New House

For those of you who didn't already know, Lauren and I have been looking for a house to buy so that when our lease runs out in a month or two we won't have to live in an apartment anymore. Well, after several months of searching and a failed attempt at buying another house, we finally found a split-level, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home in a neighborhood in south Charlotte, near the suburb of Matthews.

We currently have an offer in on the house which the seller has verbally agreed to, but has not yet signed the contract. If all goes as according to plan, we will close at the end of September, and we will only have a month or so of overlap in our apartment lease and our mortgage. The picture below is the front of the house (brick with aluminum siding in a very 70's beige/yellow), with me and our realtor in front of it:The neighborhood around us is nice, and everyone who lives there seems to really take pride in their homes and the way they look from the street.As you walk in the front door, to the left is a very big living room area. I think Lauren's favorite part of the house might be the large window in the front that has enough room to put a long cushion on to make a window bench-seat:The kitchen isn't really anything to write home about, but it is big enough for Lauren and I both to walk around in and have plenty of room to spare, and should we decide we want a nicer kitchen, there is plenty of room to expand it into the adjacent eating area:As I said, the house is a split-level house, so there is a railing at the edge of the eating area that overlooks the den on the lower level:Here's the view looking up from the den at the middle level. Also on the lower level are the laundry room, the half bath, and two other rooms that we'll probably end up using for storage for now, but we could make into a playroom or even another bedroom if we feel the urge eventually:Upstairs, there are three bedrooms, one of which is more of an office because it isn't very large, as well as a hall bathroom (pictured below) and a bathroom attached to the master bedroom.Next to the bathroom is the walk-in closet, which Lauren is excited about. Just to the left of the picture below is another closet, which is actually a decent size, and will end up being my closet:In the back yard, we have a deck, which is in very good condition. The yard behind it slopes down toward a creek, but it is fairly overgrown and we'll have to eventually clear it out. At some point we'll also end up putting a fence up, which may be one of our first projects.
The house is in condition enough to move in without doing much more than cleaning, but Lauren and I have a lot of ideas about things to do to make the house a much nicer house. We're both very excited about the house and we're hoping things continue to move along smoothly.