Home owners?

A few months ago, our landlady told us that she was going to raise our rent over 18%- to $2000 a month.  Due to the flood in Calgary, many people need rentals and the prices are going up.  We realized that we could pay a mortgage for the price that we would be paying in rent come October.  So, we looked for three months and saw a few places that were okay but nothing great.  Then we saw this place...

 It's on a quiet cul-de-sac, close to the schools and there are a few members of our church on the same block.  

The other interesting thing was that it was a mirror of the house that we were renting so we knew the layout fairly well- just a few square feet smaller.

They were asking too much so we didn't even look at it at first... but we decided to look at it and see.  We then offered them a much more appropriate amount and they countered and we offered $5000 more than our first offer and they accepted.

They didn't have any renters in it at the time and we got a short sale and were able to move in halfway through September, which gave us time to move out and clean the other place before the end of the month.

Here are the before pictures of our first home:

 

The place had okay floors and had been freshly painted but the paint really darkened the place.  We decided to paint and we had to fix a few things but it is starting to look a lot better.  We also got some help from my mother, Scott's father, my brother and his wife, a cousin of my mother's and a friend from church.  

Here are the pictures during the work:

Magdalen's room and a helper- she got the accent wall in Magdalen's room looking great!

The living room

 Upstairs hall.

One of our helpers.

Our bedroom

The kitchen, with the new fridge and another helper- he did all the electrical and got the water to the fridge working

Our bedroom, with the accent wall

Magdalen's room with the accent wall done

The guest room- we didn't have time to do any accent walls

The living room- done with furniture in it

The kitchen (Thanks mom for painting this so it isn't pink because I would have left it)

I'll have to post some more pictures when we are fully done.  We still have a wall to wallpaper and the bathrooms to renovate... oh ya...

We had a bathroom leak and had to fix the bathtub plumbing but that's another story.

So grateful for the help from so many people and so grateful for the new stage in our lives... I feel like a grown up, at least a little more of one now. lol