Happy 1 year of being homeowners...The story of how we bought our home.

Last year, exactly 1 year ago we did the single most adult thing you can do, we bought a house! Living here in Southern California we never thought we'd be able to achieve this due to how crazy expensive it is to actually purchase a home here. But even knowing that we so badly wanted to set down our roots here, create a home base for us with all the chaos and last minute changes that always happen in my husband's job. He wanted me to have a safe place to land, a place all ours. We had been renting an apartment and I have to say it was hard leaving that space. 

  

I loved where we were renting, I loved the whole vibe of our apartment and the fact that it did feel like home to me made it hard to leave it. I knew with buying a home that there was so much responsibility that comes along with it and that scared me. If something went wrong we couldn't just call the manager and have them come fix it, nope, this was all ours, we owned it. And as so many people will tell you that buying a home is not only the single biggest purchase you'll ever make in your life, but it will also be the most stressful one too. Because we had never been homeowners before we thought they were just saying that to scare us into staying renters at our apartment, because buying a home is a huge responsibility, so we shrugged them off. 

In the end they were completely right! The stress we dealt with in trying to buy a house was ridiculous. And mind you I was the one doing all the work, going to all the open houses, and working with our realtor because my husband was usually out of town for work during all this. So it was up to me to find the house of our dreams, easy right?! No pressure, right?! 

So many homes we had loved and put offers on fell through and I felt very discouraged. After a year of looking, putting in offer after offer, I had all but given up hope when our realtor called with a house she wanted us to see. She told us that it was not yet listed but that it would be going on the market that afternoon and she wanted us to be the first to see it. She had an in with the sellers realtor so she pulled some strings for us. After all the disappointments we figured what would it hurt going to see this last house because we didn't have much hope that it would be the house for us. 

As we pulled up the first thing I noticed was the beautiful front yard, green grass. Now for all of you that don't know this, I grew up in the midwest and I'm used to having a huge green yard. I never thought we'd ever get that out here, people don't have grass. But that was on my dream list. Now, you'll hear me say "Dream List" throughout this post because I had made a list of things I would love to have in a house but didn't necessarily need. And a yard with grass was on it. It may seem silly to some of you to want grass, but like I said people don't really have grass out here because of the drought. So when we pulled up and saw the front yard was real grass, my heart skipped. 

The house was everything I'd wanted and more. Perfection. 

The house was old, late 1950's but had been flipped so it was updated and beautiful. It was a clean color pallet of greys and white, for this neutral loving girl it was heavenly. There was also a nice surprise of an addition on the back of the house so that mean't we'd have both a family rom and a living room, that was also on my dream list (because I grew up with both) The family room (the addition) had so much natural light from the skylights in both family room and kitchen. The natural light that filled the house was what Andrew noticed first and was one big factor in him falling in love with the house. 

The Living Room/ Entry Way.  

These are all the BEFORE photos. 

(all these images are from the realtor website) 

I am a lover of all things Mid-Century. It's due to the fact my grandparents house was full of danish mid-century furniture that was so beautiful to look at. The 60's is my all time favorite time period for everything from interior decor, to design, architecture, and music. So the thought of owning a mid-century home was always what I had wanted to have. 

This house was perfect in every way, the perfect clean pallet for me to design the space I knew I wanted and had dreamed of. So we put an offer on it. And 1 year later we are still in love with her, and everything that I had written down for my "Dream List" I got in this house. I have both a family room and a living room, a fireplace AND a wood burning stove, the large open kitchen perfect for entertaining and cooking, the subway tiles in both bathrooms, huge closet in Master Bedroom, the backyard we can design how we want it, and the front yard with the green grass. It's all ours and it's completely perfect down to every little detail. It's funny how God works, we had all but given up hope in finding our dream house but than the most perfect house got dropped in our lap. It's all about timing, and this house was perfect timing. 

The Family Room. 

The Kitchen. 

The Dining Space. 

Master Bedroom. 

Master Bathroom. 

The Backyard. 

My first project, painting the brick.

#DovesRenovate 

 

Our family room after we moved in. 

Setting up the gallery wall in the dining room. 

With the help of my parents and my Grammy. 

Marley immediately felt at home here. This is her favorite spot to sun. 

**I will be doing more updates on our house very soon as much has changed with the decorating. I'll be starting a series on this blog called #DovesRenovate so be sure to keep an eye out for that here and on my instagram. My IG handle is @LITTLEDOVE 

The Super Bloom.

I've been hearing all about the Super Bloom and how this year was supposed to be one of the most epic blooms we've seen in over 10 years here in Southern California. So after seeing so many incredible posts on social media I knew I didn't want to miss this.


So last week Andrew and I decided to wake up at 3:30 in the morning, drive 2 hours through the mountains and down into the desert to be able to catch the Super Bloom at sunrise. It did not disappoint. Although the drive to the Anza-Borrego Desert was terrifying with driving in the pitch blackness, in the mountains, on one of the windiest roads. We stopped at one of the most remote Starbucks I've ever been to on the drive out. We needed caffeine if we were going to drive those crazy roads. So with finally being caffeinated we continued our drive to the desert.

We were still high up in the mountains and you could already smell the incredible scent of blooms in the air. The air was thick with the perfume of the Super Bloom and as we made our way down into the desert we saw the first blooms. Gold was the color that covered the sides of the mountains and down onto the desert floor. It was sight that's hard to describe because of how stunning it was, it was a flurry of sensory overload. The conditions weren't completely ideal while being out there that early in the morning. The wind was so strong that it was difficult to get shots of the blooms because nature never cooperates when you want it to (haha) The blooms bent and swayed in the breeze so i had to sit next to the flowers and wait for the moment when the wind would die down for just a second to try and get the shot. In the end even though it was frustrating, the experience of being out there with Andrew as the sun was rising, the smell of flowers in the air and the mountains as our backdrop, you you couldn't ask for a more perfect scene.

At the beginning of the year I wrote down my goals for 2017 and one of them being to go on more adventures and explore more of the areas around us. I couldn't pass up the chance to see the Super Bloom and how fun the trip to get out there would be with Andrew. He's my favorite person to adventure with. Here are some of the incredible shots we got while exploring the Super Bloom fields.

iPhone shots