January 31, 2013

Beach House | Progress

Well after a slow start in November, we’ve made some serious progress on the house 🙂 On Friday morning we left the house about 6AM to head down to a full day of selection appointments. We had our electrical walk through where we got to place all our outlets, we picked our cabinets, counters, tile, faucets and lights! It was so productive and so exhausting. We cannot wait for the weather to warm up and head down there for weekends away from the hustle & bustle here in Charlotte. And of course our answer still stands, we WILL be renting it 🙂 You can email me for details! I’m very thankful we have a builder who utilized a website called BuilderTrend. Through it we get photo updates of all the progress. It’s a good thing we don’t live to close, or I’d be driving by daily!   Left: Tile for the master shower! It will have the decorative boarder of the glass at eye level. Right: Oh the faucets that are available are hilarious…. gold swans. check.   We’re heading back in about 2 weeks to check in and make any final changes before the sheet-rock goes up!  
October 23, 2012

Personal | 703 Texas Avenue

The first 4th of July after we got married, we were down at Carolina Beach- soaking up sun and family time. We thought- wonder what a lot costs? Within a week I had located a lot, a little private, away from some of the beach town ruckus, a good price…. a price we could afford. …. wait, let me go back…. 3 months after getting married, Jeremy was laid off from his engineering job- our household income was cut by more than half. So- when July rolled around most people would think we were crazy for even thinking buying coastal property was a feasible idea. Well, a week after our crazy idea hatched, I found myself on the road to Carolina Beach at 6AM to see this lot in person. It was perfect. I called Jeremy. I called a realtor. We made an offer. We bought the lot August 6, 2010. We never thought that just over 2 years later, we would be closing again, this time on the construction loan. We’ve worked diligently since Jeremy got a new job in April of 2011 to pay off debts, and to save for a down-payment. We decided in January to go ahead and meet with an architect, over several months and revisions, we agreed on a plan…. then we spent late spring and summer researching and selecting a builder. We got the contract straight with the builder and it was time to actually find a loan. I was terrified. I was so scared that no matter how much we thought would be enough savings the bank would still find a way to deny us….. quite the opposite ended up happening. We started the loan process about a month ago, and picked October 22 for a closing date. Yesterday we drove 4 hours to the beach, signed our paperwork, ate dinner and ice cream, then drove 4 hours home. It was an exhausting, exhilarating day! We are waiting on the builder to finalize a schedule for us, but it should be done by February 🙂 Que girls weekends, boys weekends, family time, coastal wedding bookings (yes, please, we won’t charge travel in 2013 for weddings from Topsail-Oak Island!) and lots of relaxation. If you’re following me on Pinterest, I apologize for all the “beach house ideas” you’ve seen over the last 10 months…. but you’re only going to see more. I started pinning faucets this morning…. sorry for all the chrome, but we’re excited! A little memory from yesterday…..
January 31, 2013

Beach House | Progress

Well after a slow start in November, we’ve made some serious progress on the house 🙂 On Friday morning we left the house about 6AM to head down to a full day of selection appointments. We had our electrical walk through where we got to place all our outlets, we picked our cabinets, counters, tile, faucets and lights! It was so productive and so exhausting. We cannot wait for the weather to warm up and head down there for weekends away from the hustle & bustle here in Charlotte. And of course our answer still stands, we WILL be renting it 🙂 You can email me for details! I’m very thankful we have a builder who utilized a website called BuilderTrend. Through it we get photo updates of all the progress. It’s a good thing we don’t live to close, or I’d be driving by daily!   Left: Tile for the master shower! It will have the decorative boarder of the glass at eye level. Right: Oh the faucets that are available are hilarious…. gold swans. check.   We’re heading back in about 2 weeks to check in and make any final changes before the sheet-rock goes up!  
October 23, 2012

Personal | 703 Texas Avenue

The first 4th of July after we got married, we were down at Carolina Beach- soaking up sun and family time. We thought- wonder what a lot costs? Within a week I had located a lot, a little private, away from some of the beach town ruckus, a good price…. a price we could afford. …. wait, let me go back…. 3 months after getting married, Jeremy was laid off from his engineering job- our household income was cut by more than half. So- when July rolled around most people would think we were crazy for even thinking buying coastal property was a feasible idea. Well, a week after our crazy idea hatched, I found myself on the road to Carolina Beach at 6AM to see this lot in person. It was perfect. I called Jeremy. I called a realtor. We made an offer. We bought the lot August 6, 2010. We never thought that just over 2 years later, we would be closing again, this time on the construction loan. We’ve worked diligently since Jeremy got a new job in April of 2011 to pay off debts, and to save for a down-payment. We decided in January to go ahead and meet with an architect, over several months and revisions, we agreed on a plan…. then we spent late spring and summer researching and selecting a builder. We got the contract straight with the builder and it was time to actually find a loan. I was terrified. I was so scared that no matter how much we thought would be enough savings the bank would still find a way to deny us….. quite the opposite ended up happening. We started the loan process about a month ago, and picked October 22 for a closing date. Yesterday we drove 4 hours to the beach, signed our paperwork, ate dinner and ice cream, then drove 4 hours home. It was an exhausting, exhilarating day! We are waiting on the builder to finalize a schedule for us, but it should be done by February 🙂 Que girls weekends, boys weekends, family time, coastal wedding bookings (yes, please, we won’t charge travel in 2013 for weddings from Topsail-Oak Island!) and lots of relaxation. If you’re following me on Pinterest, I apologize for all the “beach house ideas” you’ve seen over the last 10 months…. but you’re only going to see more. I started pinning faucets this morning…. sorry for all the chrome, but we’re excited! A little memory from yesterday…..