American Dream or Your Own Dream?

Since the dawn of time, the normal, accepted "America Dream" is to own your own home, right? Well, Jason and I share that dream- sort of. We would love to own our own home. I would love to paint and decorate every room however I wanted and pay the mortgage and not pay for somebody's vacation in the process. I would love to make changes for our backyard and plant flowers in the front yard- all on my own terms without anyone’s approval needed. But, sometimes, happiness with one’s home doesn’t come in the form originally imagined.

Last year, Jason and I got to a point where we were comfortable in our finances and actually felt ready to take a slice out of that pie...

We contacted the bank and we got pre-approved to buy our own home! Our approval came on my income alone and it was a really decent rate, so we were pretty thrilled. We packed our house up and moved in with my mom (a whopping 7/10 of a mile away) so we could save a down payment while we searched for a house. We figured we would have a decent DP by the end of summer and considering that the market was revving up again, we didn’t anticipate that anything that really worked for us would be available until we had a down payment anyway. Our plan just (seemingly) worked.

Unfortunately, we quickly learned that what we could afford based on my income was rapidly becoming non-existent, at least in terms of a long term purchase that would work for our family and what we wanted at that time. Because of the financing, we couldn’t qualify for a lot of houses that we liked since as first-time buyers we were using a down payment assistance program to help further our buying power.

Jason went back to work in December. We were informed by our finance company that he has to be on the job one year for his income to count. His potential income was far too high to not be included in our search. So, we made the decision back in January that we were putting our buying plans on hold for a bit and we were going to focus on other things in the meantime while he reached one year on the job. We figure, the amount we qualified for on my income alone, would increase dramatically if we include his income too. So, we can wait.

As we made changes to mom's home and the backyard was on our mind over the past few months, our general idea of timing was also changing. We don’t really care if it’s next summer or the summer after that when we finally make the purchase. We are taking our time.

Obviously, my mom and I get along, she is one of my best friends. She is an amazing Grandma to Jaxon and she and Jason have a wonderful relationship. The situation just works for us. Jason works crazy hours again, and right now has a pretty crappy commute. So, when my work schedules gets out of control (like it just did for Spring Testing) I have my mom to help out. Otherwise, I would basically be a single parent.

Since we decided to stay put, one of the things we wanted to do was give Jaxon an enjoyable backyard. He loves the park and I don’t have the ability to run off all the time and let him run wild. But, I can make the backyard a kid-friendly environment that he can play in from sun up to sun down without worry.

In a collaborative effort, we just created a little backyard oasis. A play structure for Jaxon, with kid-friendly ground covering and a beautiful gazebo/covered structure for us to hang under. We have a few more tweaks on this side of the yard to make it “done”. 

On the other wise of the house, Mom had a deck built through the french doors from the dining room. It was a group effort spearheaded by one of my mom's best friend's husbands. Jason, my mom and Papa all got out there with them and knocked this out in two days. It's beautiful! It needs a few finishing touches, but here is the progression from framing to finished (almost)!

We also put lights in the tree that the deck is built around for ambiance and, let me tell you, at night it’s beautiful!! Also, for Mother’s day, we got my mom a set of wireless speakers that look like lanterns. So now we can have music outside during parties too!
 

The only piece left that we really need to get taken care of is a dump run for clean up of all our projects over the last year and we would like to install a projector at the gazebo so we can have movie nights or enjoy games (Go Giants!) under the stars.

 

Our first big entertaining extravaganza will be Jaxon's birthday in less than one month! Still a ton to do, but I think it's going to be amazing and I cannot wait!

xoxo- Lady Lewy