First Home Style

I’ve finally moved into my first home.  I’m bursting with excitement and happiness to share all my design and décor ideas that I’ve been pinning from google images and home décor magazines for many years. I am now the proud owner of what I’m calling my “urban cottage”, a small three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch house in New York.  I’m so excited to make this home my dream home.   For the past several weeks the cottage has been under renovations. Within days after closing we realized that there was leaking behind a wall in one of the bedrooms (which wasn’t noted on the home inspection report).   Apparently, there was an issue with the gutters and instead of falling away from the house when it rained, the water was seeping through cracks in the brick façade. Thankfully we were able to identify the source quickly and fix it. Initially, the renovation work was estimated to take about five weeks, however it’s ended up at nine weeks. And as I’m writing this no...

Enjoying a nice cool Sunday here in Brooklyn, thinking that in a matter of weeks I will be in my first place. It’s nice to see a long held goal/dream come to fruition.   I’m feeling grateful and, dear I say it, happy. While my mind is still in home buying mode, it's shifting a bit to home decorating and I’ve been trying to define my style. One thing I realized is that I’m not a "modern" style person. The modern style just seems so cold to me. I like warmth. I like colors. I want to be comfortable. I’ve looking at Google images and what I found is that gray wall colors aren’t so bad. I thought at first that grays were dull but changed my mind once I saw these beautifully decorated spaces.  I love the pop of yellow throughout this home . And the gray sofa is beautiful.   via

Today I got an email from my attorney enquiring if I had secured a mortgage commitment as yet. Sadly, I had to respond, no.   It is a reasonably question to ask when you consider that I made an offer on the home on May 3 rd 2013 and we went into contract at the end of May.   Everything else from here on in should have gone smoothly.   I thought wrong. Having never purchased a home before I didn't understand the process. I assumed that because I had a 10% down payment and good credit that would be enough. I even completed a first time home buyers class, at HSBC’s request, at a community organization and received a certificate of completion.   This class cost me a nonrefundable fee of $75.  The community organization wasn't all bad and I don’t want to give the impression that they did not assist. They helped me to apply for a down payment assistant grant. I am truly grateful for that.   Still, here I am six weeks later without a mortgage commitm...