Right here in DC! We don’t travel much in the wintertime. We’ve spent this past winter watching a lot of college basketball, working long days at the office, and hibernating. Our slower pace also afforded us enough time to check another item off our to-do list: buy a house!

As first-time homebuyers we were quite overwhelmed by this process. On top of the normal stresses of buying a house (such as, spending what feels like ALL of your money at once) the DC market is  ruthlessly competitive.  You have to know right on the spot whether you’re going to put in an offer or walk, with no time to think. Thankfully, we had only a few times where we thought a house was “the one” and wanted to put in an offer.

Not to get all romantic about it, but walking into the actual “one” was so different. We stopped by what is now OUR house because we were already in the neighborhood and there was an open house.  VERY unlike us, we nothing about the place beforehand. Walking in through the front gate though, we knew this place was different – in a good way.

The house felt taken care of, while still having much of the original charm of a house built in the 1930s (glass doorknobs!).  The house had nearly every item from the wish list we had given our agent: porch, basement and wood floors were all musts. A yard, deck and off-street parking were also wishes but we could live without them if necessary. These “stretch” wishes we ended up getting – big time! You can see by the photo below the size of our yard (thankfully the sellers left their lawn mower for us), and there is a large detached garage out back too – which is a big win for Kyle.

What doesn’t the house have, you ask? A working kitchen, an updated bathroom, air conditioning and laundry. Before we moved in we were thinking “oh, no big deal – all things we’d love to tackle ourselves and make it our style!” … now that we’ve experienced what that really means we’re singing a slightly different tune, however incredibly excited for all of the projects ahead.

Okay, I am incredibly excited, Kyle is just putting together countless lists and plans…

I’ll post more photos soon, all of the “before” shots, from before we moved in, and hopefully a few “after” shots now that I have a couple rooms put together.