WANTED: A Little Cape Cod Home to Call Our Own.

Hi all!!!!

I hope your week was a fantasic one. This week kept me sooo busy (except for Wednesday when I had time to bake the cake) I hardly had time to post. It will probably continue to be this busy until all of my ballerinas' spring performances and competitions are wrapped up. My schedule should ease up in the next month or so. That's the thing with teaching ballet. I have a pretty loose schedule until the end of the season and things start to pick up and I have NO time for myself. Its all rehearsals, costumes, classes and ballet shoes. Which, lets face it, is NOT a bad gig to have. I get paid to do EXACTLY what I love to do! What could be better!!!


Anywho... This week has also come with some major life decisions for Honey and I. We have officially decided that we want to own our own home! We love our little 1 bedroom, Brooklyn apartment. It is totally New Yorky and TOTALLY typical of  NYC (and outer-boroughs) to live in a tiny apartment. But...it's time to grow up and get on with starting a family. Yep, I said it...Hopefully in the next 3 years they'll be a little Honey or LaToya running around... We've been saying that for the longest but Honey is nearing her mid thirties, and while I'm still early 30s I am in my 30s none the less. Its time to get a move on! And there is NO WAY to bring up a baby in out current living situation. Like...NO WAY... And even if we end up with no kids we still need a house just for the sake of having more space.

The goal is to be able to start looking SERIOUSLY by this time next year. We still have A LOT of saving to do but I'm sure with my indecisiveness and picky-ness it will be a least another year after that before we find something. So that makes this a 2 year plan. If it takes longer (or shorter) that's fine but Honey and I work better with concrete deadlines. If we leave it as "Oh, someday we would love to own a home" it's going to stay that way forever.

Over the past couple of days I have been researching first time home buyer advice and information. We have NO IDEA of where to start with this but I figured that would be a good start. So at least now I have an idea of the process and around what percentage we would need to put down (luckily NY has some pretty good first time home buyer assistance programs. I need to look into them more but they are there), what it takes to get approved for  a decent mortgage, and how much we can realistically afford. Which ain't much! But we don't want too much out of a starter home anyway. When we're older and can afford more then we'll look for our time capsule dream home (and when I say OUR, I really mean MY. Honey wants no parts of a time capsule home but don't worry your little vintage heads! I have plenty of time to get her on board)!

We are almost positive that we want to move out of NYC. Don't get me wrong. We need to be withing commuting distance and everything but the cost of living here is crazy. I don't think we would ever find a home that we liked that we could afford. That's not to say that it couldn't happen, but we don't have our heart set on it. Plus, I work in Connecticut mostly and the 1 1/2 commute 4 times a week is starting to take a toll. I think it's Honey's turn to commute... I LOVE Connecticut so I hoping that's an option. Really, we are open to the whole Tri-State area as long as its not TOO far from "the city".

We've also had the idea of maybe renting a home in an area we like first. Just to get a feel for it. Then we could live in a bigger space and have the feeling of what it would be like to live in a house but still be in a lease situation. We could do this maybe next year while we're still saving.

(Sorry. Thinking and blogging at the same time. I hope I'm not rambling too much)


Today I started looking at homes online so that I could get a feel of what we may be looking for as well as what prices houses are going for in the NY, NJ and CT area. I don't want to be like those annoying people on HGTV who want a mansion on a one room flat budget!

Obviously I want an older home. Honey doesn't particularly, but is willing to compromise. I hate the bland, cookie cutter look of newer homes. They just don't have any character.

I also realized that for some reason I am particular to Cape Cod style homes. I think they give me the 1940s, 1950s cottage feel I want in a home. They just look so comfy and well... homey.

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But so far that's as far as we've gotten in planning. This is a long term plan so it's going to take some patience. I'm thinking of doing a monthly post on our progress. Maybe this will be the first one!! Then I can take you all on the journey with us!


For now I'll leave you with a few photos of pretty, pretty Cape Cod  houses. Some are from modern listings and some are little vintage beauties that may no longer be around. I would like to live in all of them!!!

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IMAGE SOURCE has a little break down of what makes a Cape Cod home

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OH!! I almost forgot!! I was supposed to do the second installment of my shoes post today but couldn't keep my mind off of houses! I will do it soon because I received my first pair of vintage shoes on Friday!! Katie of Dizzy Dame Vintage was sweet enough to gift me a pair from her Etsy shop!!!! YAY!!! I need to enlist Honey's help to photograph them but they'll be on the blog soon!! THANKS AGAIN KATIE!!!! xoxoxoxo