The One
I finally met the one.
I was told that you can make anything real if you can see it.
I had been searching for a home for nearly a year. My beautiful and patient real estate agent, Bejai Johnson of REMAX in Atlanta kept telling me to ‘keep faith’, but it was hard.
I had a modest budget and I was up against investors with cold hard cash and I was putting in offer after offer just to be rejected. I was running up against contingencies I couldn’t deal with. I was spending hours after work and on the weekends driving around Atlanta, hunting down deals and coming up empty. Then, I did a google search for a cute ranch house with a front porch and found this:
It’s everything I want in a home. It has charm, it has a front porch, it has a centered front door, windows on both side, a cute walk way, in other words, curb appeal. It’s a one story, three bedroom, two bathroom house adn something about it feels right.
It wasn’t for sale, so I made this photo the wallpaper on my phone. This way, I’d have to look at it several times a day and really visualize it. Not only did this help to motivate me, but it helped me to narrow down my search. And it wasn’t long before I found this:
Isn’t she a looker? Of course, I fell in love. She was way below budget which meant she needed some work, but she had the look I was going for. She was in just the location I was looking for, walking and biking distance from the city and on the developing ‘beltline’ a biking and walking pathway that circles the city and is littered with shopping, dining, recreation and nightlife. After I walked through with Bejai, I was filled with optimism. I put in an offer that same day.
In short, she needed a new HVAC system, repairs to the electrical, new siding, paint inside and out, new fascia, new gutters, stained deck and back porch, new retaining wall, new hardwood floors, patched up walls, molding and baseboard.
Here’s how it went:
The Exterior
Before
After
Living, Dining Room and Kitchen
Before
After
Bedrooms and Bathrooms
Before
After
AS you can probably tell, there is still so much work left to do! But I think it’s a pretty dramatic transformation for a starting point, don’t you? I invite you to come back for some DIY inspiration and future projects. In the meantime, check out these affiliate links for DIY projects you saw in the before and after photos:
Stenciled floors @ Remington Avenue
Remove an old fashioned shower doors @ LivingandLearningwithLuisa
Painting a bathroom vanity @ addicted2decorating
Farmhouse style dining room table and coffee table @ My DIY Envy
OnCloudMine 