A New Nest
Well, we did it. We bit the bullet and BOUGHT OUR VERY OWN HOUSE! It was a whirlwind of a purchase. When we initially put in an offer, we imagined months and months of waiting, counter-offers, and all that jazz…well we were in for a surprise. It only took one counter offer to hit the number that the buyer was comfortable with, and literally only a week and a half from first offer to the text message from our realtor saying “The buyer accepted your offer.”
All of the sudden our carefree summer with our new garden and our brother moving in with us got put into an upheaval. We had a month and a half to pack up our three story home, finish other projects that were due literally the day after our settlement (hello 50 page paper…but that’s another story!) Luckily for our brother, he had literally just moved in, so he didn’t need to worry too much about getting packed up. We made the move literally 3 weeks ago, and these are some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Keep your friends close…and your strong friends closer…
I sent out an evite a couple weeks before the move to ask for help. I don’t have any pride when it comes to moving. I will do anything to get anyone there to help us move even 1 small thing. This was going to be a big move, so I wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to kill ourselves if we didn’t have to.
We were so lucky to have a whole slew of friends who came to help us out. The move took us 4 days (did I mention that we moved less than two blocks away?!) and we had friends who came multiple days to lift, lug, haul, and even clean alongside of us. There was a couple of days when I broke down in tears at how overwhelming the move was and how much of a burden I felt like we were being, but our friends were so encouraging and were truly happy to help us. For that we will be forever grateful. Lee and I both were humbled by the process and so thankful for our friends.
Don’t count your chickens before you communicate…
How many times have we extolled the virtues of communication on this blog? I’m hoping a lot because it’s always been important to us…but somehow our communication skills went out the window when we changed houses…it felt like we forgot the box that we packed it in in the old house…
The first couple of weeks I felt unloved, Lee felt disrespected and both of us probably felt a little hurt. We weren’t listening to each other, we had our own ideas about what we wanted to do for each room and we both wanted our own way. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Well it all came to head the night I started painting. Now, by no means am I a perfectionist, but I always have a plan to get things done…pretty much right. Being married to Lee, who is a perfectionist, sometimes makes it hard for both of us to see the big picture. He wants it done right, but doing everything perfectly can be debilitating at times. I want it done now, but not taking the time to be thorough could mean having to do a job twice and potentially cost more money.
After a night of some tears and shutting down and walking out of rooms, we decided it was time to sit down and really talk about what we were doing. It wasn’t the easiest conversation, but it was good. It got us both set back on the right track. We needed to prioritize and plan for our projects, we needed to make sure that we were listening to each other, not holding grudges or becoming bitter. To do this, we would work together, we would hear each other out, and we would take steps to make sure that the most important aspects of what the other wanted done were included.
Now that we’re back on track, we have been concentrating on dealing with the humongous amount of boxes to unpack first, getting rid of stuff we don’t need, and then making sure that we have the funds to do the things that actually need to get done to the house.
I’m sure that there are many more lessons to be learned about home ownership and marriage, so hopefully more to come soon.
<3 Sarah
Here’s a peak at our house before we moved in. Can’t wait to see what we make of it!
