Good morning everyone! So if you read my “about” page you already saw that my husband and I purchased our first home just over a year and a half ago. I was only 19 years old when we closed on our home and my husband was 20. With my husband in full-time Nursing school money was something we had to consider when fixing up our home. We certainly did not want to have any debt while remodeling but also wanted our home to look updated and fresh! As you can see in the photos, we had A LOT of work to do!
Our living room before I think some family members thought we were absolutely crazy to purchase our home in it’s current state, but Nate and I saw past all the dingy carpets, wood paneling and totally weird kitchen layout! We looked at so many homes during our house hunt and none of them “felt right”. I am a firm believer when house hunting that it HAS to feel right. I wanted to see past all the problems in other homes we looked at such as location or super uneven floors but they just never felt right. I could not picture staying there for the next 5-10 years and starting a family there. Before we found our current home we had entirely given up on looking. Nothing was in our budget and everything that was, had something majorly wrong with it!
Our living room after
I remember driving nearby to what would be our future home and telling my husband ” There is a really cute little bungalow for sale near here but its way out of our budget, I wish the price would drop.” About a month or so later our realtor sent us that same home saying the price had dropped over $20,000! I was thrilled! My husband and I were so sure it would be the one. We brought along my dad who is a Contractor so he could tell us his opinion. We did not want to risk this house selling before we got a chance to even look at it! After my dad told us that everything in the house was structurally sound we made an offer that same night. Unfortunately the sellers declined our offer. After praying about it for a few days and upping our downpayment, we bought it at asking price. I am so thankful we took that leap of faith because this house has been perfect for us!
I would like to break down how my husband and I were able to buy our home at such a young age, how we were able to put a down-payment and maintain a savings account while he was in full time school. I will also talk about how we fixed up our home completely in cash, but that is for a future blog post! I just want to say it IS doable! Neither my husband nor I made a lot of money, I worked a 40 hour a week minimum wage job and my husband worked about 1 to 2 days a week per diem as a CNA.
I definitely do not say this to brag but just to encourage my readers that you CAN do it! It IS possible and you do NOT have to have unnecessary debt! That is all for my post today but I will leave a couple more before and afters of our living room down below. Thanks for reading the Little Bit of Laurel blog!
