hello, again + the hunt is on (part one).

I didn't give up yet!

In light of all my new changes this past year (that I shared last blog post), we're going to take an adventure back in time to late Winter/early Spring of 2009... To talk house hunting!

[Sprinkly, chime-like noise]

V and I started discussing moving back in together sometime last winter. By February, we were totally on board with the idea of buying a house together... I've always loved looking at house listings and floor plans and plotting my future home, so this whole thing was going to be right up my alley!

Of course, when we first started out in Feb/March, we were just casually "looking"... So we began with a few preliminary steps:

• Identifying the towns/counties/areas our ideal house would be located. This was modified a little bit down the road when our realtor became involved. As first time home-buyers, we didn't think about school districts, city growth, and taxes right out of the gate, so our realtor really helped us to think about a bigger picture.

• Make a list of "must haves", "preferreds" and "absolutely nots" (with the idea that sometimes a little give and take is necessary)... My "must haves" included things like acreage and a full basement. My "preferreds" were first floor laundry, two stories, three bedrooms and at least 2 baths. My "absolutely nots" were no cookie cutter houses, no city, and no sub-divisions.

V's only "must have"? At LEAST a three car garage...

• Lastly, set a budget. This was a hard prospect for me to overcome... When we first decided to start "looking", I had immediately logged onto some random real estate listings dot com, and were looking at (and falling in love with) houses that were 2-3 times our budget... Unknowingly. My advice? Don't. Even. Look. Not at all. Not until you know what your range is, at least. ...Maybe this should have been step one...

So that's how we got started. We did most of the grunt work on our own in the beginning... Searching real estate listings tirelessly, narrowing them down based on our criteria, then taking weekend drives to "potentials" and peeking in windows... The even further kerned down list was then sent along to our agent, and he would hook us up with a tour and subsequently be able to suggest similar houses that hadn't quite hit the internets yet. (This was fun. A real stressful kind of fun. But fun, nonetheless. That said, I don't recommend our rouge methods. If you have a real estate agent, use 'em... I'm just too controlling and ridiculous to do so.)

The following few weeks were a lot of trudging through "well, maybe's", "no's" and "absolutely not's" until we found "The One". We saw, and smelled, some doozies from all ends of the spectrum... Unidentifiable poop covered balconies, anyone?

[Warping back to present time]

So how did we choose our house? Did we get that feeling that everyone always talks about, but can never describe, and you think you'll never feel it? Spoiler: Yeah, we had it... And it was glorious.

Stay tuned for part two...