A little bragging...

My partner and I have an awesome house.  It's better than yours...there I said it.

While I jest, we truly are in love with our NOMI home.  A bit about us...

We met in November of 2006 and our first date was one week prior to my closing on my first home in St. Paul.  In true gay fashion, our relationship progressed quickly and we were living together within six months...ok, it was like 2, but who is counting?  Those who may have doubted us can rest easy now that we have been together for five years.  Our house in St. Paul was/is cute however tiny.  My partner affectionately labeled it "The Keebler House".  It is in a lovely neighborhood near Hamline University.

Around the beginning of 2008, my partner got his real estate license and started the push to "look" at other homes.  Because North Minneapolis was one of the areas he was working in, naturally we started to look there.  My memories have us both thinking that we would NEVER want to live in North Minneapolis, playing the role so often heard in the media from people who have never visited the area.  I think sometimes we forget how dismissive we were of the area at first.  But when friends starting moving in the area all the way across the river from us, we started to get sucked in.

Pics from 2011 Exterior Painting Project

We got interested in a rehab that was a beautiful Victorian.  We put in an offer and eventually lost out to another party.  I remember my partner being greatly discouraged by this and I was ok with it, knowing we still had a great house in St. Paul, albeit "Keebler".  A few weeks or months went by(can't remember exactly) and he found a 1922 American Foursquare that was a short sale.  Owned by an artist, it was a beautiful home with woodwork, hardwood floors and charm up the wazoo.  As a musician myself, I was sad that an artist could not afford to live there any longer but our interest in the property got me past that quickly.  We again offered, only to find out we were the 3rd best offer on the home.  Fortunately for us, the first buyer backed out, the second buyer signed a lease elsewhere and we closed on the home in May of 2008.  Friends have affectionately labeled our home "The Lyndale Mansion" and we are proud parents of this beauty and plan to continue improving it as the years progress.