Our first home! This past April, after about two months of looking, our wonderful realtors Karim and Jessica showed us a wonderful looking home in the Piedmont neighborhood of Portland. We checked it out for about 20 minutes on a Friday after work with Karim. We asked Karim if we should put an offer in... we were hesitant and worried about the chances of a better place coming up. He looked at us and simply said, "you two need to buy this house". Well.. that was that and we put an offer in that night along with a nice letter about how amazing it would be to start a family there. Read on for more photos.
On Saturday I went climbing up Mt. Hood (see previous post). During my climb Emily went to an open house there and got a better feel for the place. She learned that evening that our offer had been accepted. So, barring any unforeseen issues, I had just skied off the summit of the tallest volcano in Oregon and also bought our first house! Clearly a good day.
On Sunday we went back to the house with Karim to give it another look. At this point we could still back out of the deal and at first I was hesitant about our choice seeing it again. Mostly I didn't like the colors and the look of the kitchen or the weird cabana in the backyard. But, again, upon talking to Karim and Emily and realizing that all those things were minor issues that we could change ourselves it became apparent that it was the right house for us. Built in 1998 and in great shape with central air, lots of outlets, 2.5 bathrooms and plenty of room it was a no brainer. The only downside was the backyard is small without grass for Leo to pee or poop in but with the promise of walking him day and night and him being primarily an indoor lazy-head it was fine. The location is wonderful, just a few blocks from bars and restaurants and up the street is a great bike line all the way to work just 15 minutes of riding away. 
After a home inspection and some negotiating for some extra cash from the owners for a handy man to fix some things we finalized on a price and in mid May signed the paperwork for our new place. The bank did an appraisal of the property and we were surprised to find the value to be $15,000 more than what we paid for, which is crazy in the competitive Portland market. I mean... we bid on the the house hours after it was put on the market just to get it!
The owners needed an extra month to move in to their new place so we were happy to have them pay us rent for a month as we were now the new owners. This meant that we could move in near the end of June, right around the time Emily had to take her SPHR exam... not good timing.
As it turned out the owners were out of the house the 13th of June so over Father's Day weekend Emily I began to prep the house for a VERY BIG paint job the following weekend. We brought a few things over but planned on the big move the day after Emily took her SPHR exam at the en of the month. We were super surprised to find that the previous owner Ryan had left us their garage fridge full of microbrews, a bottle of bourbon and even champagne! Karim also brought over a welcome basket and bottle of wine as well. What a wonderful welcome to our new home!!!
On June 22nd we had a painting party at our house. We chose Sandstone Cliff as our main color for all of downstairs and the hallways upstairs. Tom, Eric, Anna, Ryan, and Porter came over to give us a hand painting. We ordered some pizza and were able to finish the job in about 4 hours! Amazing! We left some paint on the ceilings (which took forever to fix because we couldn't get the ceiling color right) and some trim needed to be fixed. On Sunday we spent the day painting doors and touching up some walls and I spent every day after work the following week at the house making sure the trim was perfect and we didn't miss any spots. I definitely won't miss all the blue tape I had to put down for it!
Finally, after a long week of touch ups and Emily successfully passing her exam on Saturday we spent Sunday and Monday moving into our new house. We were able to pack up everything into a u-haul and move it the new house in just a day.... well nearly everything... we had to make a couple trips with my truck on Monday as well. The little boy Jackson and his brother DJ who had hung out with a bit and had taught how to longboard was super sad to see us leave. But before we left, at a weekend yard sale I had given him and his brother a snowboard, a backpack, my PS2 and some other stuff so they made out pretty well. I felt bad leaving and didn't promise anything because I knew it would be hard to keep up a friendship from Portland and I'm sure in time he would forget about me.
After renting a shampoo rug cleaner and thoroughly cleaning out our Ridgefield rental house on Monday we were officially moved in! Our first night in the new house was actually Sunday Jun 29th, 2014! We were both so happy to be back in Oregon and close to everything social again. We argued a bit about where to put everything but eventually everything worked itself into a perfect place!
Now, months later as I catch up on my blog posts I can say that we are all settled in. I hired a professional to help me install a 7.1 surround system, with the help of our parents we got a brand new washer and dryer and grill and I'm almost done with the process of switching all our landscaping and internal lighting to LED to save money. We even figured out how to install wifi for our garage so we can open it remotely and get reminders if we leave it open. Yes.. our house is slowly becoming an automated smart home! Would you expect anything less than me? hehe! We've had several get togethers and Emily's parents have even come to visit to help us with a few things and give us advice like installing an attic fan to cool it down in the summer and help with the AC. We love our new place but it is October now and we still need to figure out how to get all the art and photos up on the walls in positions Emily approves of!
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