More House Stuff

Hello, Saturday morning!

 

Jon made some before and after pictures of our current house.  We had fun looking at them last night and remembering the different projects we had done.  Funny, it seems we haven't done a single home project in approximately 2.5 years until it was time to list our house.  Wonder why? Ha!

 

Currently, we are in the going back and forth stage of the home inspection.  Boo!  This has got to be the most stressful part of selling.  (Says the woman who sold their house in 40ish hours.)  We found out our roof has hail damage, possibly from a storm merely a week ago, and we need to replace part of it.  Obviously, our insurance will cover most of it, but who wants to deal with that?  Drama!

On to something more positive, our list for our new super awesome house!

#1. Close to a park or school.  We are right across the street from the school the boys  will attend!  I have visions of embarrassing the heck out of my kids as I stand on the porch in my robe with crazy mad scientist hair shouting my love to a couple of scurrying boys who wouldn't in a thousand years look back and make eye contact.

#2. Garage.  This seems like an obvious one, but a few houses we looked at had car ports and we've got more than our fair share of bikes, strollers, and even a canoe to store.

#3. 2 stories.  We really wanted a play room area or in later years we will just call the basement the teen pit.  We can just open the door to the basement and throw down beef jerky and popcorn and movie rentals.

#4. Move in ready.  Although the house is very dated, it is in excellent condition and is so nice and clean!

#5. Location.  We wanted to be somewhere off of Indiana Ave in our town.  Jon's commute will be 6 to 10 minutes shorter each way!!

#6. 4 or 5 bedrooms.  We've got 4 bedrooms with room in the basement in case we ever need an extra bedroom.  We also wanted a nice guest space as all of our family lives/will live out of state and we want lots of long extended visits.  Plus we wanted room for extra foster care kids, that's what started this whole moving business after all. 

Here's a picture of the bathroom that is in the guest room.  We've had lots of jokes with the grandparents about being ready for them.  ;)

 

#7.  Storage or an attic.  We have both!  Every bedroom has a walk in closest, with a ridiculous four walk-ins in the master.  Did I also tell you there is two bathrooms in the master?  Definitely weird.  Maybe in the five year plan we can merge the space to create a super bathroom. 

 

#8. Grass and trees. This is the only thing on our list that is not quite as nice as we would have wished.  The backyard is on the small side, but still enough room for our swing set, sandbox, and room to run.  The backyard also has a pecan tree!  I was looking in the current owners' freezer and they have bags and bags of pecans stored in there.  I hope that is in our future! 

 

But the front yard is all concrete.  All of it.  We do not like this, but it's not uncommon where we live to have turf, concrete, or rocks for a yard in hopes of less maintenance and lower water bills.  But boy, it is ugly. 

 

 

Here's a fun idea though, maybe some raised beds full of strawberries and pots of bamboo, which actually does well here. 

 

#9. Established neighborhood.  We like the feel of older neighborhoods with full grown trees and more character over new builds.  Plus, we could get lots more square footage for our money in an older space. 

 

#10. Big area for a dinning room table. 

 

#11. Open kitchen and living room.  The house is not actually as open as we would like, but we've got plans to open things up.  Even if we never actually accomplish this though, our dining area is open to both the kitchen and living room, so it still works well. 

 

#12. Good use of floor plan; not formal.  I don't know about you, but formal living rooms and dining rooms drive me nuts.  We looked at houses where the dining room was not attached or even near the kitchen and I know that I would just be too lazy to ever walk that far to set a table, thus never using the room.  I've been in lots of homes where this works well and looks fantastic, it's just not for us. 

 

And there you have it!  Our list of Super Awesome-ness!