We Bought a HOUSE!!

Ok... so I am terrible at keeping a blog obviously. But a lot has been happening lately in life so I am making a recommitment to share what is going on in the Palmer household. Our big news of the week... WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!

We have been looking for a house since around Christmas time. I know we really didn't even look for that long, but last week this time I was feeling very pessimistic about our search. I knew God had the perfect house out there for us, but everything we had seen up to that point was either terrible or was missing a large portion of things we desired in a house. That is until Saturday! I always wondered when people said "You'll know it's the one" if I would feel this way. I am not a very feely person so I thought I would be much to practical to feel this way. Yet I was still hoping to at least feel happier about a house than I had thus far.

Our house is a cute little split level in King of Prussia. God has such a sense of humor... no joke, the house we saw just before was this gross, old, small split level and I told Tom that we should take split levels off our list because they just didn't do it for me. When we pulled up at the next house (our house) I noticed that again it was a split level. I told Tom I would keep an open mind. Then we walked in and I was AMAZED! It is like no other split I've seen! The owners previous to the current sellers opened up the entire first floor so that it has a really open feel. But what really sold the house for us was the sun room. It is just beautiful and I fell in love fast and hard. I barely slept that night because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I knew it was "the one".

The next day we visited again with Tom's Dad and Cathy. We were already prepared to make an offer on the house, but our worst fears were realized when our realtor, Hala, told us there was another offer going in that same day. I don't think I have ever been so stressed! Eventually we figured out what we wanted to offer and Hala had us write a brief letter to the sellers telling them a little bit about ourselves. They had actually gotten home while we were still in their house so we got to see their HUGE puppy. I used that in our letter as a way to talk about Samson and how glad we were to have the opportunity to have a fenced in yard for him. Essentially we shmoozed a bit.

I was a nervous wreck on Monday waiting for the phone call. We got the final call around 8:30 that night... we got the house!!!! Apparently the offers had been extremely close and one of the things that pushed ours over the top was our letter! I feel a little bit bad for the other couple/family whoever they are, but not that bad :) I think I leaned over to Tom at least 15 times the rest of the night to say "Guess what? We bought a house!" It was just such a sureal experience. All within 3 days!

This morning we had the inspection and it went really well! There are a few small things we need to look into, but nothing big. Praise God! Next step... mortgage application. Hmmm... I'm sure that will be fun. I did take some pictures this morning while we were there. I will try to post them this weekend. Now I am going to look at the Pottery Barn catalog to pick out house stuff :)