Figs and Flights {at home}

Introducing Figs and Flights {at home}

5/8/2020

We're experiencing the WEIRDEST crisis in recorded human existence and we can't go anywhere.

What's a travel blogger to do with no place to go and tons of time to write?

Turn into a temporary home blogger!

About Figs and Flights {at home}

I love home stuff: renovation shows, decorating, all of it.

Chip and Joanna Gaines are my FAVORITE people. I loved The Magnolia Story, their first book, and I live for an episode of Fixer Upper that features an old house. Bonus points if there isn't a farmhouse theme!

My favorite home bloggers are Chris Loves Julia (she's from Pittsburgh, too!), Andy and Candis Meredith who redid the Bucket List Family's House, and John & Sherry at Young House Love.

This will never become a house projects or home decor blog, I will get back to travel blogging ASAP!

In the meantime this detour will cover our home which we bought five years ago. We bought an old house with great bones that needed some "beautification" work, we'll say. We did it all in phases and with the help of friends, contractors, and the internet. Our house has come a long way and we are so proud of what we've done!

I've always wanted to write about our home. I did a couple of posts on my old blog about the kitchen and it's ugly apple wallpaper but never explained much more beyond that first necessary damage control project.

I'll show you how we keep things simple at home in order to keep our focus and spending on travel. We'll cover the treasures we've collected from our travels and how we incorporate them into our daily life. I'll highlight how we organize our home and how we store our travel stuff to keep it close by and useful.

Today we'll take a quick look at the other houses we considered buying.

I'll bring you up to speed on our home, fondly called "the house with the fig tree" and how it became ours.

Our house: the house with the fig tree

Our Style Preferences & Must Haves

My Style:

OLD and charming homes. The more unique and quirky the better!

Bryce's Style:

Modern with tall ceilings. Hopes & dreams include a garage.

Our Must Haves:

Location - Staying in Seattle proper, we are NOT suburbs people
Light - Windows that bring natural light in for the rare times when the sun actually shines in Seattle
A dining room
Space for visitors
A nice yard!

The Other Two Houses

We actively house shopped for for 4 months. While we looked at dozens and dozens of houses there were only three houses that we considered buying.

1. The 1916 Charmer

I fell deeply and madly in love with the very first house we ever looked at. How dramatic!

It was built in 1916 and it's SO DANG CUTE. We scrambled to put an offer together then quickly removed ourselves from an intense bidding war.

I was heartbroken and cried a bunch! Bryce liked the house, too, but the low ceilings in the basement still haunt his nightmares. We drive past it often!

Not our house: the 1916 charmer

Pros:

Old and filled with vintage character and charm
Tons of natural light, big windows, and a nice yard
A remodeled kitchen with a Viking stove (!!!)

Cons:

Small @ only ~1,360 square feet
Teeny tiny closets & main level bathroom
An awkwardly/partially remodeled basement with low ceilings

2. The Warm Up

We only considered one other house before we found ours. It was this other house with corner windows and an rental unit downstairs that warmed us up for the house that would eventually be ours.

We were visiting the "warm up" house for a second time and preparing to make an offer when we found out that it had just been sold. No tears this time, just stuffing feelings wayyyy down in there.

Not our house: the warm up

Pros:

A beautiful and open kitchen and living room
Fully updated
Potential for rental income

Cons:

A tiny kitchen
No dining room
Renovations necessary to make the rental unit private (swapping walls/doors aka $$$)

3. The House with the Fig Tree

Bryce found the listing and emailed it to me while he was on a work trip to the East Coast. I stopped by at the open house by myself on my way to Costco on a Saturday afternoon.

In the kitchen there was striped wallpaper with apple border ON TOP of it. The bathroom was HORRIBLE. The rest of the house was fine but that UGLINESS in the kitchen and bathroom really made my head spin.

I was ready to leave when I mentioned to the selling agent that the front street was noisy. That's when he called my attention to the sliding glass door in the dining room. He told me to stand at the back door and listen.

I stared into the back yard and heard absolutely NOTHING from the front street. The yard was big, fenced in, and serene. There was a FIG TREE in the yard. SKRRRRT. Was this the perfect house?

I took a second lap around the house and started snapping photos. I called Bryce, then our realtor, then Bryce again, then the realtor came over. We made an offer right away!

The paperwork was DONE before Bryce even returned to Seattle the following week.