So we realized today that it’s been over a month since we posted something new on our blog.  FAIL!  Well at least we have a good reason for being such bad little bloggers . . . we bought our first house!  (And since the day we first walked through the doors of our home-to-be, it’s kinda been consuming our life.)  Proud to say that’s one HUGE goal checked off of our 101 in 1001 list!

We started our home search in January and it has been a long and very busy five months because of it, but it’s totally worth it to finally say that we are homeowners!  Our house is in Chandler only about a five minute drive from where we live now and we could not be more thrilled.  How about a little tour?  Now keep in mind, we’ve got LOTS of projects planned and we’ve actually spent the last month changing a bunch of things about the interior, but there’s a lot more on our To-Do list so you’ll probably be seeing a lot of before and after posts in the next few months.

The previous owner clearly made some poor choices in landscaping so please excuse the weed-like forrest on the left, the world’s dirtiest tree on the right and the ugly grey bushes along the front window.  Future home improvement project . . . (sigh.)

Our front door – complete with man eating Bougainvillea and more ugly landscape. LOL!

The interior – we LOVE the flooring!

Notice the room just off the front door . . .

This room will soon be the Simply Knot Photography studio space!  We’ve got BIG plans for this room.  We’ll be adding some great lighting, putting lots of our photo work on the walls and creating a comfy living room style space where we can meet with our clients.  We’ve been dreaming and waiting for this for a LONG time and can’t wait to get started!

On to the rest of the house – here’s the dining room and family room.  BTW, what’s with the “entertainment niches”?  Hate them!  We will be bidding them a fond farewell in the near future.

Another view.

Dinning room and kitchen. Doesn’t our kitchen look amazing in our “Fridge Room”. That thing is enormous!

When we bought the house, all the cabinets were a light brown color.  Yuck.  Painting them was a big project, but totally worth it – before and after photos coming soon!

Vaulted ceilings & recessed lighting – more of our  favorite features.

Apparently when they built homes in the mid 90’s the only lighting fixtures available were hideous.  One of the first changes we made was installing this cute light in the dinning room.  SO much better!

The house has 2 pretty much identical bedrooms (along with a master and our studio space.)

A quick peak at the master bathroom – just perfect for many, many future bubble baths :-)

Everyone who’s seen our backyard keeps telling us how lucky we are – it’s HUGE because we’re on a corner lot.  However, as you can see, it’s totally void of any landscaping other than patches of grass and headless sprinklers that create a lovely little geyser on the side of the house whenever they turn on!  LOL!   Now there’s a project that can wait for cooler weather :-)

Our only improvement to the backyard so far has been adding these cute red chairs . . . so we can look out into our great empty field in comfort and style.  LOL!  Molly has been over to visit and she’s mostly just scared of the yard.  What can we say?  She’s been an apartment dog all her life!  We also kinda think that the dead grass hurts her little paws :-(

So that about does it for the tour. All in all, it’s so wonderful to have a place to call our own. We feel so blessed and can’t wait to move in this weekend!

Thank you so much to the many people who have been supporting us through this process: our fabulous realtor Natalie and our mortgage broker Fred – we highly recommend both of these awesome people so if you’re in the market for a home let us know and we’d be happy to pass their info along to you.  And of course, a big thanks to our awesome family and friends that have given countless hours of advice and empathy.  We heart you guys!