house hunting in cleveland- part one

After three years of dreaming and penny pinching, we're finally doing it. Nate and I are starting to look for a house!

April was the official 1 year anniversary of Nate and I cohabiting, but this June marks 4 years of living in my apartment for me-- I can hardly believe that it's been this long.

While we love our apartment and our neighborhood, we decided it was time to move on and find a place of our own for several reasons. Owning a house is a much more cost-effective living situation than renting (for us, at least) and it gets pretty tiresome listening to the slightly-muffled sounds of techno music at 3am from your upstairs neighbors, or fighting for a street parking spot. As I'm getting older, I come to value more and more having a home that reflects us and our style- which is only attainable to a certain point when you can't paint or install a backsplash or rip out carpet without the blessing of your landlord. Looking back, I wish I would have gotten a little more daring in DIY renter-friendly solutions to spruce up our space, like experimenting with peel-and-stick tile or removable wallpaper. Oh well!

We are pre-approved for a loan, have an agent that we're working with, and seeing houses already!

Here are some of the features of the homes we want to find:

• Single family home
• See above. So long, noisy neighbors! We did consider that it might be nice to have additional income if we bought a duplex and rented out the other level, but the attraction of a quiet, private home is so much more important to us than money.
• Multiple stories
• Personally, I find multiple-story homes visually more interesting and attractive than ranch homes. While we love mid-century modern style ranch houses (a la Palm Springs, CA), I don't see myself being able to commit to one interior style. Nate and I love unique furniture, and we usually end up with an eclectic assortment. Maybe someday we'll end up winning the lottery and we can fulfill our desire through a desert vacation home with a brightly colored door! We also envision ourselves having a finished (or semi-finished) third floor that would serve as an art and music studio for the two of us to share, since Nate is a graphic designer.
• 3 bedrooms & 1 bathroom
• We currently have an extra bedroom in our apartment, and it has served us well these past few years. We both have a lot of family and friends visit from out of town, and it would be nice to have an additional guest room if we have more than one person come into town. If the third floor studio dream doesn't pan out, it would be nice to have an extra bedroom to serve that purpose as well.
• Natural Light
• I promised myself that I would not buy anymore plants until we buy a house, because the light in our apartment is kind of abysmal. We only have so many windows that aren't obstructed from closely neighboring houses or the roof to our front porch, so we can only have so many plants vying for light in the same spaces.
  
  In case you're wondering, the promise I made to myself is not going well.
• Hardwood Floors
• Our apartment has such icky carpet- when we found our place, we asked our landlord if there were hardwoods underneath the carpet and he divulged a horrifying tale- his tenants from years before had a cat that peed all over the floors, and he couldn't get the smell out until he sealed them with some sort of black tar. My heart hurts just thinking about it.
• Old homes with unique charm
• We are so drawn to homes with little nooks and built-ins that you just don't find from modern homes. Bring on the exposed brick and creaky stairs!

All-in-all, the features that are listed above might not seem like much. Nate and I know more of what we definitely don't like than firm wants/desires. We'll see how that goes.

Wish us luck on our search-we'll definitely need all we can get!