Home VERY Sweet Home

Yesterday we drove up to Austin to check out some houses.... again.  This house hunt has just exhausted Hubby and I.  We were living on the kindness of my family while we were looking for our own house in Austin, and we've sort of exhausted that, too.  On Thursday we suffered the ultimate house hunt defeat: we finally found what we thought was the perfect home (although on the edge of sketchy neighborhood) complete with a bonus room perfect for our work-from-home businesses -- only to find someone else had gotten an application in ahead of ours.  I didn't cry, but I did isolate myself in my room for the whole day.

But back to yesterday.  Our plan was actually just to meet our realtor and get our deposit back, since we didn't get the house, and then meet up with friends Danielle & Rob of Sunday Hatch for the Renegade Craft Fair -- which I'll have a blog about tomorrow (so check back).  We got our deposit back (thank GOD!) and the realtor also showed us another house at our request which ended up being a huge dump.  How do people live in such filth?  I don't understand it at all.

We were really crushed after that.  We implored our realtor -- "What else can we do?  Where else should we be looking?"  I just didn't think we were seeing the type of properties we were really interested in.  There was something wrong with each one of them.  He suggested we just get in the car and drive around the neighborhoods we liked looking for unlisted properties, which we'd done multiple times already.  Oh well, we decided to try again.  In less than an hour we stumbled across this....

I called the number and left a message and off we drove.  Within 10 minutes my phone range and I was having an exciting conversation with the owners of the house.  They liked "the sound of us" so much they drove over an hour to come and meet Tim and I the same day.  We toured the house, talked about our lives, signed a lease, paid the deposit, and it's ours on June 1!

Yard with Deck

The Pros

• SUPER location
• we can walk to restaurants/grocery/gym
• safe (Hyde Park) neighborhood with friendly people
• short commute to UT campus and downtown
• very central to Austin life
• two bedroom + Living room -- we can have guests!
• large, spacious, well-kept yard with room to garden, keep chickens, and for Oscar to play
• hardwood floors
• landlords who really care about their property
• rent negotiation possibilities in trade for free labor on repairs
• opportunities for DIY home improvement projects which I can share with you in the future!
• Did I say GREAT LOCATION??

The Cons

• outdated poorly lit bathroom, very small sink with ugly tile
• kitchen appliances are old (luckily we have our own anyway)
• no dishwasher (we've dealt before, we'll deal again)
• bath and kitchen vinyl flooring needs replacing
• some rooms don't get great light

It needs a little love... but so happy to have a place of our own! 

Our first "married" home!