And so it begins...

We bought a house.

It's been a bit of a crazy ride getting everything sorted out the past few weeks (hence the lack of posting), but we signed our names on the dotted line yesterday and ponied up the cash for a deposit for our little piece of the world. Okay...maybe it's not so little. I should start by telling you what our initial requirements were:

- We wanted a fixer-upper on a larger piece of property (1-2 flat-ish acres), in the city we live in now (my big requirement), far away from the freeway (we're done hearing the cars whoosh by where we live now), oh, and within our budget. As you can see, nothing really overly picky or specific because with a little (or a lot) of work we can change things.

What we bought:

- A fixer-upper all right. This place is only 21 years old but has been seriously neglected. But, structurally everything is great -- so a big sigh of relief there. It needs a new roof, and a ton of cleanup (and a lot of other things).

- It's um, big. Like, bigger than the initial big we were thinking. 5 acres big. (We're going to become farmers. Seriously: farming = tax benefits! Farming of what has still to be decided, but options are hedge cedars, honeybees, hay...)

- It's in the city we currently live in (YAY!).

- It's far, far, FAR away from the freeway, and on a quiet road.

- It's in our budget. We negotiated a good price. leaving us money to fix the place up.

Here's more of the photos from the listing:

Yes, there's a pond. Yes, we have ducks. (cool!)

Horses not included. We're not that rural...yet.

Little bit of the garden.

A lot more of the garden. (Wait, at this point do I still call it 'garden'?)

Another view of the house. At this perspective it's a lot less scary and run down looking.

Stay tuned, things are going to get really interesting around here. (August 19th we get possession.)