“We wanted a bigger place than we had before, somewhere that we could grow into. We knew we eventually wanted to have a kid, we just didn’t realize it would happen so soon, so that wasn’t our main motivation. That was more of a longer term viewpoint, to think ‘we’ll need room for a kid down the road’. But Shane, with all of his hobbies, really wanted a space where he could be creative; forging knives and working on his bikes and race car. Where we were living in the city we didn’t have a garage so he had to just do it all in the street which didn’t work very well. Whenever a car would drive by he’d have to pull his legs in.

 

It took ten months to save up to start looking for a house and feel confident that we’d be able to get something. I think since we’ve been here it’s been fun. We count ourselves lucky everyday for finding a house in this market. The fact that we paid asking price in this market is ridiculous. Our house isn’t completely redone, it’s mid level and half of it is pretty new. The previous owner did an okay job, the garage is incredible, the carpet is super nice, and the backyard was a huge selling feature.

I think if we were still looking today versus 2016, we would have had to sell my place in order to be able to afford a place today. We really wanted to be able to keep it as a rental though, and we’re so glad that we could. It’s a lifesaver, it’s so awesome to bring in extra income to help pay for daycare. We count our lucky stars for that too. Everything has gone exactly as it should. 

 

We had to buy a ton of furniture going from a 450 sq ft studio to a 1400 sq ft house. We went to American Furniture Warehouse and were like, “we’ll take all of this!” Our friends helped us move on the first of the year. We had everything packed in our old place with boxes stacked to the ceiling in the living room, completely full, and we get it here and it all just takes up this tiny little space.  

I couldn’t see us going back to that size place now that we have a baby. I think we’re still pretty simple in comparison to our friends in terms of what we have. The biggest difference is that when invite friends over impromptu, we can invite them all over at the same time and if they all show up, it’s fine. Before, since our place was so small, we could only invite a few people over at a time since barely anyone could fit.”