Casey:1 | Wisteria:2

As Bon Jovi would say, "Whoa. We're half way there."

Our wisteria situation before:

Not pictured: The holes in the screen on our window from the Wisteria punching through, Little Shop of Horrors style!

...And, after Casey's initial pruning job last night:

My view when I left for work this morning

Being J all the way, I adore wisteria. However, I don't adore it growing into my house. Good work, boo.

Google tells me that wisteria typically blooms in May and June, which is why we don't have any gorgeous purple flowers right now. I am looking forward to seeing it in all its (tamed) glory next spring.

Ohana means family

First of all:
Thank you to our amazing family for making our move possible this weekend. In addition to painting the entire upstairs of our new house, they also helped us move our heavy stuff with a U-Haul. My two aunties, mama and Cri primed and painted away, while Fafa (Philip) took it upon himself to clean out our massive garage. Being the friendly Canadian that he is, he also surprised us all with Starbucks and Red Vines. Meanwhile, my dad knocked down the rickety railings surrounding our backyard deck. My grandfather announced at one point while we were moving that he "lives for this shit," to which my mother replied that she would happily put him to work, if that was the case... ;)

Other house thoughts:
Casey and I need a 179 mural on our garage. 179 (Angelina Villalobos is the dopest artist around; we were so lucky to have her do our wedding save-the-dates!). I knew we had moved to a good neighborhood when I saw that she had painted a mural pretty close to our new house.

Our progress:
We're currently living in our second bedroom while we paint and finish the floors in our future room. Also, (the layers of) bathroom wallpaper desperately need to come down.

We're totally out of our Ballard rental (and hopefully done with going to bed at 2 a.m. for a while!). This photo says it all.  

Don't even get me started on:
The mother-in-law apartment downstairs. Or the yard. Or the garage lol. Gonna be some very large and expensive updates in our future, but Casey keeps telling me, "One project at time."

Neighborhood update:
I still need to try the Corn on the Cob place and introduce Casey to Loretta's in South Park.

Next up:

More painting this week (especially in the kitchen).

P.S. Last night, we said goodbye to our sweet little Ballard house; our first actual home together, where Casey proposed to me, where we first lived together in Seattle. I bowed before the house and said a little Buddhist blessing in Japanese and Casey did too. <3

Living room in progress! (It's done now)

Existing color palette. As you can see, the struggle is real. 

Pizza work parties! Proletariat Pizza is bomb! I highly recommend their Real Hawaiian with prosciutto

Tadaima - "I'm home"

Casey and I are starting a blog to document our experience as homeowners.

The fact that we are indeed homeowners is pretty shocking. We were simply looking in to the possibility of buying a house a few months ago. Somehow, it's like we blinked, turned around, and voila! We had a house! We had managed to jump through all the hoops. We somehow won the bidding war. Mostly, we just got really lucky. However, we were smart to choose our amazing realtors Gina and Eric. 

While it came quick, our quest to find a house did have its intense moments. I'm talking about you, First-Offer-Rejection-Whiskey; and you, Cigarettes (Casey's, not mine); and also you, Close-Calls. At certain points, it seemed like our offer was going to fall through.  

As overwhelmed as I am by the prospect of becoming handy, I feel so fortunate to be able to purchase a home with my husband (it's a pretty significant one-year wedding anniversary gift to ourselves!). I also am amazed that I own a house in the insanity that is the Seattle housing market. 

Today really felt like our first official day as homeowners. It was the first day we could actually move in together, and start working on our house. I call it a livable fixer-upper. 

My dad Vern, helped us in preparation for a larger family pizza work party tomorrow (we also had "pizza work parties" for our wedding). I feel a little less intimidated by this whole process after getting my dad's blessing on the new place, and hearing his thoughts on what projects we should prioritize. 

He and I also checked out our local hardware store McLendon's, scoping the $2 Vietnamese sandwich place, the Asian market, Proletariat Pizza and Full Tilt ice cream on our way back. Casey picked up lunch for all of us at Greenbridge Cafe. 

I hope I'm not being naive, but I'm looking forward to living in a more diverse place that's not yet uber gentrified. I'm not saying we don't need to be careful; we live in a city. But White Center is a vibrant community, there is a unique vibe there. Give it a decade or so, and I wouldn't be surprised if it absorbs some of neighboring West Seattle's and Georgetown's cool factor. Granted, to me it has cool factor because it's not yet "cool" :)

Tomorrow: Pizza Work Party con familia + more moving and painting. 

Day after tomorrow: Totally out of our Ballard house! (That's the goal, anway).

P.S. Tadaima is "I'm home" in Japanese. 

New hood

Casey <3

The "Before" pictures!