Welcome Home

Here I am sitting in the office of our new home. The one we own. I can see my very own palm trees, rose bushes and orange trees from here.

After so many months of cruising neighborhoods for "Open House" signs for weekend entertainment, then many months of actually looking with a realtor, then many months of paying debts, tweaking credit scores, looking for brokers who didn't laugh us out of their office, and of course convincing myself, my very very wandering soul self that it was finally time to put down some roots, we found this house. (Well actually first we found another house, the one we called "Polo House." Losing that 2 days after we bid on it was the first lesson in this insane path of becoming homeowners.) But then we found this gem, at the end of a winding street, built in 1959, a perfect ranch house with everything we wanted. Terrazzo floors in perfect condition. A Florida room (sigh). An open kitchen. Mostly we wanted space, blank walls and a fresh slate to re-create.

And so we entered into the time warp of buying your first home. And yes it really does feel like one of the most stressful experiences you'll ever go through. But on December 30 we were handed the keys to OUR house (ok, so actually we had to break into the lockbox since the selling agent was too lazy to make us a set of keys, and actually we moved in illegally one day early since the title company were too idiotic to get our closing statement correct) and here we are. When we put our first bid in two days before Thanksgiving (oh yeah, this was a foreclosure owned by a German bank with representatives in California) and told everyone we were closing before New Year's we were met with much laughter. But we did it.


(This is our first night. I am wearing the oversize t-shirt I had to borrow from my realtor because in the process of packing/moving I threw on some "fancy" shirt I found in a box that had been sealed for years and it was so dusty my eyes started to swell up during closing. Classy.)

Spent our first New Year's Eve here in the living room, drinking champagne sitting on lawn chairs and it was perfect.



Ok, so it is now March 1. And many people want to see our new house, so we decided to start a blog about the process of renovating and living in this classic Florida Ranch house and also the strangely comfortable transition for a helpless wanderer to become nested.

Stay tuned for photos of before...during...and eventually after!