Over 6 months ago, on October 14th 2009, Anky and I went to a notary to sign the legal documents involved in purchasing a house. This is by far the most expensive object I have ever bought, and choosing a house from the many houses available on the market wasn't something we did overnight.

Our search started way back in 2007. Because I had limited funds back then, we visited some apartments that were for sale. We decided that we would wait a few years so we could afford something bigger, and more importantly, something with our own roof and garden.

In February of 2009 we rebooted our search, this time visiting several terraced houses in the region. In April we almost bought a house, but the sellers didn't accept our offer.

In June we found two identical houses in the same street. Both were for sale for more or less the same amount, and both had pros and cons. We finally decided on the one without the fast decaying window frames. On July 6 I put my signature on the provisionally contract and, as told before, 3 months after that on the definitive contracts.

To be clear: we didn't like the house for it's exterior. Even worse, I think it's rather ugly from the outside. The inside however is an exciting overflowing space where every room in the house is connected to a staircase spanning 4 levels. The whole house cut through the middle and one halve is lifted half a level, a so called split-level home. We have 130 square meters of living space, an in-house garage, a not too shabby garden of 65 square meters and three bedrooms.

The last six months we have been busy restyling the house to our liking. In a next blog post I will show the progress we made since these pictures were taken.