Sunday, March 6, 2011

Keeping up with the Joneses' in Washington?

Wow, I didn't realize that I hadn't posted in such a long time.  Mike and I may be moving to Pullman, Washington.  Now, its really only about 8 miles away from where we currently live in Moscow.  We are right on the Idaho - Washington border.  Mike is going to be graduating in May, and he wasn't really sure where he was going next.  He realized he needed to take some programming classes still, not for his degrees, but to be successful and using his degrees.  So, since he won't be a full time student we are going to have to move - we live in married family housing on campus.  Its been way too long in this tiny apartment!  

I started looking at apartments/duplexes/houses to rent and realized, yikes - this is a college town.  They are all in terrible shape and are relatively expensive.  So, about 5 - 6 weeks ago, I started doing some online searches for inexpensive houses - still living on one income.  This is Idaho right, they can't be that much.  Well, funny thing about Moscow, the prices of homes, while still not sky high, are relatively expensive.  A newer 3 bedroom/2 bath 2000 sq foot home is at least 200k, go much bigger and its quite a jump beyond that... Just outside of Moscow, in Troy, ID or Potlatch, ID they are much less expensive, same size'ish home would be about 120k.  But then you have a bit of a drive - and you are living in SERIOUS small town Idaho. 

We found a real estate agent, really just by chance.  I think we lucked out because so far he's done a good job.  He showed a few houses, then Mike found a listing on Craigslist for a home in Pullman.  It was 3 bd, 2ba, living, dining, breakfast nook, fireplace, garage, basement... and we drove over to check it one day in the snow.  It had these amazing picture windows, a funky old kitchen, a huge living room, we really liked it! 

Flash forward... we are closing on the house (finger's crossed) on 4/15/2011 !!  It will be so amazing to have our own place.  A couple of pictures:



Pretty snow!  Look at the shaped and pruned tree - are we going to have keep that pruning up?


The garage is in the basement of the house.  There is also a laundry room and finished 'workshop' type room.  The workshop even has its own fireplace.  We don't know where the car came from, maybe the neighbors?  The house has been empty since last summer.


Close up view of the front entrance.  I love that the garage doesn't make up the majority of the front of the house. 

So, here we are jumping into the world of home ownership!  This whole buying a home process is another blog all on it's own! 

2 comments:

TeamChavez4 said...

How exciting! The house is adorable! What fun!!!!!

Heidi Upton said...

Yes, how every exciting!!!! You must be thrilled!!!