Closed!

This past Monday, two days after got back from our trip, we closed on our house!

This picture has over 100 likes on Facebook. Didn't know I even had that many friends.

We're not planning on moving in right away. There's actually a whole host of things we (er, I) want to get done before that, and we have our apartment lease until the end of October. The main thing we're getting done is an overhaul of the master bathroom. We'll also be getting a half bath installed in the basement (somehow), painting, hanging shelves and pictures, and buying enough furniture to actually fill a house. I have some longer-term DIY projects in my head as well that will be conquered later. And yes, of course I will be uploading before & after's to the blog!

This is the only picture I have from the inside of the house right now. 

One thing that has already happened with searching for and then buying a house is unsolicited advice. I've heard you get a lot of this when you have a baby, but that actually didn't happen to me much (minus a random lady at Wal-Mart telling me about some baby who died from getting a vaccine the day before Cora's 2-month shots). Anyway, a few close family members already have a lot of toes in the toilet, or whatever the expression is. At least one of those family members will be helping us with a handful of stuff, so I guess I should listen. Or something.

I'm actually very overwhelmed with the idea of home-ownership, especially since B works so much. I've never had to do much maintenance or upkeep in the small apartments we've rented, but now I have to learn a whole new world (while simultaneously keeping a small child alive and happy). That bathroom renovation I mentioned? Yeah, I don't even know where to start. I think I need to call a bath designer, but where does one find one? Google is okay, but I only got like 3 leads from it. Maybe I need to go old-school and check a phone book.

Let's focus on the positive so I stop whining about achieving the American Dream. The things I am looking forward to once we move in? Well, they're the little things.

• Decent water pressure. Our apartment has absolutely terrible water pressure and it takes so long to fill my water bottle in the kitchen sink that I usually do something else while I wait. (I'm thirsty and impatient!) And we use the toilet plunger more than we should.
• Not having to haul groceries up an extra long flight of stairs behind a very slow toddler. I can just bring them through the garage!
• A large pantry. You don't even want to see the state of our apartment pantry right now. Pretty sure when you open the door, everything falls out.
• A dedicated laundry room with a door that closes.
• Lots of counter space in the kitchen (yes, that's an island you see in the picture!) Finally going to ask Santa for a KitchenAid stand mixer.
• A basement for all of Cora's big toys. No more riding cars into the kitchen while I'm trying to cook!
• A dining area large enough to have more than 2 people over for dinner. My mom has already inquired into bringing everyone up here for Thanksgiving! ("Everyone" is my parents plus my sister's family, so 6 extra people.)
• A garage for my car! (This will be more awesome in the winter.)

Well, it's an incomplete list, but those are the things I thought of today as I was inconvenienced by my current living situation (which is actually a rather nice apartment).

But here we go on our next adventure. Yikes.