So who are we and what is this blog about?  Fairly simple, we’re a semi-young professional couple that has been married for almost 10 years and are fortunate to have two energy filled boys, ages 3 1/2 and 1 1/2.  We’ve been looking for a house in the Morningside area of Atlanta for the last several years and while we’ve come close on a few houses we just never found the “right” one.  It seems that nothing matched our (Julie’s) requirements that was also affordable.  While our parameters greatly eliminated the majority of the possibilities, we also noticed that those meeting our requirements fell out of our price range.  We eventually accepted the fact that for us to fulfill our expectations and find an affordable option we would probably need to focus our efforts on “fixer uppers”.

After viewing every single possible option for close to 3 years and still not finding the “right one” we were less than enthused when our agent called on July 21st to tell us about a home that might be coming available as a short sale.  Even though it had a nice size backyard, single level layout, minimum of 4 bedrooms and parking in the rear (when all combined extremely rare in Morningside), we were cautious with our expectations after being disappointed so many times in the past.  Begrudgingly we arranged a time to view it that afternoon and before walking inside our agent made it very clear that it would need a lot of work as it wasn’t in the best condition.

Understatement. Behind and beneath all of the boxes, bags and piles of clothes, stuff and junk was a house that needed a tremendous amount attention.  A bathroom was totally unusable as one of the walls was strip to the studs with the debris left in the bathtub.  The floors had waves resembling the Pacific, nothing was close to being updated and the layout made absolutely no sense. However despite the overwhelming piles of junk and overpowering smell of cat urine in the air, we loved it.  Not sure why but we felt something.  We quickly viewed the mosquito filled backyard which hadn’t been touched in 7+ years but we could envision somewhere under all of the underbrush, briars and dead trees a place where our boys could expend their energy and hopefully enjoy the benefits of actually having a backyard while living intown. 

That evening we discussed it in detail and tried to talk ourselves out of it but after every con that was mentioned the other would easily state numerous pro’s that had previously been only a dream.  This was the first time that I heard Julie tag a house with the designation of possibly being her “forever home”.  Thankfully we had time to explore everything in more detail as this was not going to be an easy answer. 

Unfortunately our world was turned upside down when two days later on July 23rd we received the sudden and tragic news that Julie’s father had been involved in a plane accident in Florida.  Life only got worse as his injuries quickly led to his passing early the next morning. 

When it rains it pours, and as such two days later on the 25th while sitting in her dad’s office I received a call from our agent that the owners of the house we had recently viewed had decided to put it on the market and we only had 48 hours before it was listed for sale.  Every reasonable couple would know that now isn’t the time to make such a major decision but there was something tugging at us, that through the fog and tears led us to the decision of doing whatever it took to take control of the house and through due diligence we could find out if it was a viable option.  Know that this is not the way that we would normally handle  such a situation but normal thinking wasn’t anymore.

Over the next several months through the haze we spoke, interviewed and received bids from several reputable General Contractors that we had vetted. Plans were created, a GC was selected and on December 16, 2011 we closed on our future “forever home”.

Our emotions are all over the board however my hope is that through this site I accurately portray our journey through the renovations and expansions as we create Julie’s dream, her “forever home”.