Personal: New Place Update

The walls are painted but I don’t love them… don’t get me wrong, I think our painters did a great job, but they said they need to come back and do some minor touch-ups. We have one main white colour and then a grey accent wall on all of the rooms. I thought the grey would be darker but it’s not. I think I would have preferred a darker grey, but amazingly this one matches our kitchen backsplash almost perfectly.

We are planning to change the counter tops eventually to a quartz marble-looking counter top which would match the grey and white far better, but a part of me is wondering if we should have just used the same white as the ceiling and trim. The white colour with a slightly different white trim looks a little off to me, if I’m honest. That said, I don’t think I would have wanted that white because it’s just too white. I like the off-white and prefer the contrast, I think.

I had to block off the windows in the above photos for anonymity but… yeah, I don’t know. I’m not in love with it, but I don’t know if I would have been in love with any colour we chose. Or maybe we picked the wrong wall to be our accent wall, I don’t know. Or maybe we just shouldn’t have even had accent walls in the first place and just went with a light grey for the entire house… but I didn’t want that either.

I really prayed hard before we went with these colours, and it’s the one we ended up with so it’ll work well I’m sure. But perhaps the other issue is I have decision fatigue. Buying a house was a huge decision in the first place. Then picking paint, now picking new furnishings and possibly doing additional renovations… it’s all a bit much.

As I was driving over today, I felt like it feels a bit surreal that this place is even ours, even though we’ve started paying the mortgage already. I can’t believe I’m actually going to live there… and yet some part of me feels like I’m not meant to be here. It’s weird. Maybe I’m just stressed out from the move and sleep-deprived. It’s also possible that I’m not loving it because there still needs to be a few areas that are touched up, and the house desperately needs to be cleaned again. The dirty floors bother me, but that’s an easy fix.

We both picked out these colours together, but I wish I would have had someone else helping us. I think the other reason it’s not 100% for me yet is because of the floorboards’ colour. I feel like lighter or even darker floorboards would work better.

It also kinda bothers me that there is so much white in the bathroom. It’s just very white + white + white because our vanity is white and the cabinets are white and the bath areas are also all white. But I think that will be less of a problem if we paint the cabinets? And we wanted to re-do the bathrooms and get tile in there at some point.

Who knows, maybe it’ll look very different (better) once our furniture is in. Or maybe I’ll absolutely hate it. It isn’t a massive deal because I know that at the end of the day, it’s just a wall colour. We can repaint. But it would have been a huge waste of money and that stresses me out. Painters are expensive.

We’re getting to crunch time with our move… man, I’m stressed. Now is a time that I really, really need to recall the goodness of God. Prayers appreciated.

Muchos love,

Bobbie

Personal: And We’re In!

Yay! Today was the day! Well, technically it should have been ready for us yesterday I think? But we ended up not having a chance to swing by yesterday. So we went this evening after Jacky was done with work. We dropped by to change the lock and unpack a few bits and pieces. We’ll be slowly moving in over the next month and a half, so we’ll just be taking a few boxes at a time, and eventually hiring some movers to help with the furniture. This will also give us an opportunity to do a mini-purge of our possessions as we move.

We’re so very excited to be in our new place. There’s nothing there yet so we just mostly took photos in front of the kitchen island. Even with all the blinds all shut there is still so much natural light coming through; it’s amazing.

I’ve had many second thoughts and doubts about this place after we committed to purchasing it but every time I go back through the front door it just feels right and I feel at home and I’m excited all over again. God has blessed us greatly with this new house and I’m so very thankful. Soli Deo Gloria!

Also, happy 1st of June! Goodness me, is 2021 almost half over already? I can’t quite believe it.

Muchos love,

Bobbie

Personal: A Milestone or Two

Remember when I mentioned more pressing tasks in my previous post? …Well, this is mostly what I was referring to. As well as work getting incredibly busy, we just bought a house and I’ve also finally, finally submitted my greed card application! Jacky and I actually walked to the post office together today to send it in. See those files I’m holding up in the photo on the left? All those three packets of documents were submitted as part of the application. The process has been long, confusing and stressful, but I also thank God for bringing us through it all.

The photo on the right shows me cringing at our bank account just after we put in our closing payment on our property (actual amounts hidden for privacy). We closed escrow and got the keys on Tuesday, but I’ll be lying if I said I wasn’t at all nervous about how low our bank balance has dipped. I guess that’s the part people don’t really talk about: how nerve-wracking it is to be spending so much money on an item that may not even be the best investment, especially in the crazy NorCal property market.

Maybe this is first time buyer jitters, because it really is significantly more money than I ever thought I would spend (and, of course, it’s money we don’t have, because mortgage). But actually, let me take this opportunity to remind myself of just how faithful God has been these past few months on our property hunt:

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