Big news: we bought a house! It all happened on a whim. We had been looking around for an apartment for a few months and everything seemed so expensive. In order to get a place that met our needs (which I didn’t think were that extensive: parking, 2 bedroom, outdoor space, near a bus line), it was way out of our price range. So for fun, we went to a couple of random open houses that we saw posted online. I really didn’t think that I would ever be approved for a home loan though. So just to see what they would say, I applied for the pre-approval process and they said I qualified! I think Aaron and I are still in awe of this and are just waiting for someone to show up and say, “j/k, lol nope, no house for you” but it hasn’t happened yet.
The house hunt was crazy and I was worried that we would never find anything, or have to settle for something that I didn’t love. But, we found it.
Home.
The house was built in 1895. Yes, the 19th century. I like to think about all of the memories that are in this house. For being built that long ago, it has been kept up really well and you’d never know it was that old just by looking at it.
Yay new house!
Celebrating our new house!
Obviously the first thing to do when you move into a new house is to celebrate with fancy champagne! And then take photos of all of the empty rooms:
Sunroom when you first walk in. It’s kind of empty. I can’t wait to drink coffee in the morning in here!
The house came with some random pieces of furniture and odds and ends. Note the IKEA corner shelf.
Dining room.
Kitchen. The door goes out to the backyard, garage, alleyway.
more kitchen. That door goes to the basement.
We got the keys on a Thursday and had rented a moving truck for the following Saturday, but we wanted to stay there the first night so I packed up some essentials for us, along with an air mattress and my bistro table and chairs. Aaron made pierogis and got us some fancy champagne. Real champagne.
The Bistro. So fancy!
The move went better than I had anticipated. I recently realized that I have moved 10 times in the past 10 years. Some moves have gone better than others. I was fully prepared to be extra stressed and for everything to end up broken. Luckily, we had a lot of help! I’m so grateful that friends and family were so willing to come help us move all of our stuff, I even got to supervise the second half. Nothing got broken! Although Aaron did have to cut the guest bedroom, queen box spring in half to fit it up the stairs! At least our California King mattress is memory foam so we just squished it up the stairs, and Aaron is building us a bed frame for it (keep an eye out for a DIY post about this!) so that will have to be assembled in place.
We got everything moved over in the morning and celebrated with pizza and beer for everyone. I found out that we live walking distance to a really tasty pizza place.
Here’s where I’m at now with the sun room now. Nothing too fancy yet. I put up some string lights and set up a table and chairs for morning coffee.
Here are just a couple of photos of the place now. It’s not fully decorated how I want just yet. In fact, I haven’t even finished unpacking or getting organized. This weekend is going to be full of IKEA shopping, garden planting and unpacking boxes.
Here’s the dining room now (ignore the boxes in the background!) also, I made that rug!
My plan is to post regular updates about the house by sharing new décor photos, DIY posts of projects that I do, and of course the instagramable photos that I take of things around the house. I also plan to continue my actual Instagram posts, as well as any other exploration, photography related posts.
As always, thanks for reading!
-Amber
