House Hunters: The Morgan and Alex Edition, The Finale

Part 1: Intro and Wish List
Part 2: Houses 1 and 2
Part 3: House 3 and Which Will They Pick?

It was so fun to see everyone's guesses yesterday!

So now for the answer to which house we bought. Cue dramatic music!

Narrator: So which house did Morgan and Alex choose? The least expensive, move in ready home?

The fixer upper that had lots of potential?

Or the most expensive home, that also needed updating?

But this is the part where I'm going to totally deviate from the House Hunters style I've been going with for these posts. Because in real life, you never have to pick between just three homes. And I didn't want to just make up the whole "which of these three houses should we pick" conversation that the couples always have on house hunters, because we definitely didn't sit down and discuss it that way.

Also, while I'm on the subject of real life, why do they always show people either chopping vegetables and cooking in their kitchens or walking around happily while the House Hunters narrator talks? Like, really, can't the producers think of something else to stage, to give us a little more variety while we get to know the couples? If my husband and I were really on House Hunters, you'd totally see us just throwing frozen dinners in the oven, and then vegging out on the couch with glasses of wine to watch TV!

Anyway, back to which house we picked. Basically, as soon as we got back in our car after seeing house #3, we decided we weren't feeling it. It really was overpriced, and we didn't like the level changes, and we just knew it wasn't the house for us. So it was off the list, just like that.

an anti-climatic house elimination, I know!

Directly after seeing all three of these houses, my husband and I drove over to his brother's house, to have dinner with him and his wife. We talked with them a little about the houses, and then headed home pretty late for a Sunday night, so we decided to make time to discuss houses the next night.

I think it was really good that we gave ourselves the time to sleep on it too. Because of course that night I dreamed about floor plans and how to decorate things, and in my mind, there was only one house to consider.

So we didn't experience a typical House Hunters style of elimination. It wasn't just pick house #1 or house #2, there was also the option to just keep looking once more houses come on the market this spring. But apparently my husband, along with my dreams, was only thinking about one house, and didn't want to keep looking. And by lunchtime the next day, we were already asking each other, "so, are you going to buy me that house or what!"

So was it the first or second one? (Insert more dramatic House Hunters music here!)
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The second one! The house with the great floor plan and a ton of potential!

The first house was really nice, but the floor plan is something you can't really change, and it just didn't flow the way we wanted it to. Having to "make it work" with our needs felt too much like settling, which was one of the biggest things we didn't want to do when buying our first home. Plus, it was so updated already, that I just knew I was going to be sad that I wouldn't be able to put my own stamp on things.

So now we get to do whatever the heck we want with our project house, in a floor plan that perfectly suits us! We have got SO many plans for updates--and it's going to be so much fun making this house ours! Oh, and since I forgot to include it in earlier posts, here's a look at the floor plan, so you can see why we love it so much, with the open kitchen + breakfast nook + family room. And there's TWO freakin' staircases even!

Someday I'll get around to making a prettier version of the floor plan. And also take better photos of the house, once the seller's things are gone, and I'm concentrating on my camera settings, and not just trying to look around at the house.

But for now I'm knee deep in gathering all our loan documents, scheduling home inspections (we're getting two independent inspections--Mike Holmes on HGTV has made us paranoid about bad home inspectors), and a million other things. We close in mid-March!

And no, three months later you won't see us happily entertaining friends in our completely decorated new home, like you do on House Hunters. It's going to take us a while to completely nail down the updates we want to make to the house, and of course, buy all new furniture. And save up for it all! So far I've got big plans to paint EVERYTHING, get the popcorn ceilings scraped down, opening up the kitchen by removing cabinets, and I've got an idea brewing for updating the large brick fireplace in the family room, that doesn't involve painting the brick. I'm so insanely excited, and I'm sure I'll be sharing here, as it all starts to come together! :)


P.S. I thought about writing in this post about our negotiation process with the house we ended up buying, but I'm not sure how interesting that is to you guys. That's something that's probably only useful or interesting to read about if you're in the process of buying a home too. But I'm happy to write about the offer to purchase strategies we used and how the back and forth negotiations worked for us when we made our offer, if anyone is interested! Or you can just email me if you want the details.