A little love.

It could be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

When I first walked in to the house I just bought, my jaw dropped. I walked around in awe and I didn't want to leave it.

It has a spiral staircase, an upstairs bedroom that could be a cute craft room, a basement that's not totally creepy, and possibly the most beautiful woodwork I've ever seen.

The house was built in 1900. Holy beautiful, Batman!

The homeowners actually lived in it and took pretty good care of it. It wasn't a rental property, which is important.

I was kind of in shock that I could actually afford it. I went home after I walked through it the first time and crunched the numbers.

Hey, it could actually work.

Sign me up!

I didn't even try to have a poker face. I loved it instantly.

My home buying process has been kind of messy. The word messy might actually be an understatement. There was a house in my price range with a hole in the basement wall big enough for a tiger to hide in. Then there was that house that shook when my Dad jumped up and down in it.

Sigh.

Then there was one with a bad roof, a cute one with a bathroom floor that was about to cave in, the basement with the creepy rape room, the knob and tube wiring running rampant in this town, and one house that probably had dead bodies hiding in it somewhere.

House hunting in my price range is rough, let me tell you.

Then there was the house I tried to buy and backed away from, which involved lawyers, anxiety medicine, and vacationing out of the country with possible legal doom awaiting me when I got back.

Ha, ha. I don't think I've ever done anything the easy way in life. Why start now?

I don't expect something perfect, but I wanted to find something livable. A good roof is important, a few bedrooms would be nice to grow into, a designated craft room would be nice, and a fenced in backyard for my fur child is ideal.

This house was the best one I've seen yet. Through all the messiness over the past few months, I can definitely say the wait was worth it.

I have a beautiful house!

I don't mind tackling a few projects. Carpet needs to be ripped out of one of the bedrooms. I'm not a cat person, but I can smell cats a mile away.

Ew. That carpet has to go.

I'm hoping there's wood underneath. If that's the case, I'll sand that bedroom and the one beside it, then stain the floors to match the rest of the house.

As much as I love the grandma rose wall paper in one of the bedrooms, that's probably going to go away, too.

I'm also going to take down some really, really ugly 'closets' and see if I can make it look better. I call them 'closets' because, really, they're just atrociousness that someone tried to paint to look normal.

You can't hide atrocious. You just can't.

Could I (and by I, I mean my Dad) bring the washer and dryer upstairs, and hide it in a closet in one of the bedrooms?

Hmm.

Like I said, I don't mind projects. That spiral staircase could use some love, too. With some cleaning and a little love, this house is going to be a pretty amazing place to live.

Hooray, I have a house!

My realtor sent me a text message yesterday morning that was pretty cool. She said she wanted to visit me in a year to see what I've done with the house.

I've been waiting years for a house to pour a little love into. This is really the only thing I've wanted since college.

Hooray!

(Bonus points: My realtor knows my family pretty well. When I went in to sign the papers, she told me stories about my grandparents, who died when I was young. It's cool hearing about them because I don't remember them. Small world, right?)