Ahh the "New-ness" of it all....

The House...

Starting July 1, it's officially ours (renting - not buying). But to fully grasp what the house means to LJ and I, I feel it's probably best to first describe the apartment we were in before.

The Apartment...

800 sq. ft., 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1/2 a kitchen (seemed that way), no yard and a constant battle for parking within a mile of the apartment.

Add to that, two not-so-average sized people, 2 male (fixed) cats, 1 male dog and 1 female dog (both fixed) and you officially have a full house.

Add to THAT the fact that the previous occupants had animals and apparently didn't see the need to take them outside in the limited pet friendly potty areas. And if you have animals, you know that where 1 has a problem, they ALL seem to find the need to follow suit. It didn't seem to matter how often we took Milo and Maddie out, they always seemed to have problems.

Needless to say we were ELATED to be leaving this behind. ESPECIALLY when you consider what we came to.

The House (take 2)...

2000 sq. ft., 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, large eat-in kitchen, 2 living areas, Hardwood floors in every room except the den/tv room, HUGE fenced back yard (and I really do mean Huge...), built in doggie doors (no more taking the dogs out every 4 hours - they come and go as they please), built in gas grill, Large enclosed patio, Washer and Dryer hook ups...all on a corner lot, in a great neighborhood with fantastic, down to earth land lords (who live next door), a much shorter commute and door-front parking!!

This place is the freakin' taj mahal.

The indoor area that we've designated as "pet friendly" [den, kitchen and office (3rd bedroom)] is roughly the size of our apartment.

And here's the kicker! I get my own scrapbooking room. The other living area is all mine. I plan to take a few cues from the fantastic space of my dear friend and Scrapbooking Diva Extraordinaire - Yoda. And hopefully soon, we'll be able to get a regular "Banana's Foster" group going (Banana's -Houston Edition).

Soooo stinkin' excited about this house!

And there are plenty of small (and cheap/free) DIY projects to do around the house that really start to make it feel like it's OURS...

And I can just hear some of you cringing at the thought of the jump in electric bills going from an 800 sq.ft. apartment to a 2000 sq.ft. house but we've been very diligent about lights and we close off the majority of the house that's not in everyday use (the scrapbooking room and the back 3 bedrooms. My parents also brought a window AC unit for our bedroom so at night be turn the big AC up and just use the window unit. We've managed to keep our electricity costs to about the same amount as it was in the apartment so far. And during the "winter" months we ought to be able to keep that down even more.

But most of all, the house just feels good. You all know what I'm talking about...it just feels RIGHT. This is the house that we'll come back to after we get married. The house that I hope we'll be in for as long as we're in Houston. And it's a house that, if given the opportunity to, we would seriously consider buying from Betsy and Gary if they got ready to sell it.

Our First House...