The New Casa Barrett

This is not going to be a long, rambling blog post--well, not too long, anyway. I just wanted to commemorate a very big event...

...we have become homeowners for the first time!! We signed the closing papers on Tuesday, February 8, 2011. Yes, I realize we're a little behind the curve, but better late than never...especially when "late" gets you a house like this:

Beautiful, don't you think? Well, I think so!! 2,600 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a roomy kitchen & pantry, and a large loft; it's got everything we need and then some. We had always expected our first home purchase to be a smaller "starter home"--which this most definitely is not. This is a house I could picture living in for many years, with plenty of room to raise our children & watch them grow up. It's a lovely home, and I'm so humbled & grateful we happened upon it.

We first set eyes on it back in November, when it was a bank-owned property about to go on auction. I liked the house almost immediately, and so did Nathan, but we eventually decided against using an auction to purchase our first home. Oh well, there will be others, we thought, and moved on to search elsewhere.

Just imagine our surprise when, a few weeks later, we got a call from Nate's mother & father, excitedly telling us, "We got the house!!" Apparently, they'd decided to go on and bid on that house anyway; they hadn't expected theirs to be the winning bid--or for Fannie Mae to accept the bid a short time later.

In a nutshell, Grandma & Grandpa Barrett aren't "gifting" us the house--although it still feels that way to me!! They're fixing it up a little (not that it needed much; it's a fairly clean, problem-free home for a foreclosure), then re-selling it to us with a slight mark-up for their troubles. So, while we could have gotten another perfectly nice home on our own, we likely wouldn't have gotten this house (our favorite of all the houses we looked at) without the help of Nathan's parents. We are very blessed & thankful for their assistance--they have been great at helping us through the whole buying process, and have been a wonderful resource for us to use throughout the last several months. We're fortunate to have them so close by!

I know a new home will present lots of challenges--it will strain our delicate budget; it will require lots more cleaning; it will demand a lot from us (time to improve my "handyman" skill set). Plus there's always the chance there are hidden defects deep within this home, waiting to be discovered (doesn't every home have at least a few?). But all those things feel like challenges we're ready and willing to face. Owning a home has been a long time coming, but this feels like the right time to move forward! I'm a little overwhelmed, but also excited to see what our future holds. We'll start finding out on February 26th, our moving day (wow, just over two weeks away!!).