This week marks five years since we closed on our own little slice of dirt and pile of lumber.
It’s a funny milestone to Andy and me, because when we were house-hunting, we thought were just shopping for a five-year house. We just assumed we’d be ready to move after that.
At the time, this is what we thought would happen five years into the future, in the far-off year of 2013:
- We’d be ready to move back to Colorado Springs, where we’d lived for a year once and loved.
- We might’ve outgrown the house, although it seemed monstrous at the time.
- We might just be ready for a change, because we would definitely be done fixing up our fixer-upper by then.
- (Lofty goal) We’d hoped to throw every extra cent we could at the mortgage and get it paid off by then.
Now, five years into the future, this is how well we predicted our situation:
- We’d be ready to relocate to Colorado: Nope. Not yet, not with the kids as small as they are and family nearby.
- We would’ve outgrown the house: Nope. Still seems pretty big to us. We have no goals of ever living in a McMansion. If we ever adopt a buncha kiddos, we might upgrade for more bedrooms, but for now we realize that more “things” and more space = more responsibility and less freedom, so we’re very content.
- We’d be done fixing up our fixer upper: Yeahhhh… about that. There are still rooms we’ve barely touched! So much more to do here!
- We would’ve paid off the mortgage: If we hadn’t had kids, and I could still put all my income toward paying down debt while we lived off Andy’s income, we probably would’ve knocked it out by now. But we had kids and I left my job, so we’re not quite to that goal yet. We’re motivated and we’ve made lots of progress by being super thrifty, so hopefully soon!
We thought it’d be fun to take a few days and look back on what we’ve done and what’s still left to do. One thing I really want to talk about is our lessons learned from a DIY kitchen renovation, because there are SO many things I would’ve done differently if I could have it all over again. But there are also a few things I think we did right (accidentally!) and it’ll be fun to look back and celebrate those.
Want to see what our house looked like when we bought it?
Funny story: we hadn’t even laid eyes on it when we put in an offer. Craziness, right? We were about to relocate to the Atlanta area from Orlando for my job. My company paid for us to take one house-hunting trip, so we hopped back and forth all over Atlanta with my parents for a whole weekend, looking at ALL. THE. HOUSES. At the time, my mom was a realtor and my dad was a home inspector, so the four of us made a pretty solid team.
We definitely wanted a fixer-upper and were pretty easy-going in our expectations, but after a whole weekend of searching, nothing felt right. We went back to Orlando a little bummed out, but hopeful, and I continued to scour the internet for any new listing that popped up. One day our house came up for sale, and I called my mom and asked her to go take a look. My parents walked the property and took a bunch of pictures for us… which accidentally ended up being our only “before” pictures! (I KICK MYSELF FOR THIS EVERY MINUTE.)
Look, there’s their chihuahua!
They wandered room to room snapping photos for us. The dining room:
The office… (Seriously. THIS is my only “before” photo of the office. Just that ONE DANG WALL. WHY didn’t I take more photos?!!)
…The living room and kitchen…
The half bath, the garage…
(Too bad it has never been that clean ever again. Muahahaha.)
On to the upstairs… (Another chihuahua sighting!)
One QUICK photo of the guest room. (VERY understandable, since the carpet was covered in poop. Yes, literally. I don’t blame my parents for snapping one quick photo here and scooting on to the guest bath!)
The master bedroom:
Master bath:
Third bedroom, bonus room and laundry room:
And, of course the attic, which was apparently very important to my home inspector dad, since he took more photos of the attic than anywhere else in the house. Ha!
Thanks dad, that’s very helpful.
We saw the grody pics and were all: “Perfect! We’ll take it!” hahaha.
We put in an offer slightly below asking price. Not even a lowball. But it was a foreclosure, and the bank had a higher offer they accepted instead. We were bummed, but okay with it. Apparently this just wasn’t “the one.” We planned to move all our junk and our dog all the way to Atlanta and live in a hotel for two months, then with my parents until the right house came along.
Well.
On the drive to Atlanta, with all our stuff packed up and our dog in the backseat, we got a call from my mom that the other buyers’ financing had fallen through and the bank had accepted our offer!
*GULP!*
We drove STRAIGHT from Orlando to this house and walked it ourselves. We loved it and the deal was done! I remember very specifically sitting on the dirty, stained living room carpet with my mom and looking around. My mom said: “It’s not so bad. It won’t be too much work to fix it up.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
Oh, how funny this is in retrospect.
But we are thankful beyond words for our little fixer-upper and the opportunities it’s given us, to be creative, to problem-solve, to try new things together. We don’t take for granted the shelter and comfort the house gives us, especially compared to the rest of the world. It all seems crazy. And, of course, I’m unspeakably thankful it led to this little blog which is a complete dream come true so much that I can’t even explain it words.
We’ve learned a lot since that day five years ago when we closed and were handed the key! I’ll have more on what we would’ve done differently – and some then-and-now-photos – soon!
How did you find your house? Have you ever made a big purchase sight-unseen?
Hi, I'm Kelly. Glad you're here! This little blog is where I chronicle our efforts to fix up our beaten-down home on a tiny budget. We're not there yet, but here's a peek at the view along the way...
Wow, a home inspector and a realtor as parents. How awesome is that?
And it all turned out so amazing.
Isn’t it funny how “it doesn’t seem like that much work” actually means “A TON OF WORK”. Hidden jobs!
Um. The poop-floor would have definitely deterred me. So maybe it was a really good thing that you didn’t go look at it in person. Also. (random). Totally tested out your back-tabbed curtain thing this weekend and it changed my life.
happy house-iversary! it definitely has come a long way since those befores!! we’re 2 years in our home next month and I can’t believe it’s gone by SO FAST… I bought our house while Matt was at work (whoopsie) so he didn’t even see it until it was already ours- and it was DISGUSTING. that goodness he understood I had a vision for it! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this! It’s so funny, because a house like yours in my area (poop floors and all), would go for upwards of $800,000, with $15,000/yr taxes on top of it, so your home IS a McMansion to me! But I can relate to all of your sentiments – and I hope I’ve made as much progress on our new home in five years as you have on yours!
How fun! This fall will be 4 years for us. Sometimes I get an itch to look into moving to a bigger house, but for where we are in life right now our house is just right. Especially since we still haven’t finished the basement yet…
i can’t believe how amazing it is now, especially after seeing those pictures. and i think you should have asked for the chiauau as part of the deal.
and weston would love lavender i think.
We also planned to only be in our house five years. Ooohhhh, how naive we were…!
We had actually decided to stop househunting and just rent for a year when I went online to look “one last time” and found our house. We drove over and walked through it with two or three other families, then put an offer in the next day. There were several other offers, but ours won.
Wow, I had no idea your house needed so much “attention” when you bought it. It’s certainly come a long way! I’m in the process of buying a home that I was convinced was not big enough, but when I walked through, I knew it was the one. Happy Housiversary!
Sometimes I think we plan while God just sits back and shakes his head. LOL. We thought the same thing. We thought the house we are in is our temporary 5-7 year home and then we would get the dream home. While being here, we realized that we can have our mortgage paid off really soon and be financially free! That is so priceless and we have grown to love our little home. Now we are trying to make it ours…this is a LOFTY goal! Love your post! Thanks for sharing K! xo Kristin
You all do good work. I hadn’t seen all of the “befores”. Super impressive. We started building ours 5 years ago. Crazy how time flies!
What a great story … we, too, had that 5-7 year plan in mind for our first home. 18 years later ….
🙂 Linda
We found our house in 1998 when a friend mentioned his neighbor was “thinking about” selling his house. We called the neighbor and arranged to take a look at the house. Two months later it was ours. Our only worry about buying this house was getting our house sold in time.
By the way, don’t believe a 13 year old boy when he promises to do “all the work” necessary if we would only buy the house with the pool. He always found other things to do after the first summer.
Happy 5 years!!! Isn’t it funny when we gain some distance in a situation to look back and see the road to get there with all it’s twists and turns…to us at the time it seems like such chaos, but looking back it is like “oh…it worked out perfectly” and I love knowing that that was His plan all along. I am impressed because the poop all over the carpet might have deterred me. 😉 lol…and to see what you have created in the 5 years is amazing and totally inspiring! Have you guys started making your list on the next 5 years? Love doing that! 😉
I like how you looked back to see what your thoughts/goals were 5 years ago. It’s funny how things change, right? We moved into our house 3 years ago and are now house hunting again, for a total fixer up this time. I don’t think I thought that I’d ever actually be searching for a house with butt ugly carpet and cabinets so that I could rip them all out. There is a house in our town that is a civil enforcement sale that looks amazing. It’s a good price, on a good lot, BUT, there are NO showings and no pictures. You have to buy it totally sight unseen. It’s a big risk…but one that I can’t quite get out of the back of my head.
Wow, you’ve really done so much with your house in 5 years! That’s impressive! Happy houseiversary!
Wow, I don’t think I have ever seen a picture of the outside of your home, the inside is so adorable I guess I never thought about the exterior, and it surprised me! It has certainly come a looong way. I love the poop carpet picture….in our house I always said it looked like someone had thrown a slop bucket on our dining room carpet…it was the first thing to go when me moved in. Siiiick. Happy House-iversary!
That is so amazing–realtor and home inspector. I had to laugh. My daughter just had an inspection done of a home she did *not* (bummer) get at an auction–I understand all the photos of the attic. Pooped carpet is nothing compared to mold and rotting eaves.
I note you did not give the square footage of this “little” slice/fixer-upper. Yep–seems like a Mcmansion to me–maybe because I’ve been raising 10 little critters (most are now bigger than me) in an 1840 square foot house. (Most people assume we have a gigantic house with 5 or 6 bedrooms…nope. Try 3, and one barely wide enough for the bunk beds.)
Your story is amazing…you have made the house your HOME and that’s the real difference. And besides, God knew all along and was directing even when you didn’t see it.
Our houses are veeeery similar. Except backwards. My garage is on the left. But I could totally walk through this with you. Weird!
This is a GREAT post!! I love reading your goals then and now. 🙂 Yesterday was our two year anniversary of living in this house!
Sight unseen AND poop covered carpet! You are so brave! But it’s paid off….I’d say you’ve made some slight improvements in the past five years 😉
Wow, your house is gorgeous! I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of the outside. It’s exciting to look back on the progress you’ve made. I remember when we’d been in our house for four years and thinking, “That’s not possible! I still hardly have anything on the walls!” 🙂 Your home is beautiful!
Great idea for a post! Our house went to someone else first and their ‘financing fell through’ also! I’m convinced they got wind of all the work that needed to be done and walked away. Yay, us!
(And it’s not like there aren’t products to remove the poop from the carpet… C’mon people.)
Xo Charlotte
I would have jumped on that house too. It looks so great! I have only rented sight unseen. When we first moved to the states in 2000 I found our apartment online.
The house we live in now, we found ourselves. When we walked around I said: I love this house, but the stair case needs to be moved. If we can move it, I want this house LOL. So we bought the house and moved the stair case 🙂
Yup, we just did about the same thing. We currently live overseas and my hubby flew me back to VA to house hunt. 1 week. 1 week. While I was enroute my hubby was contacted by a homeowner that had received a letter we had written to all the homeowners in a neighborhood we thought would be perfect. The letter said we were looking if they were interested in selling to contact us. So when we landed I got a message that I needed to go look at this house. Not listed, the owners had just been thinking of selling. Nothing was prepped for a showing. They had just gotten back from a holiday. But they kindly opened their home for me to do a quick walk through… awkward as they were there. I think I spent 15 minutes looking at the house top to bottom. Long story short we bought it. My family has only seen pictures taken by our realtor and I spent a brief 15 minutes walking through it. In August we will call it home! Let the fun begin!
We celebrated 5 years in our tiny house this spring, and I had to giggle when I read your post because we put our offer in sight-unseen too! Our realtor did our negotiations while we were on vacation, they agreed to our offer (I admit it was a low-ball, but they immediately accepted because the market was starting to dive, it had been sitting for months, and they were already in their new home) and we put it all on paper after a 10 minute walk-through when we arrived back in town. Now that we’ve started to make it our own, it feels like home and our plan is to stay another five years. Right now I’m fantasizing about painting our kitchen cupboards, upgrading the countertop, replacing lino with tile and building a deck, detached garage and work on some more outdoor projects. The work never seems to end, but I don’t think I want it to!
My mom and stepdad bought the house I resided in 1998-2012 and it was an old army townhouse type and they were renovating it at the time of showing… so the bathroom was gutted (tub in downstairs livingroom, toilet outside, and all the old tiles were in the hallway) wood floors were worn and scratched beyond belief and not painted yet so I guess it could have been sight unseen.
When we moved in 2 weeks later, it was a totally different house!
Love hearing the house story! And it makes me feel better that you’ve lived there for 5 years and still have lots of updating to go. We’ve lived in our house for 3 and I pretty much thought I’d knock out the whole re-do in the first summer – haha (you think I would know better considering our first house was half the size and took almost 5 years)! Three years later, we’ve still got PLENTY of updating left on our list – no end in sight…
Ummm…WHY was there that much poop on the floor?? Who was living there and why did they use the carpet for such business? Of your whole account, that has me the most baffled! It’s a beautiful house though and you and Andy have done an amazing job with it. I think I could live in my house another 15 years and still not be “done.” This DIY business is a blessing and a curse, no?
We are equally baffled! You’d be shocked at some of the craziness the previous owners left behind. A pile of hair…?? The poop floors… We think (hope?) that they just left some dogs or cats in that room and didn’t clean up after them. But there’s just noooo way to know what the heck was happening there! YUCK.
ewwww poop floor. I can handle a lot, but poop where it shouldn’t be is not one of them. Good thing my children will be perfect and never, ever poop anywhere except their diaper and the toilet. 😉 Happy House-iversary! 🙂
I love looking at this because we had the same house when we lived in Atlanta. A couple of slight floor plan variations but very, very close! It brings back many happy memories. We did a lot of work in our two and a half years but now we’ve moved on to Texas and started over on our current house. You’ve done a great job on your home. Thanks for the inspiration!
Holly
Happy houseiversary! You guys are brave souls! The poop covered floors would’ve been the ultimate deal breaker for me! Happy everything worked out for you in the end though because your house is so beautiful! 🙂
happy 5 years!!! You have turned your home into a beautiful place to call home!!! Cheers to all the fun DIY projects!! 🙂
It’s our 3 year houseiversary tomorrow! You guys sure have brought that house a long way!!
Happy Houseiversary!!!! Your story is similar to ours except we already had three kids and have had one more since we moved into our fixer upper foreclosure 2 years ago. We had done a walk through but were fixated on another house and didn’t pay much attention. tgen when the other house fell through, my husband put an offer on this one & I couldn’t remeber ANYTHING about it! good thing I trust him!
We are NOWHERE near being done with even half of what we want do–these kids take up a lot if time & energy! 🙂 But we love how far it’s come!
It has gone from retro seventies with linoleum, avocado appliances, and lime green shag carpet to a classic, calming, somewhat cottagey feel with lots of white, gray, and blues. We love our house and are looking forward to tons more projects in the future!
Despite the poopy floor, what a great find! My husband and I plan to move in the next few years. We hope to be able to find a foreclosure that needs a little TLC. We shall see.
It’s pretty fabulous seeing the ‘befores’ like this – through naive eyes 5 years ago and thinking about how beautiful you’ve made the place, truly a home rather than just a house. So funny that we did the same thing – thinking we’d be here 5 years max and after 2 1/2 years realised that we were in for a much longer haul (we’ve tacked on another 5 years, who knows what happens when we get there as we keep saying how lucky we were to find this place)! Also? Total McMansion in comparison to what you get in the UK 😉 IT’S ENORMOUS! Happy Housiversary darling! xxx
Your home is so spacious!! How lovely — looking forward to seeing the “then and nows”! We’ve been in ours for 14 1/2 years and there’s much I would love to “do over”, but alas, time and money dictate much of that. Someday we’ll downsize and will be very happy to do so. 🙂
xo Heidi
Talk about a dream team! Happy House-Iversary!! We just sold our little home of 6 years. We had the same idea to be there for only about 5 years but we did not foresee some other events, especially this little baby and having to rent for a year before we buy again. We start looking for our (hopefully) forever home in Jan and I CANT wait. No house is perfect but there’s just something about being able to make a house YOUR home. Congrats again!! You guys have one warm, loving; gorgeous place. 🙂
Happy 5 years!! 🙂 It’s so funny what our expectations are when we first find a house and how unrealistic they actually are! I thought I’d have way more done by now too 😉
My husband & I were still reeling from previous marriages and the bad credit we were left with so we managed to save a whole $2,500 & were looking at Non Qualifying Assumption houses. We finally found the one but the owner wanted $10,000 down so we asked if he’d take a side note for the remainder after our $2,500. By the time the realtor called us we had decided to save for a while longer so keep an eye out for us. Well about 45min. later the realtor said the man said he’d take the $2,500 and he paid for the title search, realtor fee, closing costs ect. So we bought our perfect house for a grand total of $2,500! Twenty two years later & we’re still here & have no plans on moving.
I can’t wait to hear the whole story of how to got from then to now. Sometimes ‘sight unseen’ ends up to be the perfect vision.
Happy House-iversary! You guys have done an awesome job turning that beast into a beauty. Our house hunting adventure was a quick one. We met with a Realtor on a Wednesday, looked at 8 houses on the following Saturday, found ours, looked at it again on Monday, put an offer on it on Tuesday, and the offer was accepted on Thursday. 1 week and 1 day. We weren’t even in that big of a hurry– it’s just how it happened, and here we are 4 years later!
So neat to see how far you guys have come in 5 years! It was fun to read some commonalities between us (my husband and I met at UCF and we lived in Orlando for awhile before moving out to Colorado for more schooling.) We’re now in VA and hoping to buy our first home one day soon.
Happy house-iversity ! I know what you mean about the before photos. I didn’t take good photos of our weekend home either… and now I’m kicking myself…. I took pics with some furniture in it already….That will have to do for now. 1 room done, 15 more to go!! Esh! I think I’ll be writing a post like yours in 5 years and not be done yet! lol
regards
Emily @ TownAndCountryShuffle
Oh I know! I wish I had so many more “before” pictures!
We actually bought the first house we looked at. We drove by some listings, ours had an open house. We checked it out, brought my parents back to check it out, and then made an offer that day. And here we are, 6 years later, with one room still awaiting remodeling completion.
Loved reading this story! It sounds like it was meant to be! Your home is beautiful- you should be so proud. We’ve never put in an offer on a home sight unseen but we did put in an offer on a piece of property without my husband having seen it. And we had an offer on our home from an out of state couple that didn’t technically “see” it so it does happen! It’s a serious leap of faith!
Kelly, you and your husband did good! The house had good bones, and you’re dressing it to perfection! I found my little house thru a friend, the lady who owned it put herself into a home at the age of 98, it was never updated, but on the garage she had a cupola and weather vane 😀 We’d drive by (well not really, it’s on a dead end) and pull all the way into the driveway and sit there and laugh about how much fun it would be when we lived around the block from each other. Just the main floor was finished, so into it I moved with three small boys, and slowly … very slowly, as a single mom I’m redoing each room. But I’ve had such good times here, with tons of laughter and the house is filled with Love! Who could ask for more?
Happy house-iversary ! I love your house and how you decorate it so well in 5 years. I cant imagine how it looks in the next 5 years 🙂
we’re kindled spirits!! we bought a foreclosure too!! totally terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time!!! Looking forward to more of your house-iversary!!!!!~~Angela
Congrats on your house-iversary! Your house has great curb appeal. I am interested to learn from your adventures in reno’ing it.
I love this story! and great to have grody before photos because it makes your fabulous after photos look that much better (not that you need any help in that department!) Uh, I’m wondering why in the world that room was full of poop. haha, what a story and ya’ll have done wonders for your beautiful home!
Those befores are something else. It just shows that much more how awesome your work is girl!
Isn’t it funny how things work out? Our home was a house I used to sit on the swings at recess in elementry school and daydream! I would always say “Someday I’ll own a house like that!” And when we came to look at the house we drove past it thinking it was out of our price range and I guess it didn’t click for me! Then when we were walking up the walk I told my hubby it was “the one” And we asked to put in an offer before even looking around! Of course we did get around to it but we just knew!
Aww, this is such a great story! It really was meant to be! 🙂 I hope our home looks half as good as yours after we have it five years! We have a tiny farm house… really tiny. So I appreciate your outlook on more space = more responsibility and less freedom. I will keep that in mind next time I feel crammed in our entryway/diningroom/mudroom. Ha! Loved your story! 🙂
Happy House-iversary!!! It’s amazing to look back at where you started and see the beautiful home that you have today. So lucky for us that you got this house so you can share your house journey with us. Great post. 🙂 Sharon
That’s incredible! I’m so glad y’all were able to get the house. You definitely found the right house for your family!
Girl, I am right there with ya! I thought we were going to move out of our place and rent it out when we’d lived here 3 years. 4.5 years later, and we’re still going strong with lots of projects to tackle, lol. You’ve completely transformed the place and it looks so amazing now! (I never would have guessed that it started out with poop on the carpet!) Hope you’re having a great week, friend!
~Abby =)
You guys have made some wonderful improvements, and it looks really big! I don’t know if we would ever outgrow that house 😉
We actually bought our house without my husband seeing it till we closed…I viewed it and he saw it on line. Sometimes you just know!
Happy House-iversary, Kelly! What a neat story of God’s providence. It’s encouraging for me to read this story as we are saving to buy our first home in the next year (hopefully). It all feels so overwhelming, but then I remember, God has it all figured out. We just need to show up, use the brains he has given us, and trust Him with the rest. He will provide again as He has every time before. (Easier said than done, but I’m workin’ on it!)
P.S. Okay, now I’m just being nosey, but why was there poop on that rug? Previous pets? Rabid raccoons that got into the house? Untrained small children? And why I am so curious about the poop rug? Gross, Lauren.
LOVE the poop floor story—out 1st house was unbelievably disgusting. We moved 3 times while I was pregnant the 1st time..rental to rental while house hunting for repo…cant even remember how many offers we put in. Think I looked at the house once before we put in an exceeding low offer…it had astonishing amount of dog poop in the garage which had been “converted”–we described it as “perverted”. The rest of the house was barely liveable but my husband was gleeful when we were approved. I absolutely refused to have anything to do with cleaning it, which is so not me…I am the cleaning nut in the relationship. But he rented cleaner and cleaned poop and cleaned floors/carpet at least 3 times. And I was 8 months pregnant but had to paint every room before I would even move in–the food on all the chalky builders grade paint was just too much. I was never so glad to get rid of the carpet when we could afford tile. Oh and we lived in the house for 12 years with 3 kids before moving “up” to yet another fixer upper! But we sold the 1st for more than double what we had paid and had saved enough to pay for current house up front, so frugality and DYI paid off. My current obsession is removing popcorn ceilings whenever the guys leave for
‘guy time”..4 rooms left to go…
your 5 year plan sounds a lotttttt like the 5 year plan my husband and I have cookin up in our heads for our first home….scares me a little to embrace the reality that it’s JUST a plan and that means it probably won’t turn out that way. eeeeeeek