We just got back to our apartment from our house closing so we are officially homeowners. Everything went without a hitch and my hand didn’t even get sore from signing so many papers.

I was saying to Travis on the way home that it’s weird that all you have to do (pretty much) is sign a bunch of papers and then you own a home. It’s like highschool graduation–somehow the importance of the event is not in proportion to what you do to achieve or celebrate it. But this is a lot more important that highschool graduation. This IS the real world baby!

The best part about the process of buying a house for us was seeing God’s hand in it all. I had prayed for God to let us find the perfect house at the right price in the right timing and we did. Then we had all but postponed buying a house for financial reasons but God provided down payment money for us in the form of my parents.
The sellers accepted our offer, the house appraised, we were approved for our loan, we got all the correct documents, and today was a breeze. If it had not been in the Lord’s will for us to buy a house, it either wouldn’t have happened at all or it wouldn’t have been this easy. When everything falls into place so easily and effortlessly, I know that God is there behind the scenes, flawlessly orchestrating it all according to His sovereign will.

So there you have it. We get the keys to the house at 8:00 AM on July 30th. Until then, it’s Minnesota for 10 days and then lots of packing!!

As of 5:41 PM today, our house is officially under contract. The sellers signed our offer “as is”–which really surprised our realtor. She said that it rarely happens that the sellers sign the offer without changing a thing. Does this have God written all over it or WHAT?!?!?

So Travis and I are WAY pumped about “our” new house–Travis would remind me that it’s not officially ours yet. But I don’t care about those petty little details. This means that I can officially start planning out how I want to decorate the house. It is going to be SO HARD to wait a month and a half to move in! I’ve been looking at magazines, The Nest, and other people’s blogs for ideas. I went on Craig’s List to look for cheap furniture but I didn’t find anything. I know we shouldn’t buy anything right now anyway because whatever I buy now, we have to move later.

The theme of my decorating is going to be “on a budget.” We won’t have much money to decorate with at first so I’m going to go to antique, consignment, dollar, and thrift stores as well as garage sales and Craig’s List to find furniture and wall pieces.

This is what I’m thinking so far: the main bathroom has a mirror and vanity of light-colored wood. The accents in the tiles and sink are a light tan color. The color scheme is going to be sage green, white, and light-colored wood/tan. I want a shower curtain that is white with sage green leaves on it, kind of like this one from Bed Bath and Beyond:

I’ll buy sage green towels and press wildflowers into frames to hang on the wall.

For the master bedroom, we will keep our current bedspread (light tan with a white vine design) and I want to add details like these awesome pictures, also from BB&B:

They’re a little on the spendy side so what I’m going to do is see if I can find 12×12 scrapbook paper kind of like this (at least the same color scheme) and glue them to a 12×12 canvas from a craft store. The master bath will be this same color scheme: taupe and light blue. LOVE IT!

I have more ideas but it’s time for bed. I’ll keep them flowing some other time.

The sellers of the house we made an offer on are meeting about our offer right now as I type. I am so nervous and excited!! It’s good that I get to leave work in 8 minutes because I cannot concentrate right now!!

After going out with our realtor 3 times to look at houses; having endless conversations about options, prices, and dates with Travis; and almost completely pulling the plug on buying a house due to budget constraints (which were alleviated by my parents, who generously offered to help us with our down payment), Travis and I have found the house we want to buy. It is 3 miles from my work, 8 miles from Travis’. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths (one of which is a master bath!), and a HUGE backyard. And it’s move-in ready, meaning we wouldn’t have to do anything to it before we moved in if we didn’t want to.

Our realtor wrote up an offer and sent it to us today. In about 1 1/2 hours, she is going to call us to go over the offer, make any necessary changes, and then sent it to the sellers’ agent. We should know by tomorrow at the latest if they are going to counter or accept. We’re so excited!!

The wheels in my head are already turning with thoughts of how I could decorate the kitchen and the bathroom and what we could put where. Bad, I know, because I’ll be heartbroken if we don’t get this house. But I keep reminding myself that God is sovereign and all of His plans for our lives–including our house–have been pre-ordained by Him. Like our realtor says (in a secular mindset), if it’s “meant to be” (i.e. ordained by God), it will happen and it will be easy. If it feels like putting a square peg in a round hole to get the deal to go through, it wasn’t meant to be (i.e. it wasn’t in God’s plan).

Here’s a picture of the house from the outside:

There are 2 huge pine trees in the front but the yard is very green and well-kept. It is a one-story brick ranch (the kind of house I said that I would never buy!) and on the smaller side (about 1100 square feet) but it’s a very efficient use of space and just the cutest little house ever! And with 3 bedrooms, Travis and I can still have an office, a guest bedroom, and our master bedroom. The kitchen and the main bath were both updated within the past couple years so they are very nice. There are 2 big windows, one in the living room and one in kitchen, facing east and west respectively–so lots of light in the main rooms of the house. 2 of the bedrooms have 2 windows and the other one has 1 window.

It’s a one-car garage, which Travis was a little disappointed about. But in our price point and in the neighborhoods we’re looking at, 2-car garages are very few and far between. The garage on this house is oversized, though, so Travis can still have a workbench at the far end. There is also another parking spot on the side of house (note the SUV in picture) and lots of street parking. The neighborhood is very tidy and quiet but there are little kids running around so it’s not just senior citizens (which is good).

Overall, we just love the house and are very excited/nervous to see what the sellers say tomorrow. We are putting an offer in $2K lower than their asking price + $5K in concessions. We’ll see what happens!!

So we made it through our first day of house hunting. Travis and I went out with our realtor Victoria (she’s great!) to see 14 different houses today. We really liked 2-3 of them. They were a nice size, with great layouts, in our price point. But some of them were so weird and gross…hard to believe anyone can live like that!

For the past 4 hours, Travis and I have been having a very heated debate/discussion/argument about our finances, spending habits, and mortgage amounts. He tends to get very pessimistic and Debbie Downer during times like this when he feels very pressed financially–”I just don’t want to spend so much money buying a house that we can’t enjoy it or put anything in it.” He also wants to put exorbitant (IMO) amounts of money in savings.

Needless to say, I tend to be very optimistic and borderline idealistic during times like this. I see a problem and start brainstorming solutions–”Well, we’ll just stop going out to eat and only limit movies in the theaters to once a month and save half of our ‘blow money’ to fly to Mexico in March with my family” (or else we wouldn’t be able to make it happen). In a lot of ways, it might end up being like my New Year’s Resolutions: very ambitious but hardly ever carried through.

But I am willing to change our lifestyle somewhat to make buying a house possible. And we’re not talking about a $300K 2,500 square foot tri-level mansion. We’re talking about a $170K 1,000 square foot ranch house (but there are some really nice ones out there!) And we wouldn’t have to reduce ourselves to rags and Ramen. We just couldn’t splurge on new camping gear and plane tickets and going to the Frozen Four for $150 a person. Things would be a little tighter, they’d be a little hard.

But we would grow. We would be forced to depend on God for provision. I don’t think that going into buying a house right now is a poor financial decision. We have about $600 wiggle room for “things that make life enjoyable” each month so it’s not like we’re putting all of our pennies into the same piggy bank, hoping we never need that money for anything else.

So I have proposed a trial run: for the month of July, we pretend that we have a mortgage. And are saving for Mexico in March. And are saving for grad school in September (which is SO CLOSE!) We limit our “date money” and we only get half of our “blow money.” Travis thinks it will be absolutely horrible. I think that it will be doable. (which is very weird considering I’m the spender and he’s the saver…) I think that we just need to be more discriminatory about when we go out to eat and to movies, etc. We have to make it count.

We will see how it goes. But a praise: today, I really felt like I was trusting the Lord to provide a house for us instead of freaking out that the house we like will be snatched up. I even prayed throughout the day when I felt myself getting overly excited for the Lord to remind me of His sovereignty and goodness. This morning, I felt reassured by this verse in Ephesians: “And now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

To God be the glory because I am nothing without Him.

Travis and I drove around and looked at houses again today after having a little BBQ and reading session in a park near our apartment. The first 3-4 houses we looked at were “Eh?” or “Ew!” so we weren’t feeling very optimistic about the houses for sale in our price range. But the last 3-4 houses we looked at were more like “You know, given the right touches and help, this house has some potential” and “I could see us living here.” So we headed home with high spirits and high hopes.

So now the action plan is: prayer. Prayer, prayer, and more prayer. Travis and I are really asking a lot with the whole house hunting scenario. We want a nice, well-kept home selling for no more than $200K ($175 would be more like it), with a large yard, porch and/or patio/deck, a 2-car garage, a master bedroom w/master bath, and at least one additional bedroom and bathroom. On our “wouldn’t it be nice” list are: vaulted ceilings, open floor plan, lots of storage, big windows, and only minor tweaks needed (like not needing to overhaul the grody outside color of some houses!! honestly, WHAT were some people thinking?!?!?!?) 

In addition to all those requests, we are having our first day of looking at the insides of houses on June 7th. Hopefully, we’ll get to know what we like and don’t like, see what’s on the market, what goes for what price, etc. Then, according to our plan, we have a 2-week window to find a house we like, put an offer down, have it accepted, and set a closing date at the end of July. Some people spend 2-3 months looking at house (or longer!). We have about 2-3 weeks.

So you can see how we’re asking for a lot…

But God is able and willing to provide. And even when all of life falls into place just how I think it should, God is behind it, orchestrating it all. Even if our house plans don’t fall into place how I “think they should,” God is good and sovereign and has a purpose for everything.

So as we’re driving around looking at houses, and I can feel rising up in me the controlling maniac that wants to run up to the door of a house that I “kinda like” and yell “We’ll take it!”, the same maniac that will throw a fear-based temper tantrum if I see a house I want to put an offer on but Travis doesn’t, I know that I need to ground my heart and trust in the Lord everyday. I need to be a godly woman whose roots are sunk down deep into the truth of the gospel, a woman who doesn’t fear ANYTHING that is frightening (insert John Piper’s voice from his sermon The Beautiful Faith of Fearless Submission).

God will provide. He always does.

Travis and I got our new Pathfinder today. We went to work around 7, then left at 9:30 to drive down to Colorado Springs, where the seller lives. We got to usbank around 11:00 and quickly found out that the bank had just been expecting that we would sign the papers and leave–no check cut, nothing. WHAT!?!? We drove all the way down to Colorado Springs for the specific purpose of getting the car and then we can’t get a check cut?

Turns out it was the banker in Boulder’s fault. He didn’t communicate enough and didn’t fax over the paperwork that was needed to complete the transaction. So the people at the Colorado Springs usbank had to pretty much start from scratch on our loan. We were at usbank for about 1 1/2 hours and the loan we took out is a 4-year loan, not 5 like we had been hoping for. So our monthly payment is a little more than ideal. What should’ve been a very easy process was a long and complicated one. And we felt bad because the seller, his wife, and their 3-month-old daughter were there waiting too! But we got everything squared away and now we have a second car! Oh the possibilities that have been opened…

I got back to work around 2:10 and went straight into a meeting with my boss. Whereas before I had been really looking for work to do (and not finding much), the workload has finally picked back up. Yay! I finally left at 6:10 to go home–it was weird going home without Travis, something that will happen more often, now that we have 2 cars.

Travis and I also talked a little more about the whole housing situation. We are thinking about continuing to move forward with the house hunt. While it would be nice to have more money for a down payment, we realized that we would be spending $9,600 (conservatively) on rent for a year and have nothing to show for it. So spending an extra $15,000 on interest because of a smaller down payment probably isn’t that big of a deal. The thing that will make or break our buying a house, however, is if we can really afford it month to month. With a house comes more costs–not only is a mortgage payment more than rent but you also have utilities and all that jazz.

I’m not sure what will happen but it’s exciting to think of the possibilities!

I know that God is sovereign and good. He is able and willing to provide for His children and He does provide. So I’m trying to not be too upset.

But Travis and I balanced our budget the other night, refiguring how much money we need for all of our different categories so that we can start putting $500 in savings every month for buying a house. As we looked at the budget, we started to realize that maybe buying a house this spring/summer isn’t possible for us. Well, it’s possible if we don’t want to put much or any down and we want a higher interest rate on our mortgage (turns out my credit might not be so hot because of stupid mistakes I made in college). We might just have to move into another apartment in Arvada/Wheat Ridge. At least that way, we would be closer to work and our friends, even if it’s still not a permanent residence.

Adding insult to injury, Travis found out this morning that our car loan was denied. “What?!?!?” I said. The guy at the bank did NOT say that this happening was even a possibility. He said that we had been approved for ”x” at y% for a 2000 or older and approved for “z” at q% for a 2001 or newer. We were buying a 2001 so we thought we were good to go. Nope! I guess the bank sends some paperwork to someone else saying “We’re going to give these people this much money. Okay?” To which those people said, “NOT okay!” Travis said that the guy at the bank resubmitted the loan request, trying to appeal the denial. We find out this afternoon what happens.

God is sovereign and if He wants us to get this car, we will get it–of that I am sure. And if we don’t get the car, I have to trust that God knows what He is doing by not letting us have a car. He’s working something out and it is positively for our good and joy in Him. It just makes me a little frustrated at myself because I’M the reason why we’re having this trouble. I paid my car loan late just one time but it’s still a “discrepancy” in the eyes of the lenders. And since the car we want to buy is “borderline,” meaning it is right on the cutoff between the loan rates and amounts, the lenders denied it.

I’m praying every minute that God is delighting to give us the Pathfinder… it would be so amazing to have 2 cars again!