It's okay if you don't believe me this time but...

...we bought a condo. Okay "bought" is a strong word. We made an offer on a condo and the seller accepted the offer which is a step further than the last time! After our disappointment with the liar liar pants on fire new home developers I saw a new listing for a condo that was listed at $112,000. Of course our first instinct was that it must be a dump for that price but I called anyway. The real estate agent (named Amy) gave the following details: 3 bed, 1 1/2 bath, 2 car garage(not functional, however, since the slope is too steep...our cars bottom out so it's basically glorified storage space), in okay condition, and most importantly "this condo is the last thing to go in my divorce and we just want to get it sold so we can be done with each other." So I said alright we'll come see it. I didn't think Brian would be interested but we went, we saw, we agreed the place has great potential, and he said "see what you can work out." Or something like that. Sooooooooooo we offered 108,000 asking for the seller to pay closing costs. He accepted the offer. Today we negotiated that the seller also pay for all new flooring of my choice and new paint which we will do. That part is not in writing yet but we sure hope it gets in writing because that will be AWESOME! Either way I am planning for all new carpet, possibly replace the kitchen floor with pergo(fake wood) floors, and some kind of new floors in the bathrooms. That's in addition to painting at least the entire downstairs before we move in. I have two VERY savvy friends (you know who you are;) who might as well be interior decorators. They are helping me pick out colors and have a never ending supply of ideas on how to decorate or reinvent a space to make it FABULOUS. That has never been my forte. So the pictures I am posting will serve as the BEFORE pictures. I know you will be amazed when I post the AFTER pictures in a month or two.

Above: We're the second condo in.
Below: Obviously the kitchen. All the stuff on the counter is the samples I picked up at Lowes of carpet, flooring and faux tile options not to mention paint color thingys.
Below: Living room.
Below: Upstairs bath. The washer and dryer hook up are in the downstairs bath. He left the washer and dryer so as long as they still work good we're just going to preserve our washer and dryer for when we buy a real house.
Below: Master bedroom. It's actually very large - hooray.
Below: Bedroom 2. I didn't show the pic of Bedroom 3 because it pretty much is the same thing.
Below: Back patio door. We have a great view into a family's back yard. We'll just pretend it is our yard so we don't feel sad about not having one of our own.
Below: Back view obviously....most of these descriptions are OBVIOUS. I'm hoping they're planning on refinishing the decks this spring but I'm not counting on it.
Playground and pool area - nice touch.


We will officially move into the condo on June 1st though we should own it by May 15th (as long as everything goes through...which we have learned is never guaranteed till the bank says it's a done deal). We'll have at least 2 weeks to finish touching up the condo and then move in as first time home owners. We feel good about this decision because we believe it will be relatively easy to rent out the condo once we're ready to buy a real home. It is located behind the site for the new USU campus...perfect for someday renting. Another selling point for us is that the mortgage will be around or less than what we are now paying for rent. Might as well make our money work for us!