My First Home - I Bought It!

Yes, I have bought my first home. If you've read my other blog, Shelter, you know that my dream home since childhood has been a 1930s two-story bungalow, but sometimes you have to adapt your dreams. My salary (as a single woman) and working location never matched that goal, and my priorities changed as I got older. Most importantly, since living alone in the family home since my father died, I realized how having a landscaped lawn would be a second job. That fact changed my mind about those dream flower beds and picket fences. There's also the fact that I'm not known as and have never been an "outdoors" person. At all. Therefore, I needed a place that required minimum yard maintenance. 

Enter the townhouse or condo options. Maximum interior decoration fun with less to no seasonal yard maintenance!

I still had a few requirements for my home. I wanted something unique, no high-rises, and I didn't want a typical boxy apartment layout. 

Or, lets say I didn't after I helped a friend and coworker move into her new condo/townhouse. Carrying boxes, I walked up two flights (ugh, more about them later) to an adorable two bedroom apartment with a LOFT! And the second smaller bedroom at the front had three separate windows positioned like a bay window that let in so much light. My first thought was "dedicated sewing space"! The rest of the unit included an angular main living space and skylights in the loft and over the kitchen, so there was even more light! Give me ALL your light!

This unit was something unique, with character. In Newport News, where I wanted to live to be nearer work, there weren't vintage building conversions like in Richmond, VA. I found a few in Norfolk but there was no way I would do that long commute with an undersea tunnel and its infamous delays! In my price range, most Newport News properties were vintage 1980s, i.e., not the best era for residential architecture. But this one, built in 1989, was different. All of the designs in this development were quite quirky. The larger units also had lofted spaces, but they were in the primary bedroom. I didn't understand that layout at all. I have communal plans for my loft.

But before I tell you about those plans, let's look at the raw product. 

 

In future posts, I'll write about the process that led me to get this place, exactly how I imagined it. I didn't officially use The Secret but...

Coming up: 

• Inspirations
• Internet resources
• Design plan 
• Projects
• Process

Oh, and by the way, while this was all going on, I was also the only sibling living in the family property while we were trying to get the home together to sell this summer. Well, that's a whole other story and a wholly different level of stressor. Whew!