When we got engaged in 2018 I was living in my cute little 1500 sq ft house in Mountain Brook, AL, and John was living in a 2 BR condo in Vestavia. Our plan: keep the condo as a rental property and then John and Drake (his son) would move into my house along with my 90 lb dog Sully and John’s dog Jackson. THANK GOD the universe shouted and we were willing to be open to hearing a Plan B!
I have always loved real estate and I am always looking at houses in our area (or in faraway lands) and this one particular house kept popping up. It was on the other side of town in “the burbs” in a planned community with sidewalks, parks with playgrounds, a pool, and backs up to a wonderful nature preserve. I would show the listing to John from time to time, and he would half-heartedly humor me with sounds like, “very nice,” “yeah that would be cool,” “uh-huh, looks great.” But then one day a completely different house piqued my interest and I talked John and my realtor into going to see it. The house was a disaster… nothing like the photos. I was bummed out but decided to pull up my “dream house” on Zillow to show my realtor and low and behold, they had just had a price drop and there were 25 minutes left of the open house. Seeing my determination, John and Bob the Realtor knew that we were heading across town to look at this house.
When we got there I did what every realtor tells you not to do, I gasped in delight in front of the selling agent. I literally shrieked when I walked into the master closet because my little house in Crestline had tiny closets. Each room after the next I was falling more and more in love with the house. And then the backyard was freaking amazing! It looked like a magazine. It was completely fenced-in, mature trees, a fancy looking fountain – perfect for the dogs and the kiddo.
This was on May 3rd. We were getting married on July 27th across the country and I still had my bachelorette weekend coming up, finishing touches for the wedding, selling my flip property, and my normal 8-5 job to juggle. Nevertheless, I knew this was the house. We spent the next 48 hours crunching the numbers (because up until this moment, John and I had not had a serious conversation about buying a house or budget) and figuring out logistics… two weeks later we closed on our new house and the movers arrived on Memorial Weekend to move me into our new house! No joke people, that was an insane time in life… but totally worth it!
Being that I am a bit old-fashioned, just me and the dogs moved into the house. John moved in after we got back from our honeymoon. That gave me ample time to plan how to make this dream house our dream home! Now, John gives me a lot of grief over this because he likes to quote me during a moment of hysteria when I proclaimed this house was “move-in ready” and part of my negotiation tactic was that we didn’t have to change anything. Then, basically, I moved in and said, “okay, we have to change everything!” Oops!
Truth is, the house is completely wonderful as-is but I love decorating, remodeling, etc. – that’s why I started a real estate investment company as a side hustle. So really, I think it was rather naive of my family and then future husband to think I was going to let this house go untouched! lol That’s what us people in the biz like to call the ole bait and switch 😉
This house has great bones it’s just a little outdated (it was built in 2004)! It has the space we wanted but really, it was the lot that sealed the deal. You can’t change the lot but you can change the house! This house is also like 3x bigger than the house I was living in so there were a lot of empty rooms to fill and decorate. I had to take my time to figure out a budget and timing of when we could do certain projects, buy furniture, artwork, etc. But that’s the fun part! Ok, more to come…!
