A little toast on the day we closed
Buying a home, especially in the crazy real estate market in Chicago, was super scary - it feels like you're signing your life away! But now, a year later, I'm so glad we did it. I seriously love our place. Jeff and I will literally look around all the time and talk about how we can't believe we actually live here.
It has been fun (and challenging - making decisions is hard!) to decorate a space that's truly ours for the first time, but we're finally starting to get to the point where it's feeling done. Before living here, Jeff and I lived together for two and a half years, but we rented Jeff's dad's house down in the South Loop, which was fully furnished from when his dad lived there in the early '90s and was totally not our style. Helloooo, giant glass dining room table! Now we have a place that's full of furniture that we found and love, and almost full of art we love (seriously, making decisions is super hard).
The year hasn't been completely easy for us. We thought we were moving into a completely move-in ready home, but it seemed like for the first couple of months that everything that could break, did break. I guess that's what they say is going to happen when you buy your first home, but I still wasn't ready for it! We had our oven, dishwasher, and freezer repaired in the kitchen, a leak in our roof fixed twice, leaking windows repaired, a big patch of moldy drywall replaced (and repainted by me!), and had work done on our fireplace and furnace - whew! I'm hoping that year two is a bit easier, both for our wallets and for my stress level!
We also got the chance to do a little construction we wanted, and added a deck to our roof! The gigantic private roof space was one of the major selling points for this place, and I'm so excited that we factored a deck into the cost and got to build our dream deck space. Of course, we went a bit over budget (mostly because I really wanted some shade #palepeopleproblems) but I think it was totally worth it. We had a bunch of parties up there this summer, and also went up by ourselves just to relax or have a drink under the stars (and airplanes - we live right under a flight path!).
So what am I still working on, besides a little more artwork? Our bedroom! You'd think that would be one of the first spaces we finished, but I was more concerned with getting our main living space in order, and had a lot easier time decorating little spaces like my office, bathrooms, and hallways, than tackling our bedroom. On Black Friday I finally found some lamps I liked and ordered a gigantic floor mirror that was on backorder and was just delivered on Saturday. We're still looking for a chair and footrest, somewhere for Jeff to put all of his shoes (#highmaintenence hahaha), and finishing touches like art, pillows, and some updates to my vanity (which still looks like this!! Holy 2012!). I eventually would like to replace our bed frame and nightstands too, as those are our only remaining hand-me-downs from Jeff's dad, but I'm willing to wait a little longer so we can save up for those .
While this year has definitely been a whirlwind, I'm so glad we decided to take the plunge and become homeowners. I can't wait to make a lot of new memories in our home together!
P.S. I realized while looking for photos for this post that I haven't shared any updates in a while, a lot has changed!! I'll be sure to share some new pictures soon!
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