After we moved back to South Carolina, we rented for a year. Living in a college town, there are tons of rentals, but many haven't been updated in years. Also, for understandable reasons, many rentals don't allow dogs. The housing market here is inexpensive, but nice rentals are actually pretty expensive because of the demand from student and high taxes on non-primary residences. We knew we'd be here for at least another few years, so we decided to start doing some casual home searching. We wanted something affordable and close to the university, and really wanted to find something that didn't need too much work. 

Things never turn out the way you think they will, and we ended up with a house that needed a ton of work! It was a great deal on a cute street and we couldn't pass up the opportunity. While it's not our dream home by any means, we've had fun working on it and making it our own. We're also paying about half of what we paid for our last rental and we've made the house nicer for us. 

You can find all of the renovation posts here.