The Harrington Family

Okay, well for some time now, I've been saying that i was going to start one of these things to keep my close friends and family updated... but i kept feeling like "where/when to begin?"

I felt like i needed a major starting point, like: the beginning of the year, (that passed), or when we got married (that passed), and then the best moment arrived...

*BUYING OUR FIRST HOUSE

As everyone knows... the housing market is a disaster right now... so others' misfortune is our good luck!! Boyd and i had been renting a home(because we couldn't afford to buy in the expensive Phoenix market). Our year lease had been up since February, so we were living month to month in our home.

I felt a wave of panic when the mls listings flooded with cheap properties for sale as 'short sales' or 'foreclosures' or 'HUD' homes. Even though we were very comfortable in our rental, I knew, we HAD to snag one of these up ASAP...because they were in our price range...I knew we would regret it later -if we tried purchasing in an inflated housing market.

After looking at about 10 different houses, We we put an offer in on a 'short sale' home on May 24th. It was WAY under market value ( a good 50,000) and after 2 long months of waiting for the seller's bank's approval... we finally became FIRST TIME HOMEBUYERS. :)

The front of our house!

(those are energy efficient screens on the windows.. you can see out, just not in.)

here is the kitchen... as you can see it needs some work... we plan on painting all of the cabinetry through the house a distressed black, and we are adding wood floor to the kitchen/dining area.... and hopefully we can *someday* get some nice stainless steel appliances..

---I will be posting many more "before and after" pictures soon!!!