Buying Our First Home Together

After being in our house for about eight months, I'm finally sharing a bit about our road to finding it! Plus all of (and only) the "before" photos because my goal is to share individual room "afters" as we slowly update and make this house our home.
But first, a bit of background. Tad owned his own first home before we got married. He bought his little "bungalow" back in 2017. We were dating when he purchased it, and thinking that I'd someday live there with him, I gave him my blessing (not like it really mattered, ha!), as well as a few renovation ideas I had after initially seeing it. The inside of what we will call the Eastside Bungalow was actually super clean and cute. Everything was painted a nice light grey, the trim white, cabinets white, and nice neutral floors. But, one thing to note about this home is its size. It clocked in at about 667 square feet — perfect for one person but a little snug for two.

Proud new homeowner!

Because the house was already in pretty good shape, and we knew it wasn't a super long-term home, we didn't do much updating. We painted a few rooms white and updated the front exterior, which actually turned out to be more of a project than we originally thought. We ripped out very deep-rooted bushes and tore down the original deck, which paved the way for something that fit the frame of the house much better.

I still love everything about this!

Fast forward to September 2019 when Tad and I began our house hunt, just one month before our October wedding ... crazy, I know. Tad's friend, Joe, who is a realtor with Pennie Carroll Associates in Des Moines toured us around homes all over the Des Moines metro. Ultimately, we stumbled upon this two-story, 1977-built home and put in an offer. I will definitely admit that I'm leaving out a few details, like the fact that we originally weren't agreeing on the part of town we wanted to live in. Oh, and don't forget our wedding was in one month, which added additional, unnecessary stress to the process. But like I said, we put in an offer and it was accepted!

This house was a middle ground for us. There's me, who was all about finding a true fixer-upper, and then there's Tad, who was willing to do a little remodeling but didn't want to have to tear walls down to the studs. This home has great bones and was kept clean (it only had one owner before us), but there's still room for renovations, such as the exterior, the kitchen, the bathrooms, and the basement.

After our wedding, we lived in the Eastside Bungalow for about one month before moving to our new Pleasant Hill home. Scroll down to check it out!

All photos from the original Zillow listing.

As we update room by room, I'll be sharing the process and after photos! You can also keep up with home photos by following me on instagram (@shelbierenee). 

tags:Featured,home