So the inspection on our new house took place on Thursday. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the previous residents had moved out already and the place was totally empty.

Yippee!! Funny how a small thing like that can be such a big deal. At first it wouldn’t see so momentous but it is. First of all, we no longer have to worry about inconveniencing them when we want to drop by or need to take measurements or whatever. AND most importantly, it now feels more like ours. With all the rooms empty, we can visualize what we will do with them and the possibilities are endless.

I took some pics of the house while we were there so you can see what we have to work with. Part of me was scared that it wouldn’t be as nice as I remembered or that we’d find something awful. But no such thing happened. In fact, it was even better than we had remembered!

I was trying to get a pic of the house with the SOLD sign but was parked in the middle of the street and had to hurry. You can kind of sort of see it there, front and center, from the side. Still pretty as a picture though!

Here’s what you see when you first walk in (well try to picture it without the step ladder…). Stairs on your left (along with a coat closet), kitchen straight ahead, living room and dining room to the right.

OK so it just looks like a big empty room. But the back part is the dining room (under the light) and the front part is the living room (which really starts on the far right of this picture, where the baseboards run out of the frame).

If you walk straight in from the front door, and keep going, you’ll walk right in to the kitchen. Unfortunately I didn’t get a pic because the inspector had his stuff all over it and I forgot to take one when we left. But it still looks a lot like this, only without the table.

I had forgotten how many cabinets there are. Easily double what we have now. I don’t know where to begin to put all my stuff away. And the counter space! Mama mia! New details I noticed: there is a Lazy Susan cabinet in the corner (love!), the sink is deeper than average and NOT stainless steel (which is what we have now – they look pretty but are sure hard to keep clean), the countertops are a solid surface Corian, (which meant nothing to me. Apparently it’s meant to mimic the look of granite but is better because granite and some of the others stain really easily), and they left us a cutting board that matches the counter tops. Win!

That white door on the left goes to the basement. More to come on that later.

Just off the kitchen (to the left of where that photo ends) is the family room.

The fireplace is gas and that little white/black thing you sitting on the mantle is a remote control for it (the white part is a note they left themselves saying DO NOT PACK)! Who knew! I guess we can be sitting on the couch and just push a button to have a fire. Hells yeah! The ceiling fan is also remote controlled which is so nice. I HATE having to reach up on my tip toes to pull the stupid chains in our house now (and I always pull the wrong one and end up putting the fan speed on turbo when I really meant to turn on the light!).

By the way, the wall colors and trim are what I always wanted in our house but we never got around to doing. In fact, we (er, CJ) were going to paint it like that the week before it sold and ended up not having to! Another sign that it was meant to be!

On the other side of the kitchen is the door to the garage, a half bath and the laundry room.

Then we venture upstairs. Isabella had fun playing on the stairs, though she’s starting to learn that she can fall down them (since she’s done it 3 times).

No, she’s not in the process of rolling down. She was pretending to nap and asking me for a blanket. I didn’t have one so I laid on top of her and said I’d be her blanket. I was told that was wrong.

This is what you see when you get to the top of the stairs:

The master bedroom is on the left (double doors), another bedroom straight ahead (though that will probably be our guest room/office), and the kids’ bathroom to the right.

Looking down the hall to the right are the other 2 bedrooms and the “loft” at the end. I discovered all the rooms have cable outlets in them, even the loft  – sweet!

Isabella has claimed this room. I think she likes it because of the pink/purple dots on the wall and the flower. I tried to peel one off and some paint started to come with it. Not sure if we’ll leave them or what but she seems to like it!

She had fun hiding in the closet too. Peek-a-boo!

The main bath has double sinks which will be great for when we have more than one kid. They won’t have to fight over sink/counter space. Yes I know she is touching the toilet seat. Don’t worry – I hosed her down with lye soap when we left.

Here’s the panorama of the master bathroom – double sinks and whirlpool tub on the left (Mickey is about to take a bath himself)…

then the shower and then the toilet, which I didn’t take a pic of. I think you all know what those look like. It’s not like this one is gold plated or anything.

And our walk in closet. It’s bigger than it looks in the pic, though not as big as one that we saw in another house. That one was literally as big as Isabella’s room. I die. But, that house didn’t have the other features we wanted so I gave up that closet for a house that has everything else.

View of the backyard from the upstairs rooms.

I like that the patio is curvy like that. Gives it some added interest.

Here’s the view from the top of the stairs, looking down to the front door.

I like the the steps have that one at the bottom that curves a bit. Gives it a spiral staircase feel and adds just that much interest to it.

Now we shall head to the basement.

Oooh…..aaaahh…Yeah ok so it’s not that exciting. But it is big  and full of potential! Plus Isabella loved running around in it!

The back of the house and North side of our backyard.

And the southwest side.

There you have it! Our new house, ripe and ready for us to move in! Oh, by the way, the inspector only found one thing that needs to be fixed so we’re good to go after that! Everything seems to be falling in to place. We are scared that the other shoe is going to drop one of these days – can it really be this easy? But then we remind ourselves it wasn’t easy. We had to search and search for this house.

As we were leaving (on our way to dinner for spaghetti) Isabella looked up at me and said, “I like this place mommy.”

That’s all I need to know.

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House Hunting

Thank You St. Joseph

Staging

The other day I posted what our criteria were in a house and how we’d probably never find one house that had everything so we should just settle for something close enough.

Well I was wrong. We could in fact find 1 house that had everything. And we found that house on Friday.

We had literally almost given up the search and put in a bid on our “85% house”. This was a house that had nearly everything we wanted, but not quite. It was missing about 15%. But I have kept a close eye on the listings for months now and know every house out there in our price range and this seemed to be all there was. We talked it over and something was telling us to wait. Even though we were under some deadlines, because our current house was closing in 6 weeks, it just didn’t feel right. So I said I would do another search, looking only for new listings and see if anything came up. This was our last ditch effort.

Well 2 houses did come up that fit our criteria and price range. So we had our realtor set up the showings for Friday over lunch. When I saw the listings online, something told me one of them would be “the one.” Thursday night before drifting off to sleep I prayed that God would lead us to the right house. The one that had everything we wanted and would be our dream home.

He did.

The first house we saw on Friday wasn’t it. It was a nice house but smaller than we had hoped for and only 3 bedrooms upstairs. The basement was also pretty tiny. CJ liked it a lot but I wanted to wait and see the next one. When we pulled in to the driveway, I knew.

This is what we saw*:

It was elegant and traditional, while also having a modern flair. I love the colors. It also seemed very homey. I can totally picture it with a big wreath on the front door and Christmas candles in the windows. And, it had a huge yard on a corner lot.

With a fence! It seemed pretty perfect just from the outside but I reserved excitement. I didn’t want to jump the gun. For all I knew, we could walk inside and hate it. But we didn’t.

It had everything on our list. It was the first house that we didn’t have to give up one thing in order to get something else.

Here’s our list of must haves:

1. Large, open kitchen
2. Eat-in kitchen and formal dining room
3. Main floor or 2nd floor laundry
4. Storage space
5. Large master bedroom, bathroom
6. Big closets
7. Decent sized basement
8. Fenced yard
9. 4 bedrooms 
10. Convenient location

Here’s the list of nice to haves:

1. 3-car garage
2. Nice landscaping 
3. Modern, neutral colors 
4. Attractive exterior color
5. Whirlpool tub or hot tub 
6. Corner lot 
7. Newer HVAC

Check, check and check! The only item in the list of 17 things above that it doesn’t have is a 3-car garage. BUT it does have a pretty roomy 2-car garage with shelving and storage built in so we’re set there.

Let’s walk through some of the highlights and features that we fell in love with.

Here is the kitchen:

I love the cherry cabinets and solid surface “stone” countertops. There are a ton of cabinets and counter space too. All new stainless steel appliances (which, yes, I know will show fingerprints but gees, they’re just so pretty), tile flooring, large pantry and space for a table. LOVE! The laundry room and main floor bathroom are just behind the kitchen in the little hallway you see in the back corner. That’s also where you come in from the garage.

The rest of the main floor is the dining room, living room (or is it family room? I can never remember which is the more formal one and which is the one you use) and family room.

I love that the fireplace has a unique carving around it and that there is plenty of room for lots of seating. Another bonus: it’s NOT a sunken family room (or is it living room?). I know that sounds odd but we looked at several houses with sunken family rooms and that one little step going down seemed to trip up Isabella and me. Literally. She fell down it in one house and I fell down the step in another. It was really quite embarrassing. I  was talking away to the agent and the next thing I know I’m falling forward. Ha Ha, oops. So anyway, a house without that means less risk of injury for us clumsy Traders.

Heading upstairs, the first room you come to is the master bedroom. It has a double door entrance which feels so Gone with the Wind to me. Fancy! Here it is:

There is enough space in this room for our bed, dressers, etc. AND a cozy chair and lamp in the corner for a little reading nook! The first door on the far left of the pic is the walk-in closet. The open door toward the center is the bathroom.

No, the walls aren’t really curved. The listing agent shot these pics with a fish-eye lens to make the rooms look bigger but he didn’t need to because they are pretty big as they are. Anyway, double sinks, whirlpool tub and shower. CJ and I can actually share a bathroom now! That will be really weird at first…but I think I’ll love it.

There are 3 other bedrooms up there, which are all HUGE! The other cool thing is that this house has a little loft at the end of the hall.

It’s really just some extra space after the stairway but they call it a loft so I will too. We thought this might be a good spot for Samson’s bed kennel. Or maybe a reading nook, like they have it. We’ll see.

It also has a HUGE basement.

This picture just shows one side of it. The other side has a bunch of shelves for storage. Obviously it’s unfinished but the drywall is done which is huge. As you can see, it’s usable right now and could serve its purpose as my workout room quite nicely. We will probably finish it off at some point in the future but there’s no rush.

We only needed the one showing to know this was “the house”. So we talked with our agent about the best offer to make and he set out putting the papers together. We got it all wrapped up and signed by 5:30 that night and the offer was submitted. Now it was just waiting.

Around 10:30 pm that night we got a call from our agent that they had come back with a counter offer. They hadn’t budged much from their asking price and we wanted a better deal. So we thought about it and then offered up our own counter the next morning. They came back 2 hours later with another counter that was only $1000 above our previous offer so we took it. Done and done!

Of course we still have to get through the inspections and other stuff but for all intents and purposes, we are sailing toward home (pun intended). And the best part of the deal – they can be out on the date we need them to be so that we don’t have to find temporary housing in between. Phew!!

We are so excited! This is truly our dream house and something we NEVER thought we’d find. I guess it goes to show you should never give up or lose hope. There’s just might be something waiting for you around the corner!

*Note: all photos were taken from the online listing of the house, courtesy of CBS Home real estate. Obviously none of the furniture or décor is ours.

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Obligatory Resolutions Post

Pack ‘em Up, Move ‘em out!

Master Bedroom

*Note: all photos were taken from the online listing of the house, courtesy of NP Dodge. Obviously none of the furniture is ours.

My brain is maxed out. I constantly think about floor plans, room size, colors, storage space, and landscaping. My mind bounces from house to house to house, reliving our walk throughs. I even dream about them.

We’ve spent the last week visiting about 15 houses. Since ours sold, we’ve been in an accelerated mode to find a new one.

We’re getting closer but haven’t quite found that perfect one.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re being too picky. Do we really need a 3-car garage? No but it would sure be nice.

Here’s what we’re looking for in a house:

Must haves:

1. Large, open kitchen – this is a must! We spend much of our time in the kitchen and I want this to be a space that gives us room to move and be together as a family. It also must have lots of cupboard and counterspace. Newer appliances would be preferred as well.
2. Eat-in kitchen and formal dining room – oddly, this is harder to find than you might think. Newer floor plans are eliminating the formal dining room in favor on a more open floor plan. We have an antique dining room table and I want it to have a special space in the house.
3. Main floor or 2nd floor laundry – we’re looking at 2-stories and I do NOT want to have to trudge down to the basement, lugging a basket full of clothes, every time there’s laundry to be done. Non-negotiable.
4. Storage space – one of the reasons we are moving is because we are cramped for space in our current house. More storage is key.
5. Large master bedroom, bathroom – Our master bathroom right now is tiny. So tiny that only one of us can use it at a time. Hence, I use it while CJ uses the main bathroom. It would be great to have a larger bathroom with lots of counter space, double sinks and room to move. Having a large bedroom would be great too. I’ve always wanted to have a comfy sitting area in my bedroom in which to curl up and read a book.
6. Big closets – I’ve never had a walk-in closet and dammit I deserve one! Would be nice for all the bedrooms to have large closets. Isabella’s is half sized right now and we really have to pair down her clothes as a result.
7. Decent sized basement – at least big enough to have a workout room and some storage
8. Fenced yard – can’t have Samson running away!
9. 4 bedrooms – 1 for me and Ceige, 1 for Isabella, 1 for another child in the future and 1 for Samson (or a guest room or an office). Again, we don’t want to be cramped for space!
10. Convenient location – close to work, shopping, family, etc.

Nice to haves:

1. 3-car garage – obviously this gives us more space and a larger driveway
2. Nice landscaping – we could do this ourselves but it’s nice to have someone start it for you!
3. Modern, neutral colors – sure, we can repaint if we have to but we just did that at our house and would rather not do it again for a while.
4. Attractive exterior color – again, this is something we can change ourselves but who wants to repaint a house as soon as they move in?
5. Whirlpool tub or hot tub – this is CJ’s. Any house listing we see that mentions a hot tub he’s all over. I think it’s a nice bonus feature but I honestly don’t know how often I’d use it.
6. Corner lot – we’ve been spoiled by having one for the last 5 years. Good for privacy and increased yard space.
7. Newer HVAC – when we bought our current house, it had all the original heating, A/C, and water heater. We were worried they would go out at any minute and actually both the water heater and A/C died in the last 2 years. Those are expensive things to replace and I’d rather not worry about that again!

Seems like a lot but I don’t think we’re asking for too much. Yet, we haven’t found a house that has everything. We’ve come close. The one house that’s on the top of our list has all the must haves except 8 (fenced yard), and only 3 of the nice to haves. It’s probably as close as we’re going to get without custom building but we want to look at just a few more before making a decision.

I worry about picking the wrong house. What if we move in there and then hate it? What if we discover that it’s a big money pit? I’m pretty sure that if it meets most of our criteria, we’ll be ok, but still, it’s a big decision.

And one that we have to make soon. Closing on our house happens in about 6 weeks and we need to give the sellers of our “new house” time to find a house and move. It would really suck to have to stay in an apartment, hotel, or crash at someone else’s house for a few weeks.

By the way, our house inspection came back. Not too horrible – only about $1000 worth of stuff to fix. Sounds like a lot but in the grand scheme of things, it could have been much worse. Once we get through all that it’ll be smooth sailing toward close.

Hopefully I’ll have an update soon on a new house for us!

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Staging

The Neighborhood

Officially Official…and Other Stuff