Our Boston Home Featured In Curbed Boston
When we made the decision to move to Boston 12 years ago, we did so without any housing or employment lined up. We took a gamble, packed our bags for a quick weekend trip, and headed to Boston to look for an apartment, sign a lease and get back to State College for work and school. Well, after an exhausting search we found a small apartment in South Boston, or as the locals call it, "Southie". Little did we know, but that decision would ignite the fuse to the life that we have today.
To briefly explain, while living in South Boston and working many side jobs, we found our passions in life. We bought our first dog together, a toy poodle mix & named him Buddha. We've always loved animals but Buddha would make us realize just how much we loved dogs. We ended up starting a dog walking and pet sitting company and called it Petiquette Pooch Concierge. We also got into real estate and worked with our pet clients to help them sell their homes or find new ones that their fur baby would love just as much.
We were continually surrounded by beautiful architecture and decor which inspired us on a daily basis. After we purchased our first home, a lovely Victorian in Savin Hill, a neighborhood of Dorchester, we used this inspiration to cosmetically update and furnish the house. It was so fun for us to work late into the night tearing down wallpaper, patching walls, and searching for decor online. We learned so much during our first DIY project and took great pride in the overall outcome of it all.
After the birth of our son Ignacio, we debated leaving the city. We weren't sure where we wanted to go and State College seemed to always linger in the background. After-all, we had family there and Ignacio had a cousin that was only 6 months older than him. We ended up putting our house on Zillow as a "Make Me Move" and the response was overwhelming. We knew that if we were going to make the move we had to time it just right in order to take advantage of the Spring market. Savin Hill was a HOT neighborhood and the interest was high. We spruced up the house, did some final repairs to make it more buyer friendly and officially listed the house through our own real estate company Etiquette Realty. We listed it on a Wednesday and held off any showings until the first open house on Saturday. That Saturday we had a ton of people come to the open house and many expressed great interest. We even received an offer above our asking price and was asked to cancel the open house on Sunday. We were flattered but owed other buyers the opportunity to come check out the house on Sunday, especially to those that attended the first open house and would be returning for a second look. It's a good thing we did because on Sunday we received even more offers above our asking price. It was a hard decision but we moved forward with the couple that submitted the first offer. They were the strongest buyers and had the best offer. We knew that we needed the security of smooth transaction if we were going to make the move out of state.
During our open houses, we received so many compliments on how our home was decorated. We never really considered ourselves interior decorators because the improvements that we made were meant to make our house feel more like a home. We styled it with the love that we had for it's original beauty. We wanted it to represent who we were and how we feel about life. It was fun, colorful, elegant & cool. It was us. <3