Thursday, May 24, 2012

I'm buying a house!!

Hi everyone!

As you can tell from the title of this post, I had a successful house hunting trip while I was in Columbus. The adventure started Saturday morning when I met with my Realtor at his office. Btw- it needs to be noted that my Realtor is HAWT!!!!! But he shall remain anonymous so no one goes after him! Haha!

We ended up seeing about 7 houses in the course of 3 hours or so. I really liked the first one. Most of the others were short sales, which I knew nothing about. It turns out most of those had been abandoned and the realtor took the pictures right after they moved out and the places hadn't been touched since. It was pretty sad b/c some of the houses had such potential.

Then there was the doozie of the day! It was a 1920s house that had been totally refurbished on the inside and the pictures of the place were amazing, esp. the kitchen!! We got there and it was a bit of an older and rough neighborhood. Then, the house next door was all boarded up!! We didn't even get out of the car!!! You couldn't pay me to live in that place let alone have me buy it, so we quickly moved on.

By the time I got back to my hotel, I had an email from Realtor saying that one of the two I really liked was in contract as of that afternoon. I was pretty bummed, so I went to look at my listings again and found another one to look at because my parents were coming down on Sunday.

On Sunday, we were down to 2 houses. First, we looked at the one I had liked from Saturday. 3 bed, 2 bath, totally redone on the inside. I bit of a rough neighborhood but had a security system. I really liked this house but it didn't have a basement. It gave the parentals an idea of the houses I had looked at. Then we went to the new place I had added the night before.

We walk in to beautiful refinished hardwood floors!! This place has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, new kitchen, full basement and a fenced in yard for Heif and the newly dubbed "Baby Heif" whenever I get him. Here are a few pictures of the place.

Hello yellow!!


Mom and Dad in the upstairs

new kitchen cabinets

dining room looking out to the back yard

overgrown back yard

My parents and I decided that we both liked this house better. It was in a better neighborhood and had a basement!! I put my offer in on the house Monday morning. We received a counter offer and I swung back by the Realtor's office and signed the paperwork and we were officially in contract on the house!! Since then, I have been printing and scanning and signing my life away with working on my loan for the bank. But it's totally going to be worth it!!

Back to my weekend in Columbus, here is some of the food that I was able to sample. I got a wide variety of stuff that I don't have access to in Pullman and was it all ever good! YUMM!!

5 guys burger from the Easton mall... biggest mall I've ever been in!! <3

veggie samosas from an indian place

an awesome turkey/ muenster cheese sandwich with honey spicy mustard and potato salad at a deli in German Village

bread and dipping oil at Le Chatelaine Bakery and Bistro in Worthington

French onion soup with cheese and croutons

Vol au vent

creme brulee to finish a great day!

My flight back to Spokane left just before 9am and I was playing pretty much all day. I had an hour layover in Las Vegas and had just enough time to grab a bite to eat and sit and enjoy it. I had a great salad from Wendy's and some fries and a giant iced tea from Starbucks. I got into Spokane about 2:30 and went to Dick's burgers and got a burger, fries and a vanilla shake. Then I went to Trader Joe's b/c that's my newest grocery shopping obsession. I got a mixture of salads, pizza dough, dried munchy stuff, frozen entrees and I restocked my supply of cookie butter b/c my jar on my desk at school was getting scary low!

I finally got home and got unpacked and sat down and this happened. I think my kitties missed me!! 


Have you done any traveling lately? Where did you go?

Have you ever bought a house? Was it painful or painless? Any tips would be appreciated!! :)


Friday, May 18, 2012

House Hunting

Hi everyone!!

Since it's been so long since I last posted (almost a month!!), I won't bore you with all the gory details but wanted to update you on things that are going on.

I'm currently sitting in the Denver airport on my way to Columbus, OH. I'm going house hunting this weekend!!! I think the 'I'm gonna have a real job and have a real life' thing has finally kicked in!! The viewings start tomorrow and I have a short list of 7 houses that I really like. I've slowly narrowed it down from about 100 to start with. All of the ones I'm looking at are at least 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms (always need a spare bathroom, esp. for runners!) and a fenced in yard is a major bonus.

Does anyone have any house hunting tips for me? Anything to look out for or major awesome things too?

Backing up a bit, in this past week, I finished the whole first draft of my thesis and sent the last chapters to my boss for review. Now it's just a waiting game for that. While I'm house hunting, he's going to be off at a conference, so I don't know how fast I will get anything back. I'm hoping to have some kind of a draft in 2 weeks to send to the graduate school and my committee to review and then a tentative defense date of June 13!! EEEEK!

I'm still working on selling my trailer if you know of anyone moving to Pullman and I have a 2 day window as to when the movers are coming to pick up my stuff. I'm having a 'Moving sale' next weekend and going to try and get some money out of some things and just try to eliminate stuff I don't want to move and not have to take it all to the Goodwill.

Since this is supposed to be a running blog, here are some details of my 2 last races in the PNW. I did the 12k Bloomsday race and got to meet Ali, the first girl winner of the Biggest Loser! And I did the Jog for Jugs 5 miler in Lewiston, ID with Erin and her mom. I'm sad that my races in the west are now over, but now I'm looking forward to finding new races in the Columbus/ Cleveland/ Dayton area. I grew up 3 hours from Columbus, so I have to learn that part of Ohio now but I'm ready for it!!

(I tried to post pictures but they were taking too long and I have to board my plane to Columbus soon.)

I look forward to hearing your input!! Thanks in advance!!


Here's to finding a house!!