While in college I lived in the dorms and my senior year I moved into an apartment with a friend for one year. After that I moved into a house with three girlfriends for one year and then another apartment by myself for three years before buying my house. I remember in April 2005 I decided I wanted to buy a house. I was 26 at that time and had always figured I'd be married by then and have bought a house with my husband. There was no prince charming in sight at that time, so I decided why not go ahead and buy a house.
I knew I wanted an older house that had character and charm to it, and I wanted it in a certain area in Springfield. I contact a realtor friend of my parents, Sandy Schmidly, and we started working together to find the perfect house for me. I gathered all the paperwork to submit for loan preapproval and once that went through, we were good to go! Sandy took me around looking at houses and I actually put an offer on a house before finding the house I ended up buying. The seller did not accept my offer and I am so thankful that they didn't! This house seemed like it would be perfect, but in the end my house was the absolute best for me!
I remember the night we looked at my house for the first time. It was a Wednesday night and there were actually 3-4 other people looking at it at the same time we were. It was perfect! It was in a great location and neighborhood, had one bedroom and an office, had a basement, hardwood floors, built in 1940, had a nice backyard, a carport and detached one-car garage, a fireplace...lots of things I wanted and lots of things that were like perks to me. I think the main things I wanted were this particular area in Springfield, hardwood floors, and a garage.
I loved it so much that I called my parents to come over and look at it. They were at church that night so came over when they were done, maybe around 8 or so. They liked it, too, so I decided to make an offer on the house.
Sandy wrote up the paperwork that night and brought it to me to sign at work the next day. She submitted it around 9 that morning and I just had to sit and wait for the call from her to tell me if they'd accepted my offer or not. That was the longest day of waiting! I didn't hear from her until 5pm that afternoon and was so super excited to hear that the seller had accepted my offer! I was on my way to officially being a homeowner!
We went through the buying/selling process and finally closed on the house on August 19. I remember signing and signing and signing my name and then going over to my very own house that evening after closing. Oh it was fun! My parents came over and we had pizza in my family room. I didn't actually move in until the next weekend because I had the hardwood floors refinished that week and it just worked better to wait.
I lived in my house from August 27, 2005-April 17, 2010, when I moved into Ross' house after getting married. So many memories were made in that house! Good times with friends and family, parties, sitting in my office having "the talk" with Ross that officially began our dating relationship....oh so, so many memories in that little house! And, I certainly can't forget all the work I did or had done to it: refinished the hardwood floors, my dad put in an automatic garage door opener, ceiling fans, tearing down all the wallpaper and repainting each room in the house, painting the outside of the house (all by myself), getting grass to grow in the backyard and updating the landscaping in the front, putting in a flowerbed along the garage with my mom, a new roof, a new HVAC system, new windows, and so many things I haven't listed. I should mention, though, that a lot of the upgrades would not have been possible without my Dad! I should really think of it as much of his house as mine for all the work he did to it over the years!
After Ross and I got married I moved into his house and we rented my house out. The market wasn't very good at the time and we knew we wouldn't make anything if we tried to sell it, so we rented it for three years. We had a good renter who took care of the house like he owned it.
Those three years of renting the house were good for me - it gave me time to "break up," so to say, with my house! I think it would have been hard to sell it right away after getting married. I just put so much love into that house that I needed time to get over it!
It's funny how time can help you get over things and also change your perspective. When I lived there the house was perfect for me. Sure it was small and things were old, but I loved it. Earlier this summer after our renter moved out, we went over to make sure everything was left in good condition. I remember thinking how small and old the house was! The bathroom was so super small to me, as was the kitchen and kitchen sink! I'm just so used to the space we have in our house now that my little house just seemed so small!
We put my house up for sale in July and had a contract on it after about 4 weeks. We had to do some work to get it ready to sell, but everything paid off. It sold for more than I bought it for eight years ago, and we made a little money off of it. We didn't make anything near what I put into it, but that's okay. The guy who bought it was looking for an older house like this and will hopefully love it as much as I have.
Good-bye little 1227 East Linwood house. You were so good to me and I will miss you!
Here's a link to the house pictures I have posted on Facebook.
 |
| The new home owner! Friday, August 19, 2005 |
 |
| My house after painting it, September 2006. |
 |
| My house after moving out in April 2010. |
No comments:
Post a Comment