high school. On top of my full-time job, I mowed lawns, and donated plasma, and squeaked by every month.

Our house now.

About a year and a half later, John bought into the mortgage, and helped put down more money, so we could refinance and stop having to pay the stupid mortgage insurance.

We also spent about $10,000 to get our crawl space encapsulated, so we don't have any moisture down there, and we haven't seen any termites since then either.  Whew! That was basically the reason our house was on the market for two years before I bought it.

The photo of our kitchen on the realty site.

Our house was built in 1950, and in addition to the crawl space work, everything else needed love too. Even with both mine and John's contributions, we haven't been able to take care of everything at once. We've already done two different remodels on the kitchen. The first was new countertops, painting the walls and the cupboards, and removing the upper cupboard doors.

Our remodeled kitchen.

The second remodel was a couple of years ago. We (meaning John and our friend, Seaghan) had to rip up part of our kitchen floor to replace some joists that were damaged when we had all of that moisture in our crawlspace, or when something leaked, or both.

We also repainted the walls, scraped off the popcorn ceiling and painted it, replaced the ceiling fans, replaced the floor tile, replaced all of the appliances, and my brother put in a hood vent for us. It's almost a whole new kitchen, and we'll probably have to do a few other things to it eventually.

Like I always say, I'm glad everyone is different and has their own tastes, or the world would be a very boring place.I love our older house, and I like to have decor according to that period, but also a little more updated. I like chrome, and checkered floors, and our gigantic porcelain sink in the kitchen. At some point, we'll do a backsplash, but that will take some more money savings and time. For now, I love our kitchen. It's huge and funky, and colorful...And you KNOW how much I love color...

Last year in December, my brother gave us the wonderful gift of staying with us for 10 days and fixing up our bathroom. It had been really disgusting before that. He changed out the sink, retiled the floor, and took out the surround and replaced it with white subway tile in the shower, put in a new faucet in the tub and sink, and painted our wainscoting. John installed new lights, and sealed everything, and I scraped, sanded and painted our window and the ceiling and the walls. It's still very small, but it looks like a dream to me. Thanks, Uncle Bill! We stuck with the black and white tile for the floor and used a green and rust color scheme for the paint and towels and bathmats.

Our living room when we first moved in. I painted it a camel color because it's such a dark room and I wanted it to feel warmer

Back when I bought our house, we had very little money for furniture. Our old apartment just had a futon couch and a Papasan chair. What some people would call dorm furniture, but I would call poor people furniture. I wanted something better than that, and there used to be a Kalona Furniture Store place on the Coralville strip. I was able to buy a couch, a loveseat, and a big chair for a little over $300. One of my co-worker's gave me her old 1970's style coffee and side table, and I bought a rug from Target.

For $300, those couches and chair sure held up well, but they were definitely not my style, they were too big for the space, and after 13 years, they were really starting to show their age (something I totally understand). So, last year I looked at a sectional from Ashley furniture. They were having a big sale, and I almost pulled the trigger, but I'm glad I didn't. I went home and read reviews and they all said that after a few months the fabric pilled and looked gross and it was cheaply made. 

We kept saving, and about a month ago, I started looking online and pricing furniture, and reading reviews, and I settled on Albany Park for our couches, and Burrow for our coffee and side table. I would have bought the couches from Burrow too, but they were a lot more expensive, and the reviews said they were more narrow and not very comfortable. They also didn't have an olive green color, which I think looks great in our mid-century house. We still have an ottoman, and a swivel chair coming from Albany Park, but it's taking WAAAYYYY longer for them to deliver those.

Our new TV console, and yes, we do still have DVD's and CD's. We're old like that.

 The last thing we wanted for our living room was a TV console. We wanted a walnut color to match our living room tables, we didn't want it to be too bulky, and ideally, we would love for it to have covered storage. Looking for a TV console under $1000 sucks! We wanted real wood. I bought our last TV stand at Best Buy when I first bought the house and it was made of particle board, and looked like crap, but it was all I could afford. John and I both looked online and read reviews, but anything we could afford was not going to be made of real wood, or if it was, it was going to be all cheap and janky looking.

Last weekend, John and I decided to go shopping in real stores, so we could see what things looked like up close and personal. We both HATE to shop, and when I told The Youngest our plan for last Saturday, she asked, "Who ARE you?'

We drove all the way to a furniture store in Williamsburg. It wasn't really our style, and it was all so BIG. So, we went to Ashley in the mall (lord help me) and that was the same. The sh*t there was all pretty heinous, and too expensive for "manufactured" wood. So, we went to the rich people store called Dwell. They had a few things we liked, but I wasn't trying to spend my life's savings to buy it.

Then we headed to Amish country, where there are about a bazillion antique stores. That was all way more our style. There was a lot of really cool stuff, and it was all pretty affordable. I did find a cute little cupboard that would have worked had it been twice as big, or there had been two of them and I could have smooshed them together.

We tried one last stop on our way home, and went to Restore. It's the Habitat for Humanity store and they have all kinds of furniture and old doors and windows. Most of it is donated.We got our super swank front door there for $25 a few years ago.

There are two parts to the Restore venue. One is mostly doors and sinks and old bathtubs, and we thought we'd check it out in case there were some old cupboards we could use. There was not. Then we went to the furniture store part, and the minute we walked in, we saw a guy moving a TV console in on a dolly. We rushed right over and checked it out. It was all wood, and not too bulky or wide, and it was a dark color, just not walnut. It didn't have much covered storage, and it needs to be sanded and refinished on the top, but we bought a runner for it for now, and I'll sand and refinish it when it warms up outside. The best part of all, was that it was $38. FOR. REAL.

I like that we didn't have to buy something new, and I love the price. Now, all we have to do is get our ottoman and swivel chair, and our living room will be set for now.

I'm hoping to paint our tiny hallway and work on our laundry room this Winter. I know people like to buy new houses, because they're less work and all, but they don't stay new forever, and our 1950's house really is built like a tank. 

 

 

 

So, happy 13th anniversary to our homeownership! We've had so many memories, both good and bad here. Of course, my favorite memory is when we got married in our upstairs dormer room with our daughters and their partners as witnesses. I hope to be able to live here until I die...Or until they carry me away to the old folks home, whichever comes first. I'm pretty sure we'll still be working on this place until that time as well, and I'm good with that.