The Gameplan

April 27th was a huge day!! And as soon as we were out of the law office post closing we were on to condo stuff.  It's a good thing we started that day because reality soon kicked in and reminded us that we had 35 days to get the condo ready and move out of our current apartment.  Normally people would think 'oh a month to paint some walls and move your stuff, awesome no big deal.'  This was not going to be your typical move.

Here is our initial Phase 1 list:
DIY:
*Clean condo top to bottom- every inch no matter how small (thank you Grandy for passing this OCD down the line)
*Paint ceilings, moldings and walls of 3 bedrooms, kitchen, hallway, living room, dining room, pantry
*Sand and paint all interior doors (total count = 8 doors)
*Replace all door knob...as i said before not a single one works
*Paint and rebuild shelving in 4 closets (Chris' favorite part...Coop you better be ready)

As much as we wanted to be all Do It Yourselfers, let's be serious there are some things you should just leave to the professionals.
*Replace all appliances
*Completely renovate bathroom
*Get hardwood floors redone

Boy did we have our work cut out for us...and little did we know that when we actually started Phase 1...each of those bullets gained 5 extra sub bullets.

It's times like these I wish Tool Time was still around. I think i would appreciate the actual tools/what to do & more frequently NOT to do lessons from Tim the Tool Man Taylor and Al Borland.

 Just in case you were curious what the old gang is up to:
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The Waiting Game

Buying a house is like applying to college. First you have to get pre-approved for a loan, similar to taking and getting your SAT score. You get reviewed based on your W2's, paychecks, employment history and your credit score. These items determine your pre-approval amount and set the bar for the price of house/condo you can afford.  Then when you find the house/condo you like you put in an offer and hope for the best. Sometimes your offer gets rejected, sometimes you get put on a waitlist as a backup offer and then that one time you get accepted into your dream school or in this case house.

 Filling out the offer application with our All Star Realtor

Last signature - Asking Chris if he's really ready to sign away his life with me :)

The time waiting for the seller to get back to us was the LONGEST hour of our lives. We all just sat or paced in my parents kitchen in silence anxiously waiting for my mom's phone to ring...and then it did and we all held our breath.  My mom is not known for her poker face but man she kept the straightest face of her life.  We for sure thought we had lost it but then she announced WE GOT THE CONDO!!!! We pretty much stalked our condo waiting for the loan to be finalized.

        

And then FINALLY it was closing day!!

 To celebrate, Chris got me this...I'm the luckiest girl in the world

       

WELCOME TO BAYSIDE

 

The lady who made it happen!!

The Search Begins...

It at all started when we (Whitney and Chris) decided that we could not live in our 710 sq ft apartment anymore. We were tired of having "bike art" (what we call the two bikes currently stacked in our living room), storing things in both our old apts (shout out to Beckler ladies and 188 fellas) and casually/sneakily bringing things to our parents' places.  We were also sick of paying someones else' mortgage. SO we decided to play with the idea of buying a condo.  WE HAD NO IDEA WHAT WE WERE GETTING OURSELVES INTO!!!

We currently live in South Boston...also known as Southie...also known as Home of the Bucket. We love everything about Southie. I (Whit) have been here for 3 years and Chris for 2 years. We decided that we were ONLY looking in Southie and the search began.  For about 3 months we spent every weekend looking at any and all available condos with our criteria. My mom, also our SUPERSTAR realtor, told us "never start planning what furniture you're going to put in the condo until its yours, more often than not you will get your heart broken."  Too bad I didn't listen. Chris and I found a place that we loved! It was bigger than anything we had looked at, had features that weren't even on our list and had both a deck and a backyard (wink wink perfect for our future dog). WE WERE SOLD. Too bad it had basically already been sold before they had the open house. After that nothing we saw compared to this 'dream condo'...until Bayside!!

Seeing the vision

Not sure if anyone reading this watches HGTV but YOU MUST START (especially if you're looking to buy or renovate a home).  Since we started this process our TV has been on HGTV I'd say 98% of the time; House Hunters, Property Brothers, Property Virgins, Income Property, Holmes on Homes...you name it we were watching it.  So of course we (obviously i mean me) started acting as if we were on House Hunters.  We made the must have lists, the practical wish list and the I want a parking spot underneath my unit with a roof deck list.  We judged each property according to the lists, things to do around the condo, proximity to a park (ahem for the dog) and how close we were to PS Gourmet. **Note to all future Southie residents you must choose a coffee loyalty and PS is the way to go!!  Anywho we were having trouble finding a place and were getting nervous that we were going to have to go with our contingency plan of moving in with the good ole' rents since our lease was up in June. And I mean as much as I would have LOVED to move home and have 5 people with one shower and a crazy dog...having a new home to move into at the end of our lease sounded like a much better plan.

Enter phone call from Realtor (ie mom) saying to be open minded and come see a property...not in Southie. To humor her we said yes, but lets be real I had already written it off since it didn't have a 02127 zip code. Now add night time, rain and the following pictures...can you see the vision?

After looking these over..the pictures don't even begin to show the rough shape it was in. But trust me...not a SINGLE doorknob worked...they all came out of the door when you tried to use them, bathroom shower wall was completely rotted, every door needed to be sanded and re-painted, trash bags over the windows...you name it we saw it. The only saving grace...waterfront property. Although you never would have known it because they had dark red curtains covering ALL the windows.

We went home and shocker Whitney was already on to the next condo and Chris loved it.  It wasn't in Southie, it wasn't move in ready, it wasn't functioning, it wasn't renovated...but it was waterfront and Chris had the vision. I will say this once...in writing...Chris was right. Deciding to go with this condo, even with all the work that was required, was the BEST decision we have ever made.