We Bought a House

October 27, 2009

The Dowell's bought their first house!

Finally! When we realized that Trooper has lived in 4 houses at the ripe age of 3, we decided it was time to become homeowners. After putting offers on three homes, our 4th offer was accepted in mid-September. We jumped through a lot of hoops and final got lender approval and signed our loan docs on October 19. On Friday, October 23, we received the keys to our first place!

The house we purchased is an original 1950s rancher in Willow Glen. By original, we mean "fixer-upper." At first, we didn't want our first home to be a fixer, but we decided that size, location, and layout was more important than updated. We'll see if that decision was a smart one!

At just over 2,000 square feet, the 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house has a lot of potential. It has a large eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, family room with fireplace, and a bonus room. Once we do some work, the bonus room will make a great playroom (see pic at left). It has a crack down the center of the room - we do not recommend building a structure on top of a concrete patio! The ceiling needs to be replaced due to water damage caused by the leaky roof (since repaired). We are interviewing contractors to help us with this "project."

The Yard - Wow!

The yard is good sized, with a covered patio, lawn, pool, and jungle. The ivy in the backyard took over somewhere around 1980 and the previous homeowners let it grow into a jungle. We plan to clear out as much ivy as possible. We hope to enhance the yard with a large vegetable and flower garden. Watch out Martha Stewart! Luckily, the pool is separate from the rest of the yard so we won't have to worry about the boys getting into too much trouble.

Future Garden

"The Jungle"

We're hoping to use this blog as a way to show our progress as we remodel the house. We'll post before and after photos and share our experiences. Let's hope things go smoothly!

Best,

The Dowell Family

On Saturday, we jumped right in.