I’m now a homeowner.  We closed on a house yesterday.  It’s the very house I wanted since February, when I first came to visit Austin.  We’d put in an offer back then, but the house was snatched up by a higher bidder, in a rush.  Since then, everything else we’ve seen hasn’t compared.  The house we wanted was nearly 5,000 square feet of perfect.  It was move-in ready.  Carpeting didn’t need to be pulled from bathroom floors (ew, who puts carpeting in a bathroom anyway?).  Fixtures didn’t need to be updated.  The house was beautiful.  There weren’t tiled floors I’d need to change, or a formal dining room that would need to be repainted, crown molding removed.  But it was taken. 

Until it wasn’t.  The deal fell through because of an easement.  Once the potential owners learned of an easement where they could not install a zero-edged pool, they backed out of the deal.  The house went back on the market.  We refused to go after it again with the same fervor.  We waited.  We heard some potential homeowners didn’t like that the master bedroom was upstairs.  Prices came down.  The market softened.  And now, I’m a homeowner in Texas. 

Does this mean I’ll be in Texas forever?  I doubt it.  But with twins on the way, and no family nearby, we needed space.  Space for double-everything, and a lot of space for visiting friends and family, a nurse, and maybe a nanny (at least at the very beginning, so we learn what the hell we’re doing).  We move in NEXT WEEK!  So now I’m in the midst of packing.  We don’t know which room will be the nursery yet, or how we’ll decorate (no, the house did not come furnished).  We know it will all take time.  We also had the playscape removed, as I cannot survive in Austin without a pool.  So soon, our house will look like a construction site, as a new pool will be installed where the playscape had been.  There will be arguments about style and taste; I am certain.  But it’s an exciting time.  I’ll post photos here in the next day or so, but you can see the photos I took back in February.  And yes, wedding photos, too, but those will take longer (still waiting for CD from photographer).  Though all photo collections in the future will be on my photography site, simply because it’s far easier for me to upload the files using that technology… not because I think anyone would want to buy a photo of my bathroom.