Accepted Offer & House Tour

Posted on August 3, 2012 by vanessawyler

We got word yesterday that our offer was ACCEPTED, meaning now begins the rest of the steps (and packing)! Steps such as: 1. Turn in Earnest Money on Saturday. 2. Home Inspection Monday. 3. Talk with our lender about financing again. 4. Get quotes for home insurance. 5. Close!

We are so thrilled that we finally found our house and can start dreaming about it more – I am especially thinking of all the ways I can decorate it and make it our own. A few points that we love about it is the location (a short walk to Pewaukee Beach/Lake), it’s a tri-level (two living spaces are really nice) and has lots of potential – especially the kitchen! Here is a house tour (courtesy of the realtors photos). The next few weeks as we are waiting to close, I’ll share more detailed plans about what we want to do with each space along with my decorating vision.

Things to Do When We Finally Own a Home

Posted on August 2, 2012 by vanessawyler

I’ve been thinking about this list lately, all the new things we can do that we couldn’t do while we were renting our apartment. Most of these things are simple, not awesome things, but when you haven’t been able to do them for 2+ years, you start to appreciate them! Here it goes…

Things to Do When We Finally Own a Home
– Paint the Walls: you have no idea how much this was killing me, especially being a graphic designer. I tried my best to decorate around off-white walls or add a backsplash made of place mats from target.

– Play Dance Central and actually jump, not fake it: Due to the fact we have neighbors below us, every time we’d play, we’d pretend jump. It was seriously hurting our scores. Plus, we hope to have more space to spread out and play.

– Use the Grill on our Patio: Our apartment complex only lets you use your grill on a paved surface, meaning our driveway. Yea, not quite the idea of the perfect bbq.

– Make pizza that isn’t burnt on the outside and frozen on the inside: We seriously gave up trying to cook frozen pizza in our oven because something was wrong with it. We think it can’t maintain a constant temp, just keeps rising which is frustrating when cooking.

– Have a real garden, not a planter garden: I have to tell customers at work to not plant things in pots due to bulbs rotting in them, yet I followed my own bad advice. I can’t wait until I can creatively design a bulb garden this fall! I also won’t be giving my neighbors a shower every time I water my plants – yea that really happened.

– Vacuum whenever I want: Not that I enjoy this much, but seriously I don’t have to worry about if the neighbors are sleeping and I’m disturbing them.

– Not be the loudiness police: Every time we had company over I felt like I had to make sure no one was being super loud, stomping their feet (Drew and his friends do while playing video games). I hated the thought of being the loud neighbors.

I’ll be adding to this list, don’t you worry!

Valleys & Hills

Posted on July 30, 2012 by vanessawyler

Things are up and down, up and down – like Valleys and Hills.

The valley is, we decided to pass on Cherry Hill due to the fact the seller won’t even counter us on the price – which I think is very stupid in his book, but oh well. There are plenty more houses out on the market. The house and yard needed a lot of TLC and Drew and I agreed we wanted to go in low if we were to get this house. Otherwise it wasn’t worth it for us.

put an offer on this house!

The hill is, remember our first open house on Partridge Ct in Pewaukee? Well, after we declined Cherry Hill, we looked at two more houses that we liked. One was in Brookfield, a tri-level, but the downfall was the small yard and the radiant heating. Then we headed over to Partridge in Pewaukee and were so glad we took a second look. When we first looked, we were more looking for fun, and not serious at all. The more we thought about the house, the more we remembered how much we liked it.

So – we put in an offer! Our buyers agent is actually the listing agent on this property, so again things are moving quickly. This time we are dealing with another offer. However, the other offer is contingent on her selling her home. Sadly, we are praying she doesn’t get an offer in the next 72 hours or decides to have two mortgages. If she walks away – it should be ours!

We’re going to put in our 6o days notice on our apartment and pray that all this works out! This Rocket Summer song came on the other day on shuffle, and basically sum up this “hills and valley” period.

Cherry Hill House Update

Posted on July 24, 2012 by vanessawyler

Things are happening so fast!

House Hunting Day 1 – Friday, June 20

Our agent made 3 appointments for us to check out on Friday night. Drew and I grabbed dinner at Panda Express before and while there, we got a call from our lender saying we were pre-approved for the 3% down 30 year conventional loan through Landmark Credit Union – wooot! Then we checked out our favorite Cherry Hill house first, while we did find some concern such as water on the ceiling and basement, we were still in love. Then we checked out a house on Canyon Meadows in Sussex. The house itself was perfect, however it was literally right next to train tracks and we heard from a neighbor they come almost every hour. So that one was immediately off our list. Then we went to another house in Sussex, on Oak Lane. However, the minute we stepped in, it was a no. The owners are heavy smokers and we can’t imagine living in that stink. Plus it didn’t have central air or natural gas.

House Hunting Day 2 – Saturday, June 21

We met our agent out at 10am to check out three other houses. One was a tri-level that we like from day one, but we had to pass due to the neighbor hood not being in a great location for resale. The next house, Drew actually liked, but there was something about it that I didn’t like as much compared to Cherry Hill – and it had blue ceramic floors – so weird. Then the last house was a house my family has wanted us to buy because it had an in ground pool. After seeing the yard and the home we realized it was way too much maintenance for the two of us!

So after thinking about it, Drew and I decided we’d like my parents to come see the house. My dad has a great eye for house issues and wouldn’t buy a house without him looking at it. While he did see some issues in the roof, in the offer they are putting on a new roof before closing, so we’re going on a limb hoping it fixes those issues. The owners are also throwing in a home warranty, so that gives us more peace of mind.

I talked to our agent tonight and she’s writing up an offer for us. Tomorrow we’ll review it, then submit it! Can’t wait to share more!

Reese is 2 Months Old

Posted on July 21, 2012 by vanessawyler

How in the world is this little girl growing so fast!!

House Hunting Update

Posted on July 18, 2012 by vanessawyler

I feel like so much has happened since we last shared about our home search! Soo let me catch you all up.

First Time Home Buying Seminar – July 11

We had been talking for awhile that we signed up for this short seminar through Landmark Credit Union. It proved to be very helpful, as they had a realtor, home inspector, home insurance rep, and a loan officer all at the meeting to share the important home buying stuff. We particularly liked the financing part to get a better understand of that. We’d recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a little more about the process!

Pre-Approval Meeting #1 – July 13

We met with a super nice loan officer named Gustavo at Landmark Credit Union to being the process of getting pre-approved. Everything checked out real nicely besides one thing we had to get removed from his credit report that was majorly bringing down his scores. So before we could get the pre-approval letter, we had to fix that issue and come back another time.

Open House #4 – July 15

I’m not even going to bother posting photos, because we liked it 0%. It was just way too small and way outdated – like it had brand new carpeting, but it was a horrible blue. Sooo we just looked around, smiled and then left asap. No thanks little house with blue carpeting. You are not for us.

Meeting with Realtor – July 17

We met with a realtor, Sam, we had previously met at two open houses that we wanted to work with. There she explained the whole buyer agency contract and how she’ll help us find our perfect home. She then asked about what we were looking for and we showed her our favorite Cherry Hill house (just love that one!). She was then going to get us hooked up with the MLS database so we could do some more house hunting online. We also emailed her that night a list of homes we’d like to see asap. We’re hoping to be able to go out to look on Saturday or Sunday!

Credit Report Cleared – July 18

WOOT! I just checked Drew’s credit reports at lunch and was thrilled to see that the account we needed removed was gone and we were set to set up a time to meet with Gustavo, our loan officer. I just emailed him during my lunch and now waiting to hear back when we can meet!

It’s all going to sooo fast – but it’s so exciting at the same time. We’ll keep you updated on our house hunt goes! Stay tuned friends 🙂

Dreaming of a Kitchen

Posted on July 11, 2012 by vanessawyler

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t crushing on the Cape Cod house on Cherry Hill still – and the good news is, no one has bought it yet (keep your fingers crossed). So if we were to get that house I’ve been developing some ideas for the kitchen. It has great space, however so much of it is not utilized to it’s fullest potential.

My first step to transform it would be to paint the cupboards white. There is just something about a white kitchen I love. Then once we’ve saved enough bank, we’d do a larger renovation. In the meantime, I’ve been dreaming of the possibilties, and I’ve discovered the site Houzz, which has TONS of photos and great ideas if you are looking for house decorating ideas.

Here is an “ideabook” as Houzz calls it that, I’ve been saving some kitchens that I love to: (use the arrows at the bottom to navigate)

Celebrating the 4th

Posted on July 5, 2012 by vanessawyler

[zilla_likes]
This year the 4th fell on a Wednesday and was crazy weird. I had a hard time remembering what day it was and if it was a weekend with working two days, off one day, working two days – I miss the days of extra floating holidays 🙁

Since Drew and I had to work on the 5th – we went to the Menomonee Falls parade and fireworks with some of my family on the 3rd. It was pretty hot and sweaty, but we toughed it out. As you can see Reese was a huge fan of the parade (or maybe next year…)

On the 4th – we celebrate my dad’s birthday with my family. We went over in the morning, had lunch, and created a slip n slide. Because that didn’t really help the 100 degree heat, we then headed over to our pool to cool off. We ended the night eating cake and playing a long game of Settlers of Catan.

I also got to see my best friend from high school, Morgan, because she was in town to visit family. It was great to catch up with her as always – I’m so glad her family moved back here!

Open House #4

Posted on July 2, 2012 by vanessawyler

Drew and I got a chance to visit another house in Pewaukee this weekend. This one is located in the subdivision called “Lake Park” which features close-together houses and small backyards. That basically turned us off right away. The house was very nice inside, but could use some small updating. What was nice is that we are looking for two separate living spaces – that way I am not shunned to the bedroom every time Drew has friends over and they are playing video games. The extra living space was downstairs, however I’m so cautious when it comes to finished basements after I’ve watched too many scary Holmes on Homes shows. And I saw sloppy mistakes – thanks to my dad who trained me well by always pointing those out. If there are noticeable sloppy mistakes – I only wonder what sloppier mistakes are hidden 🙁

This open house was eye opening in that we really do like the one house we saw last week in Lisbon with the wooded lot. Drew just can’t get enough trees!

However, we specifically went to this open house because the listing realtor was one we previously met at another open house and wanted to reconnect with her. I’m pretty sure when we are officially ready to house hunt, we’ll use her.

Concrete Ideas

Posted on June 29, 2012 by vanessawyler

So, a long time ago – say 10+ years I remember one of the neighbors in our subdivision was putting in concrete counter tops. At the time, I thought that sounded like a real dumb idea. I couldn’t see how it would look good – my 13 year old self knew so much about kitchen design, ha ha.

Fast forward 10 years and lately I’ve been looking for ideas to implement throughout our future home. I’ve come across the idea of concrete countertops numerous time and I am in love. I even texted my mom right away asking if my dad could do that, since he was a mason awhile back. Here are some ideas that I saw of concrete counter tops that I love.

(Source: Pinterest)

(Source: Apartment Therapy)

This one is stained to look like wood (Source: Houzz)

And maybe if I can’t convince my dad or husband that concrete counter tops would be a good idea, I could go the concrete table route. It would be awesome if I could find a table at goodwill or on craiglist and add the concrete table top (that would also help our budget as we will have to buy lots of new furniture when we purchase a home). Also, the concrete table idea would be less permanent when we look to resell. Here are some concrete tables I found that I’d use for my inspiration.

(Source: kara paslay designs)

(Source: House Beautiful)

Drew & Vanessa

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