Then, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, we visited a house that was still under construction. It was never our plan to buy a new house, necessarily - we were looking at all sorts of houses, but, of course, avoiding those ones that would need a lot of work done. Anyway, this house was in a great neighborhood, near a great elementary school, not far from a lake and a park, and less than ten miles from TCU. It has a nice-sized yard (not too big and hard to maintain, but enough for some grass, some vegetable beds, and nice porch), and 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms [but, folks, don't forget: this is Texas!].
We liked it instantly, but it seemed so big, so nice; too much for those of us that had always lived in student apartments [although our last few apartments have been quite a bit nicer than some of our first few!].
So, we kept looking at other houses, all the while mulling this one over in our heads. In early December, we made an offer. We started negotiating on their contract and on a few other updates to the house: they countered, we countered, they countered - and we accepted. We finally heard on Saturday that they accepted the contract. [In all this, we had the help of the best real estate law guru out there. My guru, alas, must remain nameless, but our gratitude extends to the ends of the earth!].
All of this is to say that we are set to close in mid-January! Of course, nothing's final until then - and we know that anything can still happen and the deal can still fall apart. But we're cautiously optimistic.
Here are a few pictures of the house [these are from Thanksgiving weekend; the house now is much, much closer to being finished, complete with carpets, etc].
One of the things that we couldn't agree on with the builder was the price of flooring (we don't want carpet in the master bedroom or the living room). So we had them leave the floors in those rooms unfinished and we'll be hiring our own person to put in some wood laminate floors. We're also considering painting the kitchen (maybe a forest-y green) and the master bedroom (maybe a light blue, silvery, misty color).So, all of this is to say that we're looking at a possibly moving in in mid-February. It all seems so real, stressful, and, yes, very exciting.
In other news, it's been quite cold here in Texas. Not as bad as Seattle, but definitely chilly. On the plus side, we leave for San Diego this evening. We'll be there a week, so that should be a really nice break - plenty of time to walk on the beach! One of Mike's presents is a trip to the Poinsettia Bowl, in order to cheer on the Horned Frogs (I'm taking a pass on this one, but my brother is going with him).
Happy Holidays to everyone out there - and stay warm!
