The Home: Putting Down Roots

We lived in a rental house for two years, only making a few changes to make it feel more comfortable but we knew it was temporary. It was a great simple little house for us and served its purpose. We made tons of memories there, started some of our traditions and we went through all three relationship phases, from dating, then engaged, to married while in that house and even added Birdie and our turtles while living there. It was a good first experience being in a house and while it was a little hard to leave, it was time for us to find our first home.

We began our house hunting process in the middle of July, expecting a daunting and exhausting road ahead. We were told to plan on liking a few houses that would fall through for various reasons and with it being a sellers market, houses were going to get scooped up fast. One weekend we walked through four houses, some we liked more than others and had real potential, we even revisited one house a couple times and decided to put in an offer two days after seeing it. We felt the asking price was too high so we offered a little under, the seller was going to counter-offer but never did, so while we kind of sat in limbo, we were shown another house the next day and this one stood out to us. Lindsey and I were very impressed, almost felt it was too good to be true, because of the size, the condition it was in and most importantly the location was perfect. There was a parade of potential buyers taking turns viewing the house because we showed up the first day it was on the market. We left knowing it would be bought within 24 hours, so we only had a few hours to think things over before coming to the decision to make an offer a few thousand above asking price to give ourselves an advantage over other buyers. While that offer helped in the end, Lindsey wrote the sellers a letter with our offer proposal that briefly described who we are, where we’re from and what their house would mean to us. We didn’t think we stood a chance because of finding out we were one of five offers that day, some willing to pay cash, but it was meant to be because they accepted our offer! We were so shocked but also just as relieved that the hunt was over and we found our first home. The inspection and appraisal came back great, the house was very well maintained with recent upgrades, so as we waited out the next few weeks of the formality of closing, it was all smooth sailing. With the help through the whole process by our awesome realtor, the bank for our loan, and the support from our family and friends, we closed on the house in five weeks from when we first saw it.

Since we were coming from a rental house, we took advantage of the ability to overlap the time we got the keys to our new home and when we had to leave the rental. We gave ourselves a week to paint most of the interior rooms, to move smaller boxes and then moved the bulk of the furniture on the weekend with an army of helpers. Our amazing hard-working family and friends got us moved out of the rental house in half an hour, unpacked in the new home in an hour, then even helped us clean the rental and all done by early afternoon. All of this went by in a blur and we were definitely exhausted but we did it..we were in our home..we made it!

This 1600 square foot, split floor plan Gilbert home is going to be ours for the next several years, or who knows how long, we’ll get to personalize it and make new memories. We hope to start projects in the near future, like putting in grass and different landscaping in the backyard, and new flooring inside and updating our bathroom..but all in due time. For now we are just overjoyed to be where we are and taking it a day at a time..after all, we only got married a few months ago. I’m just glad to go through life with my wife and our animals and now living in this home together.

12/27/24

Dear home,

You helped launch us as a newly married couple. We had only been married 5 months, and we snatched you from other potential buys, because you were meant to be our first home. Yes, we had a house before you, but we were just kids and didn’t have many responsibilities then, but you were our first home that we were responsible for. We had two dogs, two turtles, a bunch of hopes and dreams but no kids yet. Living down the street from Lindsey’s dad, childhood friend and elementary school, I knew we were going to be with you for a while, at least 10-15 years if I had to bet.

We updated your walls and floors and then eventually backyard and had visions of other renovations but didn’t get around to those in time, because our time with you was cut short, shorter than we expected but I’ll get to that in a bit.

First, you gave us a lot of firsts. Besides being our first residence with a mortgage bill instead of rent, we imagined bringing home our first baby here, which we did, but before that we also sat out back sometimes in sadness of not getting pregnant for a while. You provided a place we called our own when we felt like many things weren’t going our way. So we luckily ended up making our first nursery down your hall from our room, we witnessed first steps and first words here. We even brought home our second baby to these walls and got to watch more of those first steps and giggles. We also experienced more pain of grieving the passing of Joe, Lindsey’s dad. He came over many times to help babysit or lend a hand with home repairs and building projects, so this is the home he knew for us and was there to inspect when we made the purchase offer. He left this Earth way too soon and abruptly so we didn’t get to discuss it with him, but it’s fitting that our next home will be his old one. We are going to be boxing up our things, uprooting our girls but just to move down the street. We’ll still be in the neighborhood and with our corner house neighbors being our friends, it means we’ll still swing by and check in on you. As we see new cars parked in your driveway or changes to the front yard, inside the front door we know will be the same house we once called home.

Thank you for being part of our big family journey, for being a safe place for us during tough times, for hosting such fun nights with family and friends and helping us grow as adults and a family for over 5 years. Our girls may be too young to remember you but we will never forget the time you gave us and the memories we made.