Yup, it’s true! As we announced on Instagram a few days ago, Kam and I bought a house and we’re moving to the suburbs. Throughout the whole process, its been quite a journey – let’s go through the details.
If you follow us on Instagram or watch us on YouTube, you’ll know that we love historic houses and buildings. We had our hearts set on finding a large historic fixer-upper, somewhere outside of Chicago. Since January 2021, Kam and I have been spending a lot of our time researching, driving through, and exploring towns that have a lot of historic homes and charm. We basically had to start from zero, so after months of researching, we narrowed our search down to homes in the Fox River Valley (far west suburbs of Chicago).
After looking at probably 8 historically significant or unique older homes, we thought we found the one and after some back and forth we were under contract (this was back in June, which feels like ages ago at this point). We had grand dreams of owning, restoring and renovating this home that was built in the 1840’s. As an architect, I thought I could understand the condition and the magnitude of the work it would need, but as we got through the inspection it was evidently clear this home was not in a condition we personally felt comfortable with, so we decided to back out of the deal and keep searching.
After another month of listings came and gone (in this historically difficult real-estate market), we decided to re-evaluate our needs and opened up our house search to all homes, not just older and historic ones. With this, we also got even more specific with the areas of the Fox River Valley we wanted to live in. That’s when we found our next house! Fortunately we got in the day after it was listed for the open house, made an offer, and it was accepted. The inspection process was very smooth and before you know it, we closed on the house!
Now onto the details and before photos of our new house! The home we purchased is a colonial-inspired brick 2-story house. It has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, finished basement, and is on a half-acre lot! We are so freaking excited to use our backyard. The best part – the whole house is ready for all of the renovation projects! Our plan is to infuse new and old style into this house, so we can incorporate the vintage charm we love about older homes.
There are so many elements of this house that seem like a luxury to us after being so accustomed to city-life, such as a laundry room, attached garage, backyard, and additional bedrooms / space in general! Kam and I will both get to have our own offices in this house and we are still working from home so this will be really nice to have and we’re really looking forward to it.
Next week we’ll be sharing more in-depth details about the house and all of the before photos (lots of interesting choices, just wait for it!). We are slowly working on researching and planning out what projects we are going to plan to tackle first, but for now, we’re going to spend as much time as we can just enjoying the new house, backyard, and exploring our new area!
