A Fresh Exterior

Ever since we initally laid eyes on our first home, we knew it would need some exterior work to modernize it. I had big ideas of repainting it a brighter white, changing the trim from brown to black, and perhaps replacing the roof with a black or grey one. But, alas $$$$$. Then I went onto a Houzz forum asking for recommendations and surprisingly people had so many great ideas that weren't as expensive or drastic as I had initially envisioned.

From the Houzz forum, people suggested the following:

• We could update the door and paint it a fun color.
• We could pull out the bushes (that were probably 40 years old) and replace them with something more modern like a century plant and succulents which are pretty popular here in Southern California. 
• We could change or remove the "fence" on the front porch. 
• We could update the hardscaping - to my surprise this was a little pricey so we held off on doing this for now.

So in honor of our one year anniversary, I wanted to share some progress updates on the exterior that we did. 

First, we got a new mid-century inspired door installed. That was a HUGE update! Then we painted said door Benjamin Moore Naples blue. I think this was the update that had the biggest impact. We also got a RING doorbell and a new more sleek, modern mailbox.

Then we (read: Jake) tore out the old bushes and took our time deciding what to do next. We thought about snake plants, succulents, river rock, etc. We thought about removing (or redoing) the small hardscape wall in front of the house but decided against it for now since it looks OK. Eventually we might remove and/or redo it. We will have to wait and see.

This spring, we started researching landscaping. After looking online, we quickly realized that there were typically two options:

Consult with a landscape designer to design a custom front and backyard, which typically comes at a higher cost than we were looking to spend.

-OR-

Visit a nursery, pick out plants, and plant them (more of a DIY route). 

Then we found Moon Valley Nurseries in Huntington Beach via a Google search. The first thing we liked about the website was you can upload a picture of your yard and add plants from the website to the picture...we had a little too much fun with this tool, as you can imagine. We went to the nursery on a Saturday to start planning our project. We then spent the first part of the design meeting talking about our style, plant and color ideas, and what areas of the yard we wanted to landscape (front, side and backyard).  Next, we went out to the actual nursery and looked at a variety of plants. Jake and I both had so much fun picking out the different plants and determining where they would be planted.

We had a good idea about what we wanted from the beginning, but our designer recommended some plants that we had never heard of which ultimately ended up being our very favorite plants of the whole project! As we selected our plants, they were tagged with our name so we knew exactly which plants were ours. I'm pretty sure this was the best day of Jake's life (so far).  We also got four bougainvillea for the back white stucco wall and decided to go for an Italian villa vibe. We still need to get uplighting for those, but I will share some backyard updates once we decide on our long term outdoor furniture and layout. I never knew how fun (!!), but also a bit stressful and draining owning our house would be. I wouldn't trade it for anything though!

BEFORE:

AFTER (1 year progress):

How long we plan to live in this house is another big consideration that we are mulling over before we start spending all of our money customizing the house even further. I had a dream last night that we were putting in a pool! That is something I am considering very strongly but we are not going to move forward with that until we know we want to stay here for awhile.

I've learned that the house to do list is endless and realistically, will probably always be a mile long. So part of the process is just embracing and realizing that the house will never be perfect. But, to be cliche, it's about the journey, not the destination, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself.

xoxo,

home (noun): the place where one lives permanently

Well, it happened. Over three months went by without a new blog post from me. There are a lot of reasons for my hiatus, but one of them being... WE BOUGHT A HOUSE. Whoa, that still feels very foreign to say type. It all happened so fast but it was a few weeks after my last blog post that we were writing up an offer.  Where do I start? I guess at the beginning.

From the moment we arrived in SoCal, I knew this was the place for us. We had a bit of a rocky start getting adjusted to how things work here. But, it's California, you say and everything is so laid back and easy, right? Actually, not really. But, after a little over a year, I feel like we have figured things out at least a little. We are still rookies, but not the newest kids on the block by any means. 

We started thinking seriously about buying a house towards the end of last year and even though we weren't ready (I am not sure anyone is ever 100% ready), I was subscribed to daily emails from a local real estate company. Each morning I would anxiously await the daily digest email and get kind of depressed looking at how expensive everything was. 

One day in early Spring I suggested to Jake, "let's go to this open house". And he looked at me like he saw a ghost. I said, we aren't signing a contract that we are buying this house, we are just going to look and see what it's like. So, he agreed and we went. The house was a 'flip' and we were not impressed. We did get free subway sandwiches so they made it worth our while. That is when we realized that pictures online are not to be trusted. We went to a few more open houses on our own and then decided to get an agent. We had a meeting with her in April and decided to start going to open houses with her and start seriously looking for something. Our lease was ending in June so being the planner I am, I wanted to time it perfectly so we didn't have to end our lease early or have to figure out temporary housing. I was trying to make this as seamless as possible, but you know how that often turns out... 

We went to open houses a few times with her, but little did we know that on our first day of looking we would find our home. She brought us to an open house for a property that was already under contract so she could get a feel for what we like. We loved the inside but didn't love the outside as much (it wasn't modern enough), I think we rated it 8/10 so in our minds we really liked it, but we knew it wasn't available so we didn't even think twice about it. A few weeks later it fell out of escrow (which is fairly common, I am told). It was still out of our price range so we waited (some days patiently, others not so patiently).  We kept looking at other houses but nothing ever came close to this house. Nearly a month later, they lowered the price into our price range (we put in an offer that day -- we were also traveling to Seattle the same day so it was kind of hectic and we didn't have time to write a love letter). We knew it was a flip owned by investors, so we didn't think they would care too much about a love letter anyway...or at least that is what we hoped. The next day, we found out that there were two other offers higher than ours, so the owners did a multiple counter offer back to all three parties. We agreed on their price and signed the papers and waited to hear back. We were not prepared to get into a bidding war so we decided that we had reached our max and would drop out if the price went up again.

The day we found out was a Sunday a few days before Jake's birthday and we were in downtown Seattle, walking right past the Four Seasons, oddly enough. Our finance guy texted me "Congratulations" out of the blue and I was like "Whaaat? Did we get the house?" And he was like, "I think so!" A few minutes later our agent called with the good news. We were kind of in shock because we didn't really expect that they would accept our offer. We had heard how competitive things were and the SoCal market has been and still is on fire. Seattle is probably one of the only other places in the country that is this crazy to buy real estate in.

We went through all the usual steps, and had a super fast < 30 day close since Jake had a trip  pre-planned that he couldn't reschedule, we wanted to (1) move out of our rental, (2) close on the new house and (3) move into the new house by June 17th. Keep in mind our offer was accepted on May 21st. Somehow everything fell exactly into place. We did have to give notice on the rental by June 1st which was before our financing contingency was removed, but I just knew that everything would all come together. It was scary and nerve-wracking to say the least, but nothing could have prepared us for (how do I say this delicately)... some water issues that arose three days after we moved in. I will save that story for another day (if I ever tell it), but let's just say we made it to the "other side", got to know some of our neighbors really well, and are stronger now after going through it.

Here are a few sneak peeks of the house. I have been sharing a lot on Instagram (including Instastories) @thevintagemodern -- be sure to follow me in you aren't already.

I've always wanted to have an entryway! ... This was so simple but so fun to style.

So I bought Jake a house for his birthday. And we celebrated signing our lives away with IN-N-OUT because, duh. #typical #californian

..Expect more updates on the house in the coming months including more pictures of our updates and changes we've made so far. We worked with Laurel & Wolf on redesigning and decorating our main living area and we are currently in the process of getting a new front door. So be on the lookout!

P.S. Gosh, I've missed blogging!

xoxo,