The blog entry you have been waiting for...

You didn't realize you were waiting for anything, but here it is, the big announcement...Andrew and I are home owners!

It took a little searching and a little weeding, but when we stepped into this place, we knew it was right, there was no doubt in our minds, this was our upgrade.

After not being able to secure financing on the partially developed a for blogged about condo, we opened up our search from condos to condos, town homes, and single family houses. Our realtor knew we were busy (this was in late March, right after the other place fell through), so he scheduled one Sunday for us to go around to 18-20 different places. WE SAW EVERYTHING...or at least it felt like it. I had my heart set on a single family home with a yard. We looked at several, but the problem was that in our community the homes in our price range were either too small, too old (a lot of repair work), they lacked a garage/parking space, or one of a myriad of other issues. I was getting discouraged, it didn't seem like we were going to find "the one." And then we came to our town home, follow me if you will...

We walked down the courtyard (it was still snowing and not green when we visited, so it didn't look this lush then, but it does now.)

The courtyard makes you feel almost as if you are walking into another land. Outside the world is buzzing around, but in here all is serene. If you squint you can even see a nice park there in the distance with all sorts of fun things for children and pets to enjoy.

But lets not dilly dally any longer. Here is the place, come on in.

Our place is a town home set up in the traditional Chicago town home design - translation: vertical living. There are 4 floors (though the 4th is mostly open space - but you will see that in later pictures.) Each floor is 18 ft wide by 40 ft long (with the exception of the 4th floor which is 15 ft by 8 ft. of indoor space.)

Entering the front door you come to the first floor (no basement or anything below ground level.)

First floor: 1/2 family room (18'x20') and 1/2 two car attached garage (18'x20'.) This is a view of the family room - because we don't have much furniture, we are leaving the room colors as is for now. They may change in the future, but we are going to live in the space for awhile and see how that goes.

Also for Grandma Brandon there is also a half bath on this level :) No stairs required (unless you need to shower.)
Here is the toilet...

And there is the sink - and me. Hello.

You wouldn't believe the number of houses we saw that had "half baths" that were just toilets - no sinks...(usually in the basement - some had doors - some didn't.) Who does that?

Next I will show you the back of the place and the garage door. The garage is accessible via a back alley. And the interior of the garage. The garage is possibly one of our favorite features of the place. It is one of the "bonuses" of this place over the other place we were under contract with. At the other place we wouldn't have even had a parking spot to call our own - we would have had to rent a parking spot. Also because the other place was on two busy streets - street parking was difficult to come by.But at our place, this place, because there is room for two cars, there is room for your car when you come visit. Now you don't have any excuse not to come over. (There is also plenty of street parking if we have multiple visitors at a time.)

The garage even has bike racks - if you want to come on bike...

And extra storage, if you want to stay awhile.

Okay, back in the house and up the stairs to the second floor:

The second floor is 1/3 living room, 1/3 dinning room, and 1/3 kitchen (+outdoor patio off the kitchen - visible in the above picture of the garage from the outside.)

This is the light fixture that will go over our dinning room table (when we have one.) The dinning room is in the middle of the great room. To the south of the dinning room is the living room.

The rug, curtains, and selves all stay. The fireplace is gas logs.

You can see the stairs up to the third floor can't you? But before we go upstairs, let's go north of the dinning room to the kitchen area. Trust me you want to see this!

Have you ever seen so much cabinet space?

No more obnoxious pot and pan shuffling then hurrying to slam the door closed before they all fall back out on me! They could each have their own cabinet here - okay maybe not, but they will at least have room to spread their lids.

The light coming from around the corner of the refrigerator, (all appliances included) is coming from the door out to the patio.

A nice little outdoor space overlooking our garage/alley. There is just enough room out there for our grill (right off the kitchen - how convenient is that?) and our bistro patio table and chairs.

And one can even see a little corner of the green park space behind our unit - it is almost like we are living in the country!

Okay - enough fresh air for now, back inside and up the stairs to the third floor.

This floor has two guest bed rooms, a guest bathroom, linen closet, master bedroom and master bathroom (so the total for the house is 3 bedroom and 2 & 1/2 bath.)

This is the third bedroom - we will more than likely set this up as an office/study/sewing room.

This window faces north (this bedroom is over the kitchen - which is over the garage) it is the north east corner of the house.

I can't wait to fill that built in closet organizer with my fabric! I have already unloaded some of it - it works perfectly! Added bonus - I can close the door and Fran can't get in and get her hair all over my fabric. :)

Now the second bedroom - again northern exposure - north west corner of the home.

Please note that none of the bedroom furniture or bedding is staying - it is just what the former owners left to "stage" the place for open houses and showings.

Random fact, we saw so many places, by the end Andrew was able to identify what items of decor the agents had placed in the house to stage it. It was a sort of "which one of these is not like the others" kind of game.

This room does not have the built in closet units. Sorry guests.

And the guest bathroom (approximately the size of the only bathroom at the place we rent - Andrew and I share this amount of space in the morning getting ready - do you see why he is so excited about the double vanity idea?)

Master bedroom - without this bed spread in the room, the walls look less purple and more blueish grey.

Double closet with built ins...

Including a tie rack for Andrew.

Binds on all windows throughout the house are like these where you can open them from the top or the bottom. Good for letting light in and keeping peeping toms out. Another bonus of this place over the previous condo is that all window treatments are included.

Now to the master bathroom...
and the double vanity...

the toy-tee..

the bathtub...

and the shower.

Not sure if you can get a feel for the layout, but the shower extends to the back wall - so it is a full size shower. This bathroom is quiet the upgrade for us, we are very happy with it. Though I already killed the power to the lights & fan - it was a quick lesson in electrical wiring - but everything is working again.

Okay now up to the 4th floor - the laundry room...and a special suprise/my favorite part of the house.

You can tell in these next couple of pictures that the wall extends from the thrid to the fourth floor and there are three windows that let light flood into the thrid floor.

See I told you, three windows. :)

The laundry room (and paint supply.)

There is plumbing for a laundry sink next to the dryer. (Or another toliet - as Andrew suggested.)

Washer & dryer included.

Okay back out on the landing...are you ready for the suprise/my favorite part?

Our own roof top deck!!!!

To those in more rural areas who are reading this - this might mean nothing to you, but I can see stars from the roof deck! We are above the street light level, so it is actually dark enough at this height to see all the pretty little stars - and even some airplanes. :)

Well that ends the tour - back down the stairs. After you!

We are very happy with what we were able to get - and consider the other house falling through a blessing, because this is clearly our home!

We closed on the house last Friday, April 30th and plan to move in this Friday May 7th. Yeah!

Can I get an upgrade?

Well it is official, Andrew and I are not getting the afore blogged about condo. The final reasons have to do with certain ownership percentages. It would appear that if the contractor/developer owns more than 10% (in our case it was 14% - the difference of one more unit being sold) it is near impossible to get financing, and since Andrew and I didn't have the cash to pony up to pay for it out right, we are walking away.
But we are not walking away crestfallen or defeated, we learned a lot through this process, and not just that, we know that God closed this door for a reason.
Due to the weird quirks of condo financing, we decided to take a look at some of our other options - mainly single family houses. At this time we are positive we want to stay in Evanston, which narrows our options. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes even the dumpiest looking house when placed in the right part of Evanston could sell for $1 million (seriously, what some people wouldn't pay to be in the Willard School District or have a lake view) - but as luck would have it, there are "cheaper" diamonds in the rough.
Andrew and I went to around 10 open houses this afternoon and then met with our boy Barry (our realtor.) We are very encouraged by our initial fact finding missions, and happy to report there are actual houses, that have the same price tag as our condo - and come with a backyard.
So while neither of us know what will come at the end of this journey, we are enjoying it together.

Condo, sweet condo

Well, we had an appraisal of our new place done and he was nice enough to send photos along with the other documents.

So.....if you've been curious about what our new place looks like, or if you've been debating as to whether it's akin to an "imaginary girlfriend", yes, we can prove it, we have pictures.

The appraiser sent eight pictures. enjoy.

The Exterior: Our place is top right. If you were standing here, your back would be facing Ridge Ave. (you are looking east).


The Deck: This also doubles as the fire escape. It is actually much larger than the angle of the picture portrays. Plenty of space for a grill, two chairs and a table. Also, note it has an overhanging covering it. Definitely a big plus.

Dining Room: Here is where the table would go. Note the deck out the window. To get your bearings, you are looking south out the window. The floor is hardwood oak throughout the condo. If you look between the back door and the refrigerator the hallway leads to the guest bed and bathroom and the washer/dryer.

Kitchen: Here is the kitchen. Good times. Good looking cabinets, new appliances, and pretty slick counter tops.

Living Room: The fireplace is gas forced. We are facing west toward a busy street (Ridge Ave.) We really like the crown molding around the fireplace and else were in the place.

Guest Bathroom: shower, sink, toilet. check.

Master Bedroom: We are looking west again. Note the "sun room" within the master bedroom. There is also an additional window looking south.

Master Bathroom: You can't tell, but there is a double vanity.......awesome.

We'll try to post new photos when we get them. Hope you've enjoyed.

- Andrew

When the moon hits your eye like a heart shaped pizza pie...

...that's a Waggoner Valentines' Day tradition. We received a flyer in the mail a few nights ago advertising a special heart shaped pizza. It seems just ridiculous enough to make for a fun Valentine's Day tradition. The plan for Saturday night was to watch a movie, eat some pizza, and exchange small tokens. The night went much as planned (except instead of a movie we watched the Olympics - Moguls seriously, so much fun to watch.) I had been "hinting" (it is still called hinting when you mention outright what you want, right?) that flowers would be nice.

Marriage has brought a lot of adjustments to our lives, most of them good, but one of the hardest adjustments has been trying to "surprise" one another with gifts. Andrew did a nice job with my "little hint." Don't you think? I am not your traditional red rose girl (and heaven help the person that gives me baby's breath! Sorry mom, I know you have a fondness for it!)

This is not your traditional rose bouquet. Does anyone know what this little yellow guy is? It is fascinating and gorgeous.

The best part about flowers is the smell! There is nothing like walking into an apartment with a full floral bouquet. Best air freshener ever!

One last picture for you to enjoy. (In case you are wondering, Andrew picked out and bought his own token - a couple cigars.)

Then Sunday night, came Valentine's Day part two. While grocery shopping, we remembered that we had bough avocados the week before. So we got the rest of the ingredients and made guacamole.

There are few things that Andrew enjoys more in this world then spending time with me. :) One of those things is guacamole. And thanks to the amazing food processor I received as a Christmas gift, I can whip up some of the best guacamole (if I do say so myself) in under 5 minutes.

In response to my gift of guac, Andrew gave the gift of chocolate. Honestly, I think Andrew was craving chocolate, he kept making excuses about needing to get me chocolate for Valentine's Day. I will let you guess whose bar was finished tonight, and which one of us still has half of her bar left.

Another New Year...Another New Post...

We have decided to come back to blogging...at least for the time being. The hard part about being gone so long is that it is hard to know where to begin, but we will try.

First and most exciting, we are hoping to buy our own place in the upcoming year. The extension of the first time home buyers' tax credit in addition to low interest rates and a buyers' housing market, has proved to be the perfect trifecta. The process has been exciting and scary. We narrowed our search down to a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom condo straight south of our current location - put in an offer - and had it accepted. It moved a lot quicker than we had thought it would go, but are very excited. We plan on closing March 26th - if all goes as planned. We had our inspection yesterday morning - there was a little bit of a miscommunication so the place wasn't ready - but we did the walk through anyway. Nothing too major just paint touch-ups and the like. There was a little problem with the shower divertor (it wasn't installed - therefore no way to take a shower in either bathroom) but the developer was very willing to fix everything noted. When we showed up - the developer, contractor and three workers were there, additionally our realtor, both of us and the inspector were roaming around the place. It was a little crowded, to say the least.

Due to the condo not being truly ready and the number of people we felt a little wierd taking pictures. For the people that want to see photos, we promise we will post them as soon as we take them....but it might be a while.

Walking

Andrew and I have decided to join our Church group in a two mile walk to help raise awareness for the problem of child trafficking. The walk will take place this Saturday, September, 26th and is one of many being organized around the country by Stop Child Trafficking Now. Both Andrew and I have decided to try to help raise $100 each for the cause. If you are able and so led please consider helping us financially at:
http://sctnow.donordrive.com/participant/michellewaggoner
http://sctnow.donordrive.com/participant/andrewwaggoner
Regardless, we hope you will take time to pray for those who have found themselves in these unthinkable situations.