After speaking with one of my best friends who recently bought a house and seeing the progress they made in a few short months, Ryan and I both feel a little more comfortable with the idea of fixing up a house and re-doing some things if we can find a house at a good price. Owning a house and taking on housing projects just seems so adult and even though we are adults now, it’s still kind of blowing my mind that we could be buying a house. Eek!
I will be meeting with a realtor again later this afternoon to check out another round of houses. We found one we absolutely loved a few weeks ago, but in the end it wasn’t quite right and now we’re back to square one. This process is teaching us a little bit more about what we really hope to find in our first home. I am not naive enough to think that we’ll find all of these things in one house (or even the majority of them!), but here’s a little list of some things we’d love to see in our dream house:
- Lots of Natural Lighting
If you’ve been reading PBF for a few years, you may remember when Ryan and I used to live in an apartment that we not-so-affectionately dubbed the “Mouse House.” Not only did the apartment have mice (ew!), but it was also very, very dark inside. It did not have a lot of windows and natural light and it bugged the crap out of me. Lots of windows and natural light is now non-negotiable for me in a house.
- A White Kitchen
This is one thing I’d love to find in a house, but it’s also something I know will be hard to find. I think white kitchens are so darn beautiful but the vast majority of houses we’re seeing feature kitchens with light or dark wood… or kitchens that need a ton of work. An updated, white kitchen is not something we need, but it would be pretty darn sweet if we found a home that had this feature!
- Fenced-In Backyard
This is another thing that’s not a deal-breaker, but it would be wonderful if we found a house that had a fenced-in backyard for Sadie!
- Safe and Walkable Neighborhood
A neighborhood that’s walkable (and ideally has sidewalks) is pretty important to me and Ryan. We take Sadie on two walks a day and want to feel like we can walk out our front door and not get buzzed by speeding cars. Sidewalks would be ideal, but if we find a neighborhood without them that doesn’t have a ton of cars whizzing through it all the time, that would be just fine.
- Open Floor Plan
I adore kitchens that open up into living rooms. Since most people seem to congregate in kitchens at parties and family gatherings, I’d love to have an open floor plan that allows for people in the kitchen to easily chat with those in the living room. (And just seeing those beautiful light couches makes me laugh. Sadie = No white couches… Ever.) It’s not a deal-breaker for me by any means, but it would be a nice feature!
- Family Friendly/Active Neighborhood
Though Ryan and I aren’t planning to start a family for a little while, living in a house that is located in a family-friendly area is important to us. I love seeing kids outside playing and people outside walking their dogs or running. It makes neighborhoods feel more homey to me for some reason.
- Good Schools
I had a fantastic experience with public schooling in Illinois and thankfully the public schools in the areas we are looking to buy a house seem to be pretty great. Since I’d love to find a house we can stay in for years and years, we’re trying to think ahead and consider school districts when looking at houses.
- Hardwood Floors
Again, this is not a deal-breaker, but if a home has hardwood floors, that’s a definite plus! Our rental house in Ocala had carpet all over the place and it was so hard to keep clean! Plus, from an aesthetic standpoint, I prefer the look of hardwood over carpet.
- Close To Things To Do
Ryan and I made the mistake of renting a house that was a good 20 – 30 minutes from almost everything in Ocala. This experience definitely impacted our desire to find a house that is close to a vibrant area of town with lots of things to do.
- A Good Vibe
Have you ever walked into a house and immediately had a “WTF happened here!?” feeling? I never did until about two weeks ago when I walked into a house and got a seriously creepy vibe from the place. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad or scary happened in that house and knew immediately I could never live there. It was really crazy (especially since I’m not into ghosts or other stuff like that), but I definitely need a house with a good vibe.
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Photo Sources: All of the above images are from Houzz.com. (And yes, I know they’re totally baller. I’m not thinking we’ll find a house that looks like them, but I can dream.) If you love interior design or browsing pictures of beautiful homes, stay far, far away from Houzz or you will get sucked into the abyss for hours and hours on end. I both love and hate our realtor for telling me about it!
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Questions of the Morning
- What features would you love to see in your dream home?
- What are some “must have” features you think would be non-negotiable to you when it comes to buying a house?
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I know it could be a pain in the rump but if you find a good kitchen with great cabinets in the wrong color, chalk paint can make a huge difference. The cabinets wouldn’t need to be sanded or primed first so it would be a relatively easy upgrade with a little elbow grease and would save money. I just redid 2 armoires and a table that have great classic lines and now look completely updated with pure white and Paris grey. Just something to keep in mind! 🙂
Our must haves are things I guess we take for granted like A/C, dishwasher (or room for one), at least 1 1/2 baths because we have 1 bath and it’s irritating, a bigger kitchen (not huge just bigger than we have now) and now that I’ve had a fireplace for 18 years, I can’t imagine not having one.
As far as “wants” a walkable but quiet neighborhood is a must. We’re being bombarded with people with loud habits or uncontrolled dogs and it’s distracting. A two story is ideal, I don’t like bedrooms on the main floor. Room for a workout space and our retro arcade. Yes…we plan to have 2 stand up games (Ms Pac Man and Donkey Kong) and either a pool table or pinball machine and a retro sofa would be awesome.
We are in the middle of getting preapproved for a house and I feel so lost in the process! But I absolutely won’t sacrifice an open layout. And no carpets (unless it’s in the bedrooms)!
Good luck to you! So exciting!!
My husband and I bought a house last year, and it was a frustrating process, mostly because we wanted a basement and they’re hard to come by at a decent price in Indiana. We waited, though, and eventually found a house we loved with a basement! We had to update a lot of things — which I never thought I’d want to do — but it was worth it. The house is older and built better than newer homes (according to our realtor and inspector), and we were able to make it our own!
As a recent (November) first time homebuyer, I know all of the feelings you are experiencing. I became so overwhelmed at the thought of having to gut a home and had such a hard time imagining going through a remodel of any part of a home. In the end, we found a home that was mostly updated, except for the kitchen. It had these dark (translation = ugly) cabinets, a mustard yellow sink, and countertops made out of a material I can only guess what it is! We knew we didn’t want the expense of gutting the kitchen entirely, and so we ended up painting the cabinets white, and will be replacing the sink sometime soon (other home expenses took precedence (snowblower, lawnmower, window treatments, etc). It made such a difference just painting the cabinets! Sure, it was a LOT of work, but in the end, an easy (though still costly) fix. Definitely consider a painting project for kitchen cabinets if you don’t find your white kitchen!
Some advice from someone who’s been there?
Hardwood floors are terrible for dogs and future babies. Slip-slide-fall all the time. Plus, fur does weird things on hardwood and is so much harder to stay clean-looking. I hated having them and love my carpets. We even put a piece of bound carpet down over our current hardwoods.
Also, we moved from a house downtown with sidewalks everywhere to a subdivision without any. I figured that walking our dog in a subdivision without sidewalks would be fine since the traffic isn’t so bad there, but we have almost been hit by cars more times than I care to think about!
Hope this helps!
Dogs get used to hardwood floors pretty quickly, and that’s what area rugs are for! Carpet is terrible for things like allergies, it’s SO much easier to keep hardwood clean. Just another opinion!
Agreed!! I have a baby and a dog and I loathe carpet! Hardwood is easy to keep clean, it’s gorgeous, timeless, and airy. Stick with the hardwood!
We have two big dogs who shed like crazy, and our whole house is hardwood. It’s great because it’s so durable and easy to clean, but it does collect fur like nobody’s business (they look like tumbleweeds!!). It never quite looks clean enough, even right after we sweep, but we’ve tried big area rugs and that sealed the deal for me that we MUST have hardwoods – they started to smell like dog after a year or two and we could never get rid of the smell, even vacuuming with baking soda. We ditched ’em. Hardwoods and porcelain or ceramic tile ONLY for this girl!! (Side note: our dogs actually love laying on the cool hardwood as opposed to a rug or dog bed.)
SO true about the pet hair! I sweep a LOT! But if you have carpet, you can never truly be sure you’re getting all that hair/dirt up (like you said). I do my floors once a week and I get SO MUCH hair off of the floor, but I’m sure that they are sparkling clean when I’m done. Carpet, not so much.
Good luck on the house hunt! We bought our first home last December and I still look at houses everyday online! For me, I wanted a house built before 1940, a formal dining room, great neighborhood/schools and hardwood floors. Our house had LOTS of 60’s carpet when we moved in and we ripped it all up and refinished the original wood underneath. It was seriously the most gratifying thing ever to restore something original to the house!
Today is the one year anniversary of the closing on our first house, and I still to this day look at houses online. I told my husband that I wanted to be a real estate agent when I retire!
Woohoo for one year in your home!
Best decision we’ve ever made! There are definitely ups and downs, but the hardware store is our new favorite place to spend money, and I get irrationally excited about weird things like installing a water-saving flush kit in the guest bathroom and good deals on patio furniture.
It’s definitely a balance figuring out what are non negotiable things and then things that you just want all while trying to stay in your price range. I totally get it! After living in our “starter home” for a few years, I realized a few things were musts for us going forward: double sinks in the master bathroom, a decent size kitchen with lots of counter space & cabinetry, fenced in yard, and an open floor plan. There were, of course, things beyond that we were hoping to find, but those were the things we weren’t willing to settle on. I, too, wanted a white kitchen, but we ended up with a beautiful kitchen that has darker cabinetry and nice granite counters. It wasn’t what I necessarily dreamed of, but it’s still beautiful and works for us. I also was totally against a two story house in the beginning, and we now have a two story that I actually am LOVING. It’s so nice for entertaining! Good luck! I know the home buying process can be CRAZY. I’m excited for you guys!
I’ve owned two houses now. Kitchen is very important, location and yard. Yards can be a ton of work do it good to see how mature and landscaped it is.
I hate yardwork… And this is coming from someone who’s only rented. I am very intimidated by a big backyard and lots of landscaping!
Everything you want in a house is exactly what I want too. I may have to come back to this post someday when I’m looking for a house with my future husband. Not having natural light seriously bugs me. I’ve also learned this year through my college apartment that I want light/white space with splashes of color and not cluttered.
I would LOVE to have a lot of natural lighting in my dream home. and a large kitchen area for mixing up new recipes.
I loved reading this post! We are closing on our house in three weeks and I’ve totally been in your situation recently! After house hunting for a couple months, we decided to build. A couple of my non-negotiables were a gas range, full gutters, tall ceilings, and storage!! You can always change paint, flooring, etc. but it’s much more expensive to add that extra linen or coat closet!
Your list truly covers what we are looking for in a house as well. We just sold our first home this year to move to Raleigh. Our first home really showed us what we wanted in our long term house. We really want a home that has room to grow into including large bedrooms with lots of good storage space. Also REAL hardwood floors, our first home had cheap hardwood floors that started to show wear quickly.
We’ve not owned a home (yet) but I totally want to buy our dream home right off the bat! It is out there somewhere, I know it.
HAHA. And yes, I’m totally joking. But a girl can dream, right?! 😉
p.s. totally creepy about that feeling you just had about the house. Def go with your instincts, that house sounds way weird-o! I’d never have thought about something like that, but now that you’ve mentioned it, you’re so right. There is just a feeeeeeling in some houses.
I bought almost two years ago, and the most important thing to remember when you’re house-hunting is that most things can be changed. You need to be able to be okay with the things that cannot be changed (the layout, the location, etc). My condo has a deck that faces the most beautiful trees and it sold me. But there were definitely things that I needed to be okay with and have the knowledge that I could change them – the mirrored wall in the dining room (the first thing to go), the 30 year-old carpets…the house that i live in is completely different than the one i bought, recessed lighting, paint, granite counter tops, blinds, hardwood floors…there are so many ways to make it your own…and it’s a fun part of the process!
LOCATION has to be number one!! its the only thing you will never be able to change and are basically stuck with! good luck and enjoy the ride—-you won’t know what to do with your time when ‘house hunting’ is over 🙂
In searching for my most recent house I had total “WTF happened here?” moment at this one house…didn’t even check out the 2nd level. It was sketchy!! My last house had a galley kitchen, so I knew I wanted a bigger kitchen this time around – that was on my “must-have” list. I also lived near two busy streets, and knew I wanted a more residential, family friendly neighbourhood, which I was very lucky to find – sidewalks included:) This is the second home I’ve owned, and while it’s still not my “dream” home, compared to the first it is much more “me”. I really learned a lot during the two house hunting experiences, and felt much more prepared the second time around – I was not settling until I found the home that fit my current/future needs…but if I ever win the lottery, I plan on building my dream home! I also agree about Houzz…easy to be entertained for hours! My biggest piece of advice is to not settle. No, you won’t find everything on your wish list, but if you can hit a good chunk of your must haves, and know that you’ll be happy in the home and the neighbourhood then that is probably the house for you:) Best of luck!
Thanks! And you are totally right about not just settling. It’s a huge purchase and I want to feel really good about it. 🙂
I love houzz.com! So many great ideas. Since this is a home you plan to stay in for a long time, I think you are smart to consider the school district and neighborhood for your future family. We bought our home just before we got married and, now that we have kids, I wish we had given that more consideration! My dream home would include a mudroom (we have a pile of shoes in our hallway that drives me crazy!), a separate laundry room (preferably on the second floor near the bedrooms), and a playroom for the kids. I definitely agree with many of the items on your list, including natural light, hardwood floors, and a white kitchen! I love white and gray kitchens! Happy house hunting 🙂
You have a great list going! My advice – look for the things that are harder to change, like an open floor plan and a walk-able neighborhood. Cabinets can be painted, hardwood and fences can be installed. It’s harder to knock out walls (although, totally doable…we did it because I wanted that open floor plan!) and you can’t make a neighborhood more walk-able. Stick to your guns and hold out for a house you love, even if it means a little longer in temporary housing. It’ll be worth it in the long run! I’m excited for you guys!!
I would love to have an outdoor kitchen/bar area in my future home! A big backyard is more important to me than a big house 🙂
Ryan’s dream home as an outdoor living space, too! He talks about that all the time!
As far as white kitchens go, the bright side…pun intended 😉 …is that you can probably DIY it if the house doesn’t already have it, and then it will be perfectly customized for your family’s tastes. Plus, if the kitchen already needs work, you’ll probably get a better deal on the house, right?
As a single girl, I’m mostly about that apartment life right now, but it’s still really important to me to be in a safe area (low crime) and have an open-ish floorplan so that I have space to work out at home. Silly but true!
I want a house that’s also in a safe neighborhood and has a decent size back yard. Nowadays, I feel that a lot of homes in my area barely have a yard and you can almost reach out your window and touch your neighbor’s house! It’s ridiculous how close so houses are!
I wanted a white kitchen until I had one…SO hard to keep everything white, especially with a dog running around!!! My must have is a nice, open living room. Hoping our next house will have more space to play around with 🙂
Totally know what you mean about just getting a good (or bad) feeling about a place. You can paint cabinets, put in a fence, and even tear up carpet and put in hardwood (although that one gets a little more expensive), but you canNOT improve location. I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in small things (like the color of the walls), but remember that painting is VERY easy compared to knocking down walls and expanding a kitchen or something like that! I have confidence that you and Ryan will find a great place!
We own a house that we love in a neighborhood that we love. I had a great feeling from the moment we walked in and as we were leaving, a random woman walking by said “this is a great neighborhood to raise a family.” We didn’t have kids at the time, but now there are a ton of kids in the neighborhood. One of my husband’s deal breakers was sidewalks! Seriously, now that I have both kids and a dog, I can not imagine living in a neighborhood without them. You don’t want to have to walk in the road with both a stroller and a dog!
My dad used to be a cop and when we went attended a friend’s housewarming party he recognized the house from a huge drug bust. It had been like a decade since it happened, but we definitely did not tell them 🙂
I love love love our house, but I do wish we lived closer to friends and family. I need to find a way to pick it up and move it across states. When we move, my requirements will still be 2 or 3 car garage, lots of natural light, not too much fixing up required and very open floorplan. We also prefer darker woods… they show pet hair like crazy, but hide other dirt better 🙂
Totally agree with your list! I think the most important to me is feeling safe & comfortable walking around. And sidewalks are important too– I would NOT like living in a neighborhood without them! I didn’t realize this until visiting my bf’s parents and their neighborhood doesn’t have sidewalks– it felt weird walking in the street all the time!
Our must haves are a 2 car garage and at least 2 bathrooms…sharing is no fun. 🙂 I agree on the natural light too. I love being able to open up the windows.
Taking on some small fix it up projects is great, but keep in mind when you are comparing the “bargain” that the kitchen and bathrooms are the most expensive to upgrade!
My husband and I are also shopping for our first house. One thing I didn’t consider until we were about to put an offer on a house was the placement of the bedrooms. Both the guest bedroom and the (very) future nursery would have been right off the living room. I didn’t mind it until I started thinking about having friends over to watch a football game and having a sleeping baby RIGHT next to us. The one we’re looking at today, I’m super excited about, but when I look at the pictures I can’t figure out how they got the furniture up the staircase.
One note, we have white cabinets in our kitchen now. I HATE them. Granted, they are cheap cabinets, but they are constantly dirty. Dog fur, spills, grease, everything shows. I seriously feel like I have to wipe down every cabinet door every day to keep them clean. Just something to keep in mind in case you’ve never lived with white cabinets.
Whatever you do, make sure to get a reliable home inspector and make that a contingency, everything can look great on the ‘outside’ but it’s what you can’t see that could cost you a boatload of money!
And I agree with those that say LOCATION, location, location!! Other stuff can be changed but driving long distances to do stuff or see friends/family will never go away. I am in my 4th house and we love this house and location and especially our neighborhood! Too bad you can’t go door to door and meet the neighbors… 🙂 have fun with it and statistically you’ll only be in this house for about 5 years…
I live in a little apartment still, but natural light and windows/air flow is a big must for me! In a house, I would also love a porch or balcony, especially for having meals outdoors!
My husband owns a lumber plant, and produces beautiful hardwood cabinets. White kitchens are pretty and bright, but it is such a shame when they put paint over gorgeous wood like that! Lighter woods may be your speed:)
We JUST moved into our first home (literally on Sunday, I am still getting dressed out of boxes every day), so reading this made me so excited for you! We, too, lived in a variety of apartments before buying, and while I hated it at the time, it definitely helped my frame of reference when we were thinking through “must-haves” and “nice-to-have.” Sending you happy thoughts and positive vibes!
You should definitely check out the neighborhoods in Mooresville. It’s right on Lake Norman and the school systems are great. I lived there for 10+ years and absolutely loved it!! Check out Morrison Plantation, Isle of Pines, Winslow Bay and the Farms. PS- go drive by The Point for some home inspiration. The homes are beautiful there!
We bought and flipped a house in 2012, so we looked for a property that would be a good investment and not necessarily something we ourselves wanted to live in. But as it turns out I loved our first little house and miss it sometimes! My husband is very handy, so my only requirements are a good floor plan and a good neighborhood, neither of which are easy to fix with a hammer and some new paint! Everything else you can build as you see fit.
My husband and I are looking right now too. Location is the biggest thing. We just found two houses we absolutely loved but they had busy roads right behind them. Then we found another amazing house but it had power lines right behind the backyard. It is really frustrating, but as everyone has said, location is the one thing you will never be able to change. Just got to keep at it until we find our perfect house! Best of luck to you and Ryan!
Come visit us in Dilworth!! It’s a great neighborhood and I think you’d really like it,,, esp. with all of the points you mentioned above (hello great school system, walkable streets, and close to things to do!). There’s a lot of homes with a lot of charm, too — ours is a 1935 home and has hardwoods throughout the entire thing!
Houzz is the best, isn’t it? It’s like house daydreaming to look through their pictures. I have made my perfect house in my mind so many times from those pictures and other “fantasy” houses I see walking around!
Charlotte has some really cute neighborhoods, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a good area. We were actually house hunting there for a minute and loved a few of the cute, intown neighborhoods like Dillworth and Elizabeth.
My dream home would have a wide (possibly wrap-around) front porch, a fenced in yard, a pool or a lake in back, an open floor plan, dark hardwoods, and a big white kitchen as well!
Luckily for you, a lot of your must-haves are things you could definitely add on after moving in. Painting the cabinets white or fencing in a yard are easy fixes, as long as you have the open floor plan you’re good to go. Even that can be done with some minor renovations, so I’m sure you two will make that home yours in no time!
We’re looking for our next house too! We’re still in the looking stage rather than really hunting since we don’t even have our current house on the market. Since we want our next house to be a house we live in for 10+ years, we have a lot of musts. Here are some:
-On a nice lake with decent lakefront
-No split-levels!
-No light colored wood – I hate it
-At least 2 bathrooms
-At least 3 bedrooms… 4+ would be best
-Lots of storage, especially the kitchen – our current house doesn’t have much
-Bigger bedrooms – our current house has small bedrooms. We want to fit our king size bed, 2 dressers, and an armoire comfortably in our master.
There are more! I told you I have a lot of musts!
I was wondering if those pictures were from actual houses you were looking at since they were so baller! haha. When we were house hunting, a big yard was very important to me since I wanted a big yard for a dog. I drove my husband crazy by going to the back and immediately vetoing a house if the yard was too small. Some houses were on lets that were 1/10th of an acre. Teeny! I knew our house was the once once I hit the backyard. It’s long and narrow and was fully fenced in. Our lot is 1/3 of an acre and I’m happy with it for now. I grew up in the country on 5 acres of land and tons of woods behind our house though so anything less feels small to me. I told the hubby that for our next house I want bigger. Like 1-5 acres. I like to walk around the house in a tshirt and underwear sometimes and he freaks out someone may see me (I don’t really think they can as we only have windows on the front and back, not on the sides which does drive me crazy with the lighting) and I always respond that he can buy me a house in the country and not worry 🙂
I need a decent size kitchen. We had a galley style kitchen when I was growing up and it was a nightmare trying to have more than one person in there at time.
How exciting for you, Julie! 🙂 I know you’ll find something great and you’ll have fun putting your personal touches on it. Can’t wait to see the result!
By the way, LOVE Houzz. My best friend just got a job at there HQ in Orange County. So neat!
I can whole-heartedly agree with most of your points…except the hardwood floors. My home of the past 10 years has hardwood floors. They look nice enough, but I don’t like any other aspect of them. I think they are HARDER to keep clean than carpet. Any crumbs or solid dirt gets knocked around as you walk and makes even more of a mess. If you get anything liquid on them, you either have to wipe it up shortly or have a spot (I don’t necessarily mean a permanent spot) where it dries on. And to really clean hardwood, you need to vacuum up the loose dirt and THEN use some sort of liquid cleaning mop (especially for hardwood, of course) to really get the floors clean.
Another point: Sadie’s claws may scratch up hardwood, as well as high heels. It may depend on how the hardwood is finished.
Last point: hardwood is cold on the feet on winter mornings.
Can you tell I’m not a fan? 🙂 We’d love to put in carpet in our house, but that’s a big job we haven’t gotten around to yet.
On the other hand, we bought our house (10 years ago) knowing that we were going to completely re-do the kitchen. It was in horrible shape, and since we renovated it, we got to put in exactly what we wanted. Re-doing a kitchen or bathroom is a pretty self-contained job that is not too horrible and doesn’t take too long. (We didn’t do it ourselves – we hired a contractor.)
I second the cleaning issue! I hate walking barefoot on our wood floors and feeling little pieces of dirt and stuff stick to my feet. So annoying. We have part carpet and part hardwood. I like the look of the hardwood, but it does show dirt big time and scratch. We have a very dark hardwood and our dog is light brown-we can just finish cleaning and there will be hair showing up 5 minutes later. Just depends how often you want to clean and if it bothers you to see the hair and feel the dirt underfoot. And we don’t even wear shoes in the house to keep it cleaner, still gets in somehow!
My fiancé and I just purchased our first home and are moving into it in 3 weeks! I’ll be honest the process is a gruelling one and there will definitely be times that you want to give up BUT when you finally find the one it’ll all be worth it (am I talking about a home or a man….?) anyways enjoy the process as much as possible I know the right house is out there for you two!
P.S. Houzz is terribly amazing! Hours and hours is an understatement haha!
My husband and I bought our first house (we consider it our starter house, definitely not our dream house!) in March of 2012 and I had NO idea what I really wanted when we were searching. For our next house, my deal breakers will be a fenced-in backyard, at least 4 bedrooms & 2 1/2 baths, hardwoods all over, & an open floor plan! In our current house, the kitchen does open up into the living room, which I LOVE, but I would really like an even more open floor plan next time, with high ceilings. I agree with previous commenters that painting cabinets is a pretty easy project! We have white cabinets in our kitchen, but they desperately need repainted. We are also in the process of replacing carpet with a dark laminate right now and it’s also a super easy process! Good luck!!
I’m so with you on the natural light thing!
When I look at the before pictures of my home, I’m not really sure what I was thinking while house-hunting. Imagination is key for sure during the house-hunting process. My fiancé and I became DIYers the day after we closed. Even two years later, we are still creating large to-do list, and we are even thinking of flipping a house on the side. Also, don’t get discouraged if your offer falls through. This happened to me, and I literally thought I’d never find a house better than that particular one. The house we ended up choosing in the end had way more character and charm, so what is meant to be will be. Good luck and happy hunting!
Julie,
We recently bought a house as well so I remember how difficult of a project it is! Our house was also pretty outdated, as far as style goes. My advice would be to look MOST at your floor plan and neighborhood (since this will be the biggest thing for resale value) as well as what schools you are zoned for. Other than those things, everything else is relatively easy to fix. We had brass/gold fixtures throughout the house, and I spray painted and sealed them all to be dark and updated. Cabinets are also super easy to have someone come out and paint white for not too much. Floors too. Hope this helps and good luck!
We just bought our house and we compromised on a lot of things, but as soon as we walked in, we both just “knew” we had found “the one”. It doesn’t have hardwood but we are going to put it in ourselves, and update kitchen and bathrooms ourselves.
Our real estate agent gave us great advice: you can change the decor and inside of the house (to a certain degree), but you cannot change the neighborhood, yard, and area. We chose a house with a nice yard and a neighborhood with walking paths and a pond. It’s in a great school district which was also important to us. So, just remember–you can fix up a house, but you can’t MOVE the house to a different yard haha.
You can always paint the cabinets! I LOVE white cabinets, so we brought in a paint crew to make our tan/taupe cabinets white. They took the doors to the shop to spray for a professional finish. It really wasn’t too expensive and it’s like a new kitchen!