We landed in Portland June 4th with a big goal: buy a home. Yesterday it was finalized!

We are the very proud owners of a 1911 craftsman home in northeast Portland.

A very empty home we now get to decorate and furnish. I’ll be honest.. it seems really daunting. I have been tearing pages from magazines and saving images off the web for decorating inspiration for many months. But I have no idea where to start on my own.

We named our home Bauhaus! For more photos click the pic above. Feel free to share ideas on colors! I think I want to paint the kitchen a yummy green but beyond that not sure what to keep or paint over yet.

Tomorrow the POD gets dropped off. If you are going to have a POD parked on a Portland street you have to get a permit, by the way. $20 and you can only have it parked there for two weeks.

I want to give a plug to the team that made our home buying process go so smoothly. Kudos to our amazingly patient and helpful Realtor Deb Counts-Tabor with Oregon Realty and savvy broker Michael Sullivan with Capital M Lending. And thanks to all our friends (old and new!!) and family for tips and support along the way.

Since Peter and I got to Portland and hit the ground house hunting, we have seen 30-40 homes. They have been every different style but we have noticed a few features in Portland houses that we don’t have in St. Louis.

Creepy Crawlspaces
Lots of houses have unfinished basements. Portland interprets unfinished a lot more literally, and they neglect to wall off half the underside of a house. They call them crawlspaces but what they are are exposed dirt piles. Some of them are out in the open, others are visible behind an opening, all of them are creepy.

Creepy Crawlspace © Susan Lawson

Potbelly Furnaces/stoves/heaters
They’re chubby and cute and period-looking. I see the appeal. But I see a huge thing taking up space in every room, which removes walking space or furniture arrangements.

© steveyb

Garages not meant to hold cars
You could chalk it up to older garages built in a time when we didn’t have such massive vehicles on the road, but we’ve seen many that were built this decade. They’re houses with a one-car garage, according to the real estate listing. But in reality there is no way these things could house a car. They’re too small, and more shed-like.

Also we see a lot of garages that, if cleaned out, could fit a car.. but seems Portlanders like their storage space more. I think the lack of need for car shelter can be explained by the lack of snowfall here. These folks don’t know what it is to dig out your car every morning.

There is an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers through 2009. Recently the rules have been changed on FHA loans to allow the credit to apply to your home down-payment.

More details here.

There is fear that this is just another incentive for people that really can’t afford a home to get one anyway, but if used responsibly it’s a great incentive that just got sweeter. Note this is only applicable for FHA loans. Other loans will still qualify for the tax credit as it was before.

One of our biggest anxieties about moving was where we were going to stay while we house hunt and today we nailed that down! And earlier than I thought we would. I have been looking at Craigslist Portland sublets for places. While we’re not too picky for this transition period we knew we didn’t want to be in a roommate situation.. our schedules are too weird and would likely disrupt a roommate. Also the place has to be dog-friendly.

On Monday I found a listing for a duplex that met all our needs and we signed and mailed off the papers today! It is nerve-wracking to commit to a place sight unseen (aside from photos), but the great news is that it is right near all the SE neighborhoods we plan to do our house hunting in. And it’s only a mile or so from our UPS Box.

It’s near the Irvington/Sullivan’s Gulch neighborhoods, right by Lloyd Center. It’s got a great walkscore and a place to park our scooters so we can ride those around.

We committed to a three-month lease with month-to-month option after. I hope we can find a place in three months but from what I am learning it can take awhile. Plus we’ll want to do any painting/repairs before we move in, so we’ll see. It’s nice to have the flexibility.

Countdown’s at under 2 months…

Irvington Lizard © DancingSloth

Tree-lined Portland Street © misternaxal

We have a Portland address! And it’s in the neighborhood I wanted! Yay!

No, we don’t have a house yet. We got a box at the UPS Store. I called them to see if we could go ahead and set it up remotely and we could. Peter and I were worried about how we would do the change of address thing on all our stuff since we are going to have a temporary place for an undetermined amount of time before we get our permanent address.

This is a big relief because now we have a guaranteed address for a year we can give to our clients. We can slowly segue them to our permanent address when the time comes. Although the more I think of it the more I like the idea of having a separate address for business, so we may just keep it.

We have a P.O. Box in Saint Louis with the USPS. Those who know me know I am a total USPS groupie; I love the Postal Service and have a slight stamp obsession. BUT I have learned that UPS boxes are totally awesom-er because:

• Your address looks like a suite, not a P.O. box. Example: 123 Sesame St #987, Portland OR
• You have 24-hour key access to go check your mail
• You can CALL AHEAD to see if you have mail so you aren’t making an unnecessary trip

Anyway our UPS box is around Laurelhurst/Grant Park area, which I adore and hope we will live near.  Hoo-ray!