Well folks,

I never imagined I’d be saying this, but I may soon be a homeowner.

I scoured the internet for places I could afford. I also learned afford and what you qualify for are totally different things. Somehow I could qualify for a home that costs $225,000 but of course, I’d be eating rice everyday and sitting in the dark. Not much fun there.

As much as I love the idea of owning a house, as a single woman, I knew yard work and major exterior projects were just not my cup of tea, so I set out looking at condo or at least town homes that did the yard work.

I quickly found 3 places, oddly enough all roughly on the same street

There were two 2 bedroom-1 bath condos. They had some upgrades, but nothing major, and wonderful windows. I’d still need to replace most of the appliances, redo the kitchen and tear up the carpet. Both had traffic noise AND both happened to be on the fourth floor. I was winded after just carrying my Vera Bradley wristlet up with me. I can’t imagine moving furniture in or bringing groceries up, or just walking up every day. I’d need to add another 1000 calories to my diet or something. Both had at least one balcony, but one had two. Sadly they were completely unusable because they were either too small or off the master bedroom.

The 3rd place was my favorite right away before I even saw it for the simple fact that it was a 2-bedroom 2-bath. Not everyone else agreed. From the pictures it looked horrible. Whoever lived there must have loved red carpet, mirrors, bad mini blinds, and wallpaper, and it hasn’t been touched in over a year. Thankfully, it was also the cheapest and happens to be on the 2nd floor (which is actually down a flight of steps in the building). There’s barely any traffic noise, and it’s even got a fireplace.

The last one won my heart over in an instant. Everyone noticed immediately. I saw myself sitting on the balcony either with friends in the evening or drinking coffee in the mornings, and I started picturing what I’d do to the rooms and where my furniture would go.

But let’s be real here, the reason it won me over was the second bathroom. My real estate agent may have laughed at my reasoning, but I absolutely did not want my toilet trained cats using the main bathroom. Until my cats learn to flush when they’re done (which I don’t see happening anytime soon), that’s just something that is hard to explain and definitely not pleasing to guests. Plus I really didn’t want to share my bathroom with guests.

It’s may be the smallest unit of the three (only by about 10 sq. feet), but it’s also the cheapest. It has the best layout (the others had a lot of wasted space), and with a bit of TLC, it’s the one with the most potential. (Fixed up 2 br 1 ba units on a top level have sold for $40K more than this place is listed.) I know just removing the red carpet, wallpaper, and mirrors will do wonders for this place, and I can’t wait.

Oh and did I mention it’s even closer to my work than I am now?! The location is perfect. Plus I’m excited to actually be moving back into civilization where high speed internet and public utilities exists, and even if I have to deal with week long power outages (which is unlikely) I’ll at least have running water.

So after drafting up budgets, planning to move things to my own accounts (cell phone, insurance, etc), and secretly pinning a ton of ideas to Pinterest, tonight I go to sign the contract.

I’m slightly terrified in getting my own place especially knowing it’s a fixer upper that will require new floors, paint, and a new fridge right away, but there’ll be plenty of blog posts to write if things work out.