Before

After the first dumpster was filled… and then after the second dumpster was filled this weekend…

Dumpster 1: clearing the ramp to the stairs and revealing the front porch

Dumpster 2: revealing the area below the front porch by cleaning back the "front yard" 

I take no credit, all I did was do clean-up assistance and sweep and poke at a "katamari ball" of vines and weeds down the stairs towards the dumpster once it was already pulled. Both dumpsters were filled! And we'll need the dumpster again… and nothing has really been done to the "back yard" yet.

So in the past few days, I have gotten married, and we have purchased our first house and will be moving into it together after our honeymoon. We have 2 weeks (well, 1.5 weeks now) until our cruise honeymoon to Alaska, and then 3 weeks until we move into our home.

Our house which we just closed on Monday was a listing F found on Craig's List, which is different since all the houses we have seen so far are from the mailing list of a Prudential listing agent- she sends several a week with quick descriptions and then a webpage with some photos. This particular house stood out though because of the area: F can continue to walk downtown to work, and I can head to the Max station to get out to Beaverton. This particular broker also deals with bank-owned homes. This particular home is a short-sale.

F also took some videos of

-Going up from the bottom of the street up to the front door (obviously the plants have overgrown):

-The first floor floor of the house which includes a kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and a guest bathroom as well as a large dining and living room area (and fireplace)

-The little back deck that you can access the 2nd floor master bed/bath from going upstairs

-The master bedroom and bathroom

Although it is an older home- actually built in 1910, the previous few owners have put in a lot of initial work already to bring it up to more modern standards. Looking on the internet for a bit of research, the asking price is below the last purchase price of the home, and most of the homes around it are equal or quite a bit more than this house, so it would be a great investment.

We also snuck a look at another home on the market on the other side of this house's neighbor, and our handyman friend loved it as well but it was way too much for a first time homeowner to tackle. We even met our neighbor and he talked a bit about the work the previous owner, a doctor, had sunk in and the guy also talked a lot about what he did for his house… which now is registered as a historic home. The home we had snuck into was actually the architect's home itself! We know that the neighbor on our other side that we hadn't met (who actually has a garage, neither of the 3 homes I have just talked about does) also has a home in great shape and also part of the Jacobberger home row if we make an assumption based on the fact the gate to his home says Jacobberger on it. So that makes two of the houses on one side and the house on the other side all Joseph Jacobberger homes.

It's a little unnerving how excited F is about the house: he has been researching the landscaping around it for more than a week! He never likes planning ahead this much, but after being exhausted by the wedding project I managed, I'm glad to let him be the project manager of the house project. We just got the keys yesterday, and he already cut some of the weeds, checked out the roof, and set up the garbage, water, and electricity.