From Renting to Owning to Renting AND Owning

You read that right.

Paul rented an apartment when he first moved to Oklahoma City.

Seven months after living here, he found a house and left his renting ways for a more settled down way of life. Home ownership.

Plus we got married.

I was used to living in the dorms and he in an apartment or shared housing so it was an interesting adjustment moving into a home.

Once we had sold that house we we're faced with the task of finding somewhere to live. Obviously we had found a house, hence the need for the blog, but in it's purchase state, it was not livable. At least not for a toddler. So we set off to find a downtown loft or something as simple as moving into a neighbor's empty house. None of those worked out which wasn't a big deal since we we're talking about six months of living here, not the rest of our lives. But the decision had been made, we'd have a mortgage and a rent for the remainder of the year and we still needed to find something.

We decided on a typical apartment in a typical apartment complex in the typical apartment area. It's close to our friend's homes, our church building and my part time teaching job at the university. It's not our typical urban location or filled with character like we like. Or even old. It's probably only had one or two short term renters in the unit before us. Here's how we determined it was right for us.

We wanted a 1 bedroom apartment. Addison could have the bedroom and we would turn the living/dining space into a studio apartment for our bedroom. We wanted it on the first floor for an easy move in and an easy move out. We wanted something fairly new. With a toddler who can find anything, anywhere and put it in her mouth, I wanted to make sure there wasn't 15+ years of some college boy's leftover chip crumbs in the carpet for her to snack on. I also have to get on my hands and knees to give her a bath so a fresher bathroom floor was a plus. We also decided that with all of the work we were going to be doing at the new house, we wanted something that felt finished and new when we relaxed on Sundays or the evenings that we could not be at the new house working. Fountain Lake had all of these things. Plus a pool for our hot Oklahoma summers that we could take Addison to (since she's quite the little fish).

It was too good not to take.

So while Addison and I visited Corpus Christi with my mom, the boys moved us from a 1,300 square foot home to an 80 square foot storage unit and a 800 square foot apartment. We're learning to be resourceful with space.

These photos were taken after Paul got us moved in. We've got some art and mirrors up on the walls thanks to handy dandy command strips and Addison's toys and books on her bookshelves. All of the boxes are unpacked, the TV is up and running and we can see it from our bed. It's not all that bad.

Again, only temporary. But incredibly exciting for some reason. Maybe because it's new and an adventure or maybe because I secretly missed living in a nice, new space. Either way, I don't dread where we live and look forward to the next few months, even with the tight budget.