Tale of a First-Time Home Buyer: Week One in Our New House
It has been over a week now in the new house and we couldn’t be happier. That’s probably because our first mortgage payment isn’t due until August 1st! I can’t wait to get home every day and just be there. We have most of our things unpacked and all of the empty boxes thrown out. We still haven’t hung any pictures on the walls, but I like the look of a clean slate.
The house is three stories, all above ground. The bottom floor consists of a two-car garage in the front and the “man cave,” or basement, at the rear. In my opinion, the man cave is the best room in the house. Both our new couch and new TV are featured in this room, and I have a small refrigerator in there as well for easy access to adult beverages to sip on during the big game. A full bathroom is also present in the basement, which was an upgrade from a rough-in.
The middle floor of the house has our living room / dining room in the front and the kitchen / family room in the rear. The living room, although the biggest room in the house, will inevitably become the room that no one ever goes in. The kitchen is beautiful, as we upgraded the countertops to a lovely “ubatuba” granite and we upgraded the appliances to stainless steel. These were the only other upgrades we purchased besides the full bath in the basement. We had to pick and choose, but luckily the house came with many standard features that aren’t normally standard, such as crown molding, energy-efficient appliances and mechanicals, double pane windows, and hardwood in the kitchen.
The third floor consists of two bedrooms in the front, a full bath in the middle, and the master suite at the rear. One of the front bedrooms will serve as a guest room and the other will be our office. Right now we call it the “red-headed stepchild room” because we just stick everything in there that doesn’t have a place. The master suite is huge and has a walk-in closet and master bathroom that I feel I don’t deserve. I actually took a bath in there. Yeah, that’s right, a bath… bubbles and all. And you know what? It was amazing.
The house is everything we thought it would be and more. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, the feeling of satisfaction I have right now is unlike anything I have ever felt before. I’m proud. Proud of myself and my wife for making a plan, following the plan, and executing it to perfection. We negotiated bumps in the road calmly and discussed each one and our options as we educated ourselves about a process which we knew nothing about just six short months ago. We have learned so much and I’m sure we’ll learn a whole lot more.
The next step is filing an addendum to our 2009 taxes and claiming our wonderful $8,000 first-time homebuyer’s tax credit! More about that next week!
