Everyone is buying a house...

Pretty much all of my blogging friends who are about Kyle's and my age are writing about their house adventures.  Either they've bought houses, are closing on houses, or are house-hunting.  Lots of people are even painting inside their houses (PS friends, I want to see pictures!).  This reminded me of something I haven't blogged about simply because I hadn't blogged much at all lately...

...we bought a house, too.

Well, so ours is a very different story.  We've actually lived in our house since we were married (and I've lived in it since the summer before, so three years for me altogether).  But we didn't own the house then.  Waaaaaay back when Kyle and I decided to get engaged, my parents made a pretty good investment on a house in Muncie.  The plan was that they were going to buy a foreclosed house near campus.  My parents and Kyle and I would remodel the house so that it was very, very nice (or at least better than it was when we got it!).  This we did before I even moved in three years ago.  We've lived in it ever since and my sister also stayed in it until she got married a year ago.  Then, after I got my first teaching job, we'd take out a loan and buy the house from my parents.  They would get what they bought it for plus what they put into it.  They wouldn't lose money, and we would HUGELY benefit by living in it rent-free for the first few years and then buying the house for super-cheap after.

So that's exactly what we did!  The paperwork was finalized in March, I believe, but the process began in January.  We didn't mortgage the house.  Instead, my parents sought a lawyer and deeded the house to us for free.  Then, officially owning the house, we were able to take out a home-equity loan for up to a certain percentage of what the house is worth (trust me, that's a lot more than we paid for it!), so we were able to use the equity loan to pay my parents AND have a couple extra thousand dollars to continue making improvements.  Also, by deeding the house and doing a home-equity loan, we were able to avoid closing costs, saving us about $3,000!  

Now I call that a bargain!  We plan to live here for the next few years and after we do some more remodeling upstairs, it'll be big enough to stay in for quite awhile.  We have to at least stay in this house for another two years to avoid having to pay closing costs on the house.  It's part of the home equity contract. 

I hated remodeling the house three years ago, but I do love furnishing and decorating it!  We've since been able to spend most of our money that we put toward the house in making it more our home than anything.  We still, however, have a lot of remodeling on our plate if we are to make an even bigger profit on the house later.  With the surplus funds from the loan, we're hoping this summer can make this possible.  We have an entire floor of the house that is virtually unused space right now.   Did I mention it also has an extra bathroom that just needs a date with the plumber?  The upstairs renovation is our next big project, but there are also some other things I'd like to see done with the house soon:

1) sealed and cleaned up basement with a FINISHED food storage room (the old coal room will be great for that)

2) a remodeled screened-in porch at the front of the house (perfect for summertime and plants)

3) painting the outside of the house to work on our curb appeal (when I bring this up, Kyle gets overwhelmed.  We're thinking maybe next summer)

Working on our old house is never done.  For pictures from the first remodeling process and updates, check out my Facebook album called "This Old House."