A Week of Home Ownership

Well, we are officially home owners.. and we are excited and terrified and happy and overwhelmed all at the same time. 

The Haughtons buy a house!

After drinking our champagne, we couldn't help ourselves by getting right to work! As I mentioned in my previous post, the terrible light and worn away house numbers were an easy fix.

We quickly found out that we needed an electric box plate to put up the new light so our front of the house renovations were put on hold. 

We decided to go home and change so we could return to start our first big project, painting the ceiling. The goal was to have this done before moving in our furniture, so we started by taking down the nasty lighting and patching the ceiling.

Old track lighting

The ceiling underneath was gross

My job was then to paint the edges of the ceiling so I could use the roller on it in the morning. The edging is the worst and took me about four hours.

Who doesn't paint in spandex?

While I painted the ceilings, Andrew ripped out the trim around the floor. Also, another super fun job.

He was the happier Haughton. Good guy.

The living room was an absolute disaster while I painted and Andrew ripped out all the trim.

This is when we started getting a little stressed out. At this point, we still had all of our stuff in our old apartment and we hadn't even started looking at upstairs. 

We went back to Fairmount around 1:00am and were back to the house by 9:00am the next morning with a Civic load of stuff and ready to finish the ceiling and begin the trim for the walls.

Painting the ceilings is the.worst.thing.ever. It absolutely kills your neck and took me way too long, so it was a relief to start the trim for the walls.

Andrew and I turned out to be a really great team together, so we were able to finish painting the walls in a few hours. The rest of the house was a disaster so we spent the afternoon cleaning up the mess before it was time to start the "big move."

The kitchen was where we dumped all the junk

Moving day was just hectic. We had to be at the new house at 7:00 to receive the washer/dryer being delivered by Best Buy. While Andrew manned the fort, I was going back and forth between the houses, loading up the Civic.

The best Civic

We had reserved a 17' U-Haul online to be picked up at 10:00am to haul the rest of the big stuff from Fairmount. When I went to U-Haul to pick it up, the only vans available were 14' so I asked to be compensated. I was given a $50 credit for the "reservation guarantee," which they never would have told me about it! Saving $$ where we can!

The moving crew taking a much needed break

It was a long day, complete with U-Haul drama (I accidentally hit a car with the truck mirror. I walked away after getting screamed at, but I will never drive a U-Haul in a city again!). We had an awesome parent-team of help so we ordered pizza and took a break after an otherwise smooth move.

We have the best parents!

After the pizza, it was time to clean up and make the living room feel like home! We have fresh painted walls and ceiling, now time to see it all come together.

Like a different apartment!

It was so rewarding to see everything come together! We have some work to do but I am so happy with the initial look and feel of the place.

We are hoping to go with a mix of modern and natural, so of course we had to include the infamous antler engagement present and a beautiful new plant from my mom! We will see how long the plants last with the cats...

Checking out the 'Hood

We are now within three days (!!!) of settling on our house and we couldn't be more excited about it. On this beautiful fall day we took a little motorcycle ride into the city to check up on the house and walk around our new neighborhood. 

The first stop on our Graduate Hospital tour was Carpenter Square, which is just a block away from the new house. It is amazing how much progress they have made in the three weeks since I was in the neighborhood! The new houses are a really nice addition to the area and next to the houses is an empty lot for sale for "restaurant space." It would be so great if a new restaurant accompanied these beautiful houses! 

Loving the grey brick

My favorite part about these houses is that they all have two car garages in the back, which means parking in the neighborhood should not be affected!

Cannot wait to see the finished product! 

I am also hopeful that the abandoned restaurant across the street from Carpenter Square, on the corner of 17th and Carpenter, will be reinvigorated. I would love if it became a dive bar for us! 

Caddy corner to the Carpenter Square houses is an empty lot which the South of South Neighborhood Association (SOSNA) is petitioning to rebuild into a meaningful green space. This is part of a bigger initiative to make the Southwest Center City area the greenest in the city. So great!

The lot is currently overgrown and full of trash, so I will be keeping my eye on it in case there are any opportunities to volunteer to clean up the space! Wouldn't it be great if this old lot was turned into a beautiful garden!?
  

This summer I helped with Friends of Eastern State Penitentiary (FESPP), as they rebuilt an old dog park along the penitentiary wall into a public garden space. It was so rewarding to give back to our little Fairmount community and meet some of my neighbors! I am hoping I have a similar opportunity to help with Carpenter Green!

The biggest discovery of the afternoon was a Benjamin Moore shop only a five minute walk away! I love Benjamin Moore paint (when did I turn into such an adult??) so I couldn't be more excited about the convenience of the store. My goal for this week after settlement is going to be to paint our living room "London Fog" grey before we put in our Hickory wood floors! Expect more pictures and blogging to come!

The front of our house looks so sad and neglected, so I decided that it needs to be a priority this week, in addition to the painting. 

My 26th birthday present from my mom was a beautiful Allen & Roth black iron, outdoor wall light. It is going to be quite an improvement over the rinky dink light that is hanging outside now. I also cannot wait to get rid of that ghetto rod iron door and paint the front door! So many projects!

Our A.V.I. Surprise

Before I get into our latest home owner surprise, I should mention that, although we are moving to an "up and coming" neighborhood, it isn't exactly "up" yet... It will be really interesting to see how my friends, who are moving to brand new, beautiful developments in the suburbs, are going to react to our new city home. 

The lot next to our house just a year ago.. G-H-E-T-T-O

Last Sunday as I was packing for the week, Andrew was reading me articles from our new favorite blog, NakedPhilly. The blog is great because it breaks down all the activities going on in Philadelphia, by neighborhood. Two of my favorite planned improvements in our neighborhood include:

Carpenter Square, an eleven-home development planned for 17th & Carpenter, which is currently an empty lot a block east of our new house. These homes are expected to sell for around $470K and it's rumored that a brand new restaurant is going in as part of the project!

The proposal for a five story building at the corner of 16th and Washington Avenue, the dividing line to the ghetto. It is my biggest hope that Washington Avenue improves sooner than later, because it is pretty gross today.

As we were happily chatting about all the awesome things happening in our neighborhood, Andrew came across this article. Naked Philly was oh so generous to break things down even further for us. So here are the basics:

• The Philadelphia City Council has reassessed the home values of every home in Philadelphia
• The reason for this change is that residential properties have generally been under assessed under the current system, while commercial properties have been assessed at values much closer to the “actual value” 
• Based on that assessment, there has been an approved property-tax rate of 1.34% for every home in the city

So what does this mean for us?? Not unlike most people in Graduate Hospital, the property tax on our home today is based on the $25,000 price paid for the home in the 1990s. We did NOT pay $25,000 for our house but, when we bought the house, we expected our taxes to continue being based on this number. The Property Search tool allowed us to look up our new assessment and estimated taxes. We quickly discovered that our taxes are going up by over 600% beginning January 2014. OUCH!! This means our monthly mortgage payment will be increasing approximately $400 every month. We just used our life savings to put 20% down on the house! We want to put a beautiful new kitchen in!

After discovering this, I cried, we talked it over, and just decided that we are going to have to get thrifty and be smart about our money. We are going to move forward with the house and if the kitchen has to wait a few more months, so be it :(

Adventures in Traveling

In January I was given an opportunity to travel to Minneapolis Monday-Thursday to do consulting work for Target. Working in Retail has been my goal since starting at Accenture, but with zero Retail clients in Philadelphia, specializing in Retail means life on the road for me. 

My good friend Kathy and I posing with Bullseye (notice the large coffee)

Being gone four days a week can be exhausting - eight months of working in Minneapolis equates to $22,000 spent on 37 flights, traveling over 80,000 miles and spending 102 nights in my lovely Minneapolis W hotel room (I now have my very own SPG ambassador that gives me little gifts on my trips!?). Ouch! I took my first nap in two years last weekend! Can I do this for another five years!? When I reach my breaking point, it helps to reflect on all the awesome trips we have had this year (fo free).

Lovely Erica's bridal shower in Pittsburgh

Ocean Kayaking in St. Croix

Vegas.

DC Bike Race

San Francisco marathon

NYC Birthday Celebrations

Seattle Half Ironman

Yoga in Charleston

Summer and I paddle boarding in Minneapolis

Ok so why am I blogging about this when this blog is supposed to be about me buying a house? For a few reasons:

1) I want to remember all the fun we had this year - it's so easy to forget how lucky I am to have such great friends, family and memories over the past year.

2) The stress of traveling is going to play a huge role in the stress of buying an expensive fixer upper - I have become addicted to Core Power Yoga to help manage the stress (and work off the restaurant food)

3) Traveling like this is expensive! Especially when your husband incorporates triathlons into the trip (read: race fees, bike shipments, lots of food). That said, I have learned to be very thrifty, which will translate to buying things for our house.  

A few of my favorite traveling and shopping tricks:

Yapta Price Alert - I never know which city I am going to be in from month to month so, in the case that I am not able to flex, I make sure I have a good pulse on what prices are going to be for our planned personal trips. Yapta allows you to choose flights that you want to track and sends you email alerts when prices increase/decrease. I have used this app so many times and it has saved us hundreds of dollars.

 

POACH - This fun app is great if you like to online shop (who doesn't!?)! If you find something online that you love but don't love the price, simply click the "Poach" button in your web browser favorites bar. If the item goes on sale or if coupons are available, you will receive an email with your savings. I have used Poach a lot recently...

Pinterest - Anyone that knows me knows that I adore Pinterest. I love being able to collect all my ideas and loves in a very haphazard fashion so I can revisit later. The other thing I love about Pinterest is that it opens your eyes to so many websites you wouldn't find just browsing your usual websites.

One King's Lane - This daily email is great for beautiful house products at great prices. I also love this site because it was co-founded by Alison Pincus, who is married to Mark Pincus, the CEO of Zynga. Who doesn't love a strong woman who can grow a successful company!?

This past Labor Day we spent our first wedding anniversary appliance shopping and taking advantage of the Labor Day sales. Since we are spending a stupid amount of money, I have decided to make a game of it and track our savings. I am a complete nerd but it was nice to see that by buying over Labor Day and opening a Best Buy credit card, we saved over $500 on a washer and dryer!

I am writing this while sitting in my free first class seat to Vegas for Half Ironman World Championships. So, again, the perks of traveling  for work cannot be beat. My next blog post will go into detail about our recent tax discovery and why being thrifty is going to be super important over the next year if we want to put in our new kitchen.