Under Contract

A few weeks ago we did our Fort Hood househunting trip and it wasn't quite what I was anticipating. I never thought that we would actually make an offer on a house during this first trip, but we did. We had been looking for months online at houses in that area and had made one sweep through on a trip from Austin to Waco in August to get a better idea of exactly which neighborhoods we liked and didn't like. One of the neighborhoods we initially thought would be an option turned out to be a no go after we scoped it out on our drive through. So we were back to the drawing board and budget board to figure out how much we were willing to spend on this house investment.

A few weeks ago we finally got word that we would definitely be going to Fort Hood so we decided to do our first househunting trip over Columbus Day weekend. We had been in contact with the realtor and told her what we were looking for and the price range we wanted to stay in and all those details. Her initial list of houses she sent back was more than disappointing. Over half of them were in a neighborhood that we absolutely did not have any interest in living. We sent her some others that didn't make her cut that we were interested in seeing and went from there.

On househunting morning, she showed us 3 houses and while we were in the 2nd house she started talking about a house next door to her that had a similar layout to the one we were in and never said much about taking us to see it until a few houses later. All 3 of the first houses we saw, we really liked, but they were zoned to a high school or had the probability of being rezoned to a high school into which we don't want our home to feed. We saw 4 more houses and none of them were spectacular to us. Then she took us to her 'ace in the hole' house - the one right next door to her personal house! I think she was feeling us out to see if she really wanted us to be her neighbors.

I walked in the door and tried to not like it! Seriously!! It was above the price range we had initially set in our minds. It was a beautiful home from the floors, to the doors, to the lighting, to the counters and all the little touches that had been done to make this home feel like a custom home! There was absolutely nothing wrong with this house. It was perfect in so many ways.

We had to leave it to go see a house that was on our initial short list of houses that we were very interested in. This house was a beautiful home, but in a sketchy, unrestricted zoning area. There were some really nice houses around it, but there were also poorly taken care of homes and cars on cinder blocks! If this was a house that we were going to live in for the rest of our lives and never try to sell, I think we may have been more interested, but that's not the case right now.

The day of househunting was over and we were left to mull over our choices while eating a #1 from Chick Fil A! We were both still in shock over her 'ace in the hole' house and couldn't get it off our minds. We were really like every episode of HGTV's House Hunters you've ever seen and predicted that the people would choose the house that was out of their price range or over their initial budget. After deciding that this was the house we wanted, we called the realtor to get the contract going.

So this is what we're getting...

This is the view from the front door into the living room. These are ceramic tile floors that look like hardwoods. They are beautifully deceptive! Here is the limestone fireplace that will probably never have a fire built in it, so it's just for looks! The front exterior of the house is made from this same limestone, if I remember correctly. I don't even have a picture of the outside of the house! Shameful, I know.

Here is the kitchen with granite countertops, an island and ceramic tile backsplash. I can't wait to cook my first meal here and spend every night of my life scrubbing little fingerprints off of the stainless steel appliances! The eat in part of the kitchen is just to the left.

Finally is the jacuzzi tub that will probably rarely be used except maybe by the kids! This same tile work is done on the shower to the left.
These were the best pictures I could get. I can't wait to get our stuff in there and make it our home. It truly is a blessing from the Lord and I feel like it's a reward for practicing good discipline with our finances from the beginning of our marriage. If all goes according to plan, we'll have the keys in our hands by the end of next month!