Today was an errand day so most of it I was running around town, dragging the kids in and out of places of business, buckling and unbuckling and the at the end of the day, filling the gas tank to make up for it all.
BUT...this afternoon there was a small window of time when I was home...(just long enough to gulp lunch down and pull off naps)and today I started putting together my house hunting notebook!
(an apartment we considered when hunting for this one)
I took a small three-ring binder and filled it with the Realtor.com profiles of all the houses I am interested in and separated them into "Already Drove By And Looked At Them"(Further Action Needed)and "Still Need To Drive By." I also categorized them by town within those sections so that I can make sure to find all the houses in the same area when I have the next chance to do drive bys. I have been taking notes on the back of the Realtor.com profiles as I see houses to make sure I remember my thoughts on each place and if needed (say a profile doesn't show the front of the house at all) I take photos that can supplement the photos in the profile.
Today I also added a three ring notebook pocket to hold post-its, three pens (extras for realtors and A in case we need them) and two highlighters for noting the good and bad stats on a house profile. A while ago I sat down and brainstormed the things we: Want to Have, Would Consider Bonuses and Want to Avoid in a prospective house.
(one of the houses I looked at last week, we hope to see the inside this weekend!)
The last thing on my list is to make a collage for the cover...hence the stack of decorating magazines you see above! I plan to peruse them for dream-home ideas and inspiration and then take scissors to the pages and hack and cut to my heart's content until I have two beautiful 10X13 collages to cover the front and back of my new notebook.
(a mountaintop chalet we saw in Switzerland)
Thus armed and inspired...I plan to try to find us a home of our own this year...perhaps even this spring!
Man, oh man, are you ever organized!! When we were house hunting I just went online, looked, picked out a few I liked and then went and looked at them. LOL!!! We were lucky to find our home as quick as we did.
ReplyDeleteIf we buy a new home I want/need a beautiful, old, huge, tudor style home with lots of extras. LOL!! Much more picky now. :) Have fun!!!!
Ooohh...I hope to hear all about your needs/likes/avoids and such. I'm curious to hear what you like in a house. Also, please show us the collages when they are done!
ReplyDeleteSo fun! I love the process of finding a new home to live in.
ReplyDeleteSo much fun!! We found this house playing "what would it be like to buy a grown up house'? Just looking around doing what you are doing but with no intention of buying for several more years!! We set up a radius, and "must haves" knowing we were in no rush. We looked at this one, feel in love with it, couldn't believe it was in our price range and began the process. Uncle D went to a meeting after, happened to mention it and someone made an offer on our old house, and they had never seen the inside!
ReplyDeleteGood luck and keep us posted!!
Keep us posted!!