Starting our home buying/designing...

SBS0628

DH and I are gearing up to buy our first home this summer! We're still trying to be tenatively optomistic, because things may not work out, but we're making plans and moving forward with the hope that everything happens according to plan.

We currently rent an apartment that has an equity program which has generated credits for us based on what we've paid in rent the past four years. 20% of what we pay in rent every month gets turned into credits. We can use as many credits as we want towards upgrades and closing costs as long as the credits don't exceed 3% of the purchase price of the house. It's a pretty sweet deal.

Because of the program, we're buying in a new build community, which means we get to design the interior ourselves. We're trying to plan independently and then see how close we are in intention/idea/design. We were very, very, very nervous that we'd want different things.

We did our first exercise today, which was to pick five adjectives that we would want to describe our home.

Here were DH's: Open, Breezy, Relaxing, Inviting, Refreshing

Here were mine: Bright, Airy, Relaxed, Welcoming, Comfortable

Apparently we're MUCH more on the same page than we thought. Haha!

So...anyone know of any good design blogs? Places to find ideas?

darby0422

I'm probably not much help, but yay! Congratulatiosn, that is so exciting! It sure will make things easier for you to make decisions since you have such similar styles. I like to lurk on the D&R board, but my taste is pretty different from most of theirs, so I don't usually get much inspiration. That being said, maybe you will have better luck, as quite a few of the regular posters have blogs. Google is also my friend when it comes to design help. My favorite place to get ideas is from shelter magazines or their websites. I like to go to the bookstore and browze a bit then check the websites of the ones I like best. I don't always buy the magazine, as some of them are super expensive ($8.00 for a magazine is a bit steep in my book). I just scored an awesome deal on a Sunset Magazine subscription for $10.00 for a whole year because I checked out their website and signed up for an update or something and they sent me the offer. I think it's like $5.00 an issue to buy it retail. I also really love watching HGTV and the DIY Network.

keb270

I really like http://www.houzz.com/ for inspiration. It's a combo of design/decorating with professionals as well as amateurs. It might be a good place to start. hth

kaleyandjason

I am not help. But, I just wanted to say congratulations. DH and I hope to build or at least design someday. I can't wait to follow your process.