"Our house is a very very very fine house"

We purchased our home in the winter of 2007, from a home "flipper" who bought it at a bank auction, tried to fix it up (he did a crap job) and then sell it for a profit. But he ran out of money, and we scored ourselves a deal. We wanted to buy a house because we were tired of renting, but we didn't want to be house poor either. When we found this little fixer upper we knew it was "the one" - or at least the one we'd fix up and live in until we were ready to rent it out to someone and go buy another house.

The house, a tiny 912 square feet with one bathroom, a galley kitchen and three small bedrooms, was about to be 60 years old and was in dire need of repair when we purchased it. It lacked central air conditioning, a dishwasher, washer or dryer, 1/2 of the kitchen was missing cabinets and the walls and trim were yellowed with age.

This picture is pretty recent, but imagine old windows, old doors, no grass and red shutters that had those alumnium awnings over them. Yuck!

We spent the month after we closed (but before we moved in) painting every square inch of wall, trim and ceiling, Matt installed the rest of the kitchen cabinets along with a dishwasher, my parents gifted us with a front load stackable washer and dryer, we installed new windows in the front of the house, installed a fence, and built a back deck. We lived that first summer with only two window air conditioning units (it was miserable), saved our pennies and kept fixing the house where we could.

The next year, we put up crown molding and chair rail in the living/dining room...

...we replaced the rest of the windows in the house, plus all the doors with new fiberglass/steel framed ones, we got central air and a new gas furnace (totally worth the $4K!) and that next summer, we gutted the bathroom and put in new tile on the floors, in the shower, bought a new toilet, bathtub and vanity.

Then Matt built me a brand new wardrobe in our bedroom (its 9ft tall and can hold all my clothes), and in the fall of 2010 built a new built in bookcase and desk in the 3rd bedroom/office and we started on the nursery - painting the walls, new trim, baseboards, expanding the closet, pulling up carpet and painting the floors. As we were working this past winter, we were talking about our next projects this spring - new laminate hardwoods in the living/dining/hallway, moving the doorway in the kitchen (it's not lined up with the galley and its awkward), redoing the fireplace mantle, expanding the dining room out onto the side porch - which is level with the house, has a roof and would be an easy way to give us more square footage.

As we were talking about all of this, I started to wonder, why in the world are we putting so much into this house? We've been blessed with a cheap mortgage payment, Matt does all the work himself, plus we've paid cash for almost all of it, but this isn't our dream home. We bought this house because the price was good, the proximity to the area we like to eat and play in is close and we knew it would be a rental home for us one day.

But if it's going to be a rental home, and we plan on expanding our family to more than 1 child, we literally can't afford to put much more into this house. So after much deliberation, we decided to scrap the dining room expansion (which will save us about $3000-4000) and just install laminate floors and move the kitchen doorway. We also plan to repaint the living/dining room and kitchen a neutral color, install a cheap kitchen back splash, and fix something major for our house - the roof flashing. (This means that our roof doesn't overhang the house like it should - big issue for water leaking into the walls.)

AND we plan to start saving like crazy for a down payment for a new home. A bigger home - one with at least two bathrooms and a basement (finished or unfinished). We know it will take some time to save up and find the right home in the neighborhood we want, but it will be worth it! Plus we'll learn the value of patience and loving what you have - which for us is a pretty nice 912 square foot home with new windows, doors, floors (soon), appliances and a brand new bathroom! Plus I've already found a house I like - whatcha think? ;)

P.S. Whomever can name the band who sang the song quoted in today's blog post title WITHOUT GOOGLING IT (honor system) wins a prize. Leave me a comment with your answer.