we have a house (not legally)...

maybe i should say, "we have a contract!" we made an offer on house friday afternoon, and FINALLY heard back.

it all started a week and a half ago when we got a notice saying as of aug 1st our rent would be going up $80...yikes. i panicked and freaked out, of course, but my patient, loving husband was quick to remind me that my worry and lack of faith were not christ-like. he read me a passage from an awesome book, crazy love, that was exactly what i needed to hear. so we chose to give it to god, and trust him. big surprise, he was faithful (as if he never is)!

this past thursday we met with our realtor who is a friend from muskogee. we chose to use her 1. for our lack of knowledge. we felt that we could be completely stupid with her, and she could educate while we kept our dignity! 2. because she's a feisty woman that would know how to "fight" the other side if need be. and 3. we just really like her! she's come up 3 seperate times through out the summer to look with us.

this brings us to last thursday. we had 5 houses to look at. the first we walked out of and weren't in the least bit interested. then we headed over to the second (ours). we were surprised to see that it was next door to one we were really interested in back in may, but we just weren't quite ready at the time. we had met some friends of our friends that live a few houses down and got to ask them questions about the street and stuff. so we walked in this house, and immediately liked the floor plan and all the natural light it had. one thing we've come to hate in the price range we were looking is the lack of windows or very high little windows. this house also had an extra living space which is huge because i wanted 3 true bedrooms plus a playroom! one thing we vehemently disliked is the smell! go figure, the moss' would find somewhere to live where the smell is awful ! seriously, we walked in and had to walk back out to breathe and get fresh air.

this house was a foreclosure that an investor bought. she flipped it in the past month and a half. she had already re-tiled some of it, but were waiting to replace the carpet when a buyer came along so they could choose the color. it smelt like thick dog ...yuck!

so we left that house and looked at the last 3 that were equally as bad as the first. by the end of the time, i was so overwhelmed and tired and bummed that we hadn't fallen in love with. once i got home though and really thought about house number 2, i started loving it and seeing the potential for it (although it's really move-in ready, i just want to redo the kitchen soon!). the other gross houses tainted my view of this lovely home! our realtor already had a call in to the selling realtor about the smell so once we heard back from him with some positive thoughts, i started getting really excited.

friday morning, we headed down to muskogee to sign the contract. i was a ball of nerves. i mean as exciting as it is, it's still a huge commitment! i felt like we were asking a lot of the seller, but the only thing they could say was no. i forgot to say that the the house had beautiful, dark hardwoods under the carpet in the living room and the bedrooms so we asked them if they would consider refinishing the hardwoods instead of laying carpet again. they had to lay carpet in the den/playroom because it was an add-on and there are no hardwoods under it which is fine because it's a playroom! we also asked for part of closing costs, a 1 year warranty, repairs from the finds of the inspector, and a couple other little things. the floors though were huge. we were ok with them saying no and just putting carpet down.

so fast forward to a long 28 hours later, we finally heard from the other realtor he was pretty sure everything looked good. i wanted a definite yes or no, but a promising response was ok, too!
he also said he wanted to meet us at the property on sunday to discuss the carpet choice. oops...i forgot to say that saturday when we took my family by to look in windows, they had already pulled the nasty carpet out. ok, so we met the other realtor last evening to get the contract and give him our earnest money and check out the carpet. as soon as i walked in, i was so relieved because the pungent smell was gone! it only smelt like an older home! so hopefully, after we repaint and they sand and varnish the floors, it will be as good as new.

i have so dreaded this process, that i am even more thankful with how smooth it's gone so far (knock on wood!). we get to do the fun inspection this week and a few other small things. canon and i are taking off to branson for a few days with my mom and sisters while lane is at a leadership summit. then we'll meet up with him in joplin sat for his cousin's wedding. busy week.

i'm off to lowe's to make a list of what we need at first...

also, if you made it to the end of this, i'm struggling with finding a color for the shutters and the door. the brick and siding are so similar that i can't figure it out! any suggetions? i'm desperate!