My husband and I bought our first home together. A year later, our friend moved in.

My husband and I bought a house together and our friend moved in.

Laura Grace Tarpley After my husband and I bought our first home, we invited our friend Chelsea to live with us.

The unconventional living arrangement benefitted all of us financially and socially.

I realized there shouldn't be a stigma about how our lives "should be" as homeowners.

In May 2022, my husband, Daniel, and I reached a major milestone on our quest toward the American dream: buying our first home in Western Washington.

The one-story home is just under 1,300 square feet and has four bedrooms and two bathrooms.

For almost a year, we enjoyed the freedom of finally owning a place that was all ours.

We didn't have to deal with noisy apartment neighbors or worry that we were being too loud.

We spent quality time together with at-home dinner dates and TV-binge-watching sessions.

But it wasn't long before Daniel and I ventured off the stereotypical homeownership path and asked our friend, Chelsea, to move into one of our spare bedrooms.

At first, I was nervous about balancing our roles as friends and landlords We've been friends with Chelsea since 2019.

Laura Grace Tarpley Daniel and I met Chelsea in 2019, when we all lived in Nashville.

My friendship with her was a Bumble BFF success story, and over time, she and Daniel became friends too.

However, Chelsea left Nashville to attend graduate school in Minnesota, and Daniel and I moved to Washington because we wanted to live in a more outdoorsy part of the country.