BFHU – preamble

Finally!  As promised this is the kickoff to several installments of Budget Friendly House Updates (BFHU), a series of blog entries that highlight some relatively simple and cost effective ways to take your space next level!

For those that don’t know, we live in San Francisco where the housing market is insane.  It is very common for multiple all cash offers to be made at well above the list price.  When we purchased our home 3 years ago, we did not have the option of making an all cash offer.  We barely had enough for 10% down.  To be as competitive as possible, we would routinely waive all contingencies, including inspections, and submit our offer with a personal cover letter detailing in earnest how we would love and care for the home.

When we made the offer on our current home, we had been house hunting for half a year, submitted offers on 4 homes, and were becoming discouraged.  We learned that 32 offers had been submitted, and that we were not the highest or the cleanest offer, and yet the seller chose us.  Then our lender tried to renege, but that’s another story.  We closed on the house 2 weeks later and words cannot describe how lucky we felt and still feel.

Since that time we have been tackling one project after another to fix up the house; keeping our promise to love and care for the home as we make it our own.

As a starting point, below are the photos from the original MLS listing for reference.

entry hall

living room

dining room

kitchen

hallway

bathroom

master bedroom and sunroom

sunroom

guestroom

backyard
(fyi – those are very large and thorny blackberry bushes)

xoxo