Moving forward on Normal Heights

So, kind of a major life update here: We had our home inspection on the house in Normal Heights and it went well!  So we're now charging forward with purchasing this amazing place and there is even a chance we'll be in our new home by Halloween!  Well, close on it by then anyway -- we have a couple weeks worth of work we want to do before we move in our things (smaller stuff like painting mostly).  I am so incredibly excited.

I am so fortunate lately.  I keep wondering when bad things are going to start happening for Luke and I, because it seems like everything is going exactly as planned.  This house is something we never thought we'd end up purchasing.  Not only is it charming, older yet-upgraded-in-the-right-places, and walkable to everything on the awesome Adams Avenue in Normal Heights, it also has a good sized yard in a neighborhood that doesn't normally have yards, a detached studio with full kitchen and bath, off street parking for both of our cars, and curb appeal.  It's perfect.  It's a place that I could see us growing with over the next 5+ years, as it has room for us to have a baby.

We're still unsure what we're doing with the studio space. I'd love for my friend Caitlin to move into it and rent it from us, but that might not end up happening.  I've been researching Airbnb and it looks like we could rent it out for probably $80-100 night and that's an option I'm really attracted to.  We could keep it all nicely staged and clean, rent it out to people that we approve via the site, and block it off on Airbnb if we have family or friends who want to stay with us.  We could end up paying for a good chunk of our mortgage this way.

I've been reading a book lately called The $100 Startup, and it's very inspirational.  It makes me want to start my own business with minimal upfront cost and see what can come out of it.