The Brown Family: Homeowners

Our lease at our apartment in Kirkland was up May31st. The weekend of May 8th - Jim and I decide we better start looking for a new place to stay before we found ourselves homeless. After 10 months of living with squeaky floorboards and two large cows over our heads (one of which made it a habit to use the restroom every single night / morning in two hour intervals until the sun came up), we thought maybe finding a rental house would be our best option.

We looked...and looked...and looked. We looked at townhouses, condos, apartments and rental houses. It's hard to find exactly what you're looking for at a price you're willing to pay.

And then - we were convinced it was time to consider being homeowners. Hadn't really crossed our minds.....I mean really, I had JUST finished school and had been employed for only two months, we were trying to save up for our wedding that was only a month away, and our savings account had dwindled to practically nothing during the 12 months I was unemployed and in school. We hadn't really considered that option.

Until May 9th. It's amazing the kinds of deals that you can find out there in this economy, just to sell a house. We looked at a couple of new neighborhoods - but couldn't find anything we could afford. We had no down payment, no money for closing costs, nothing really. And then we found Trail Run. I think the timing was perfect - had we started looking at buying a week earlier, our house wouldn't have been available; had we started looking a week later, I'm convinced our house would have already been sold.

Trail Run is a new housing development in Auburn, right behind the old Valley 6 Drive-In Movie Theater. What we love most about this neighborhood is the location (we are once again living close to our family and friends), the surroundings (city life with a country feel since the Carpanito Bros planting fields surround us), easy access to the freeway (5 min to 167), and easy access to shopping (we are right in the middle of three cities - Covington, Auburn, and Kent).

Anyway - our house is perfect - it's everything we could have ever dreamed of: 2370 sq ft, 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath, 2 living rooms, bonus room upstairs, amazing kitchen with all the upgrades, and the best part - is that it's OURS! This neighborhood is a "build as you buy" kind of neighborhood - but fortunately for us, our house had recently been purchased, built with the original owners upgrades and specifications, was ready for move-in.....and then the dad got laid off. We would have had to wait 6 months for our house to be built. But with our timeline being two weeks before we needed a house, that wasn't an option. We looked at this already built house...discovered that the original owner and I had A LOT in common as far as ideas and preferences for upgrades, and we were sold. The only change I will be making is the color of the walls. They are kind of a light butter cream type yellow color. I prefer white....or closer to white.

Outside of House: