Homeownership

Part I

I’m going to write about a matter that is very near and dear to my heart, and that’s the decision to renovating your home. *takes a very long, drawn out sigh*.

While looking for my perfect home purchase, I went to look at a house in Madison, a city neighboring Nashville. My Aunt Candy and Kait came with me to check it out. As I looked around and felt the walls close in on me, I began to shut down, wondering if I would ever find a house. I started looking at uneven walls, bad windows, bandaid fixes, and I wanted to crawl in a bed, under covers and go to sleep for a long, long time. (this is how I normally cope with stress) As I sat there on the staged furniture, my Aunt and Kait just looked at me and they knew where I was at. I just had no words. My realtor sat down and said we’d keep trying and then we began to look online again, right then and found this little place I didn’t give a second glance to, so we headed over to see it.

After a short drive back to Nashville, we walked into this little place. It was the only time in my life that I’ve ever had a feeling of “this is the one” and it was when we walked into a 900 square foot, baby blue box in, East Nashville. My realtor was skeptical because of the neighborhood, but when I looked around, I instantly knew, this is my home. It went on the market that morning. By lunchtime, it had two threatens (which in realtor terms means that two different agents had called upon it). The owner was going to be out of town and would be reviewing offers on Sunday night and Monday morning. I submitted my offer on Sunday afternoon, it was the fifth offer they had received. I typed out a letter to the owner asking him to let me be the owner of this house because I was a first time buyer and told him that I saw such potential in it.

On Monday, my realtor called, “Well I have some news... YOU GOT IT!” I started bawling and looking back, I don’t know why I was so emotional haha, it seems so silly now. Home buying is no joke, though. The amount of stress that comes with it is endless. You have to show bank statements. tax information, wire money, set up utilities, pay for things you’ve never heard of, sign things you’ve never thought of, and cry about things you don’t know what you’re crying of.

Fast forward a month from when my house was under contract, I spent 45 minutes to an hour closing on my house and got the keys, I was so proud of doing it by MYSELF. I couldn’t contain the excitement, so I drove right over there to take another look around and relish in the fact that I was now an “adult”.

Standing in the living room looking into the kitchen, I stood in silence, looking around. It’s like that feeling you get when things sink in. I was propped up near the cabinets and my hands were on the countertop. I looked down. The countertops were 8x12, black floor tiles. The kitchen sink was in the corner, YES THE CORNER. NO, I have no clue as to why anyone would put a kitchen sink in a corner. I turned around and looked at the living room and watched a large spider scamper towards the floor vent. I smelled the air, unsure of what was in it. I walked into the bathroom and pulled down the only thing that was left in the house, a plastic black and clear shower curtain with shower curtain rings. Orange. NO, I don’t know why they would use orange shower curtain rings. As I shoved the curtain into a the garbage can outside and shook the bugs and heebie jeebies off myself, I walked up the back deck, a board felt loose, I ignored it and walked back into the house and back to the bathroom.

I looked down at the drain where I stared at 3 large crickets right by the drain itself. The walls were doing a closing in again. omg what did I do? I just bought this house. I shrieked to myself as quickly ran out and locked the door. I hopped into my car and sullenly drove away from my new home and to Home Depot for some much needed bug bombs.

As soon as I had the bug bombs, I felt a little better. Alright, I’ll set these off and head to dinner with my Top 8 to celebrate my closing. I walked to my car, put my bug bombs on my passenger seat, put my seatbelt on, and pressed the start button to my car. It fired up and then shut down right away. I pressed it again, nothing happened. All the juice was now gone from my car. My wheel was locked. I was stranded...

To Be Continued...