LIFE UPDATE: WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! YAYYY!
Okay, so this has been something we have wanted for, I don’t know, forever…? It’s been our DREAM. As it is so many young couples. Get married, buy a house, have babies, etc etc, right?? So almost 2 months ago- IT FINALLY HAPPENED for us!
Our story is a little unconventional, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Here’s a little backstory of our living timeline since we’ve been married. After being together 8 years, we said I do the year after our college graduations and started married life living in a 700 square foot apartment in Avalon, a suburb “mini-city” which was SO MUCH FUN! We got REAL close in those 700 square feet, LOL, and shortly after, we found out we were expecting. We upsized to an apartment more towards the city to shorten our commute. After our oldest, Ellie was born, I decided to leave my nursing job at the hospital & my hour + commute, and instead try out stay at home mom life. So we moved back to Alpharetta, renting a house less than 10 minutes from both of our parents. We LOVED that house. A beautiful neighborhood, a huge yard, the best neighbors, and SO close to where Ryan & I both grew up.. but not our own. We brought our second baby, Emerson, home to this house and made countless memories within those 4 walls.
BUT it wasn’t ours. We wanted a house to call our own, a mortgage of our own and to be able to put equity back into a home that was ours. We loved the area we were in, but it’s known for being a bit pricey for a single family home, and I really love being able to be at home with our girls. So we made a choice, and with losing my full-time income, it slowed our ability to be able to purchase a home on the timeline we were hoping for.. until we were offered another option.
Ryan’s parents were looking to downsize, and wanting to be near us where we purchased our first home, SO extremely graciously offered to help us purchase our dream home for our family. They proposed that with this offer, we would all live together for a year, giving us time to pay them back and allowing us to continue to save as well. I remember when they first proposed it, I thought it was a little crazy. In my head, I was thinking, “You want to BUY US our first house?!” It seriously seemed unreal. But the more we thought about it and talked about it, the more we would be CRAZY to turn down such a generous, and seriously loving offer. We’d work to pay them back for helping us into our home, and in the meantime, we would all live in it together.
And so, it happened! Through a little trouble, another fallen through offer, we found the home we LOVED, with plenty of yard and space and we all moved in together! So our house includes: Ryan’s parents, Ryan & I, his younger sister when she’s home from college, and our two girls!
It’s been almost 2 months, and slowly but surely we are making this beautiful house feel like HOME. Our girls have LOVED getting to spend time with their grandparents and Ryan and I love having his parents around not only for projects and support, but also getting to spend more time with them as well. We’ve been doing weekly dinners a few nights a week, plus just being able to see them on the regular is such a gift that I didn’t think I’d enjoy as much as I do – if I’m being honest. They are SO knowledgable about home projects, and have renovated multiple homes themselves so they are such incredible supporters of us as we take on all these projects!
I wanted share our story for a few reasons:
1. I realized it’s more than okay if things don’t go the way you planned. There’s no “right” way to live your life. And even if you do things backwards, or forwards, or sideways, it is YOUR LIFE and it is YOUR story to be told.
2. We are LOVING taking on projects, and handling all the “fun” things that come with buying a house. Yayyyyyy for being a homeowner. So I’d say we are official DIY weekend warriors, living for the weekend and taking on one project at a time as we make this house everything we want it to be and more. My hope is that you feel inspired and empowered to try to take on projects yourself to make your home all you want it to be too!
So far, we have taken on and completed:
-Basement storage room into my Workout Studio and Ryan’s office
-DIY Refinished Kitchen Table
-DIY Farmhouse Baby Gates
We’ve already learned SO much, and I’ll start to make posts covering each of these projects, so be sure to check back in or subscribe to my blog if you want to know the process of how we did it!
Thanks for taking the time to read! I can’t wait to share a little about all our projects with you and hope to inspire you in being bold and confident in your home projects too!
-Meg
