Our New Home (yikes!!)

Holy cow, the bank accepted our offer! You are looking at pics of what is soon to be our new home!

I kind of can't believe it and am full of mixed emotions right now. Excited, nervous, sad, pretty much a collision of everything! Here is a little tour of our home. First of all, it is 2884 square feet with five bedrooms, a dining room, and a master retreat. This is looking at the front door. The hallway on the left leads to a bathroom and the downstairs bedroom. If you turned right you would be looking at the dining room.

Here is the downstairs bedroom, looking out onto the porch. This room has two windows.

Here is the dining room, with a door to the kitchen. It has lots of nice lights, some with dimmer switches for those romantic dinners.

Is it really possible that I somehow neglected to take a picture of the front living room?? Apparently so. Here is a picture of the family room. In the foreground you can see Finley's shoes. And Finley. In the background, you can see the breakfast nook, or whatever you call it.

Here is a view of the stone fireplace thing in the family room. I think I've made it abundantly clear that I didn't want a fireplace, but here it is anyway, along with the door out to the covered patio.

On to the most important room in any house, the kitchen!

This kitchen features beautiful black granite countertops, and lovely linoleum floors...The island is really big and has cabinets on both sides. This side shows the doorway out to the garage, pantry, and laundry room.

The walkin pantry has shelves that wrap around all 3 sides.

Here is the breakfast nook--ample room for a table, unlike our current house.

Another view of the same room.

The master bedroom features a walk-out balcony and a private retreat, which could be turned into a sixth bedroom, if necessary.

View showing the backyard. Home backs to a wash and has some nice views.

This is the view out the master bathroom window--yes, the neighbor's solar panels, but also a nice view of the mountain/hill in the distance.

The master closet was really nice.

Here is Isaac showcasing the double french doors into the master suite.

This is a built-in area in the upstairs hallway. We would like to put some shelves in and fill them with books.

Here is a view of the back of the house.

The yard is really large, but unfortunately bare. I keep bringing up putting a zipline back there, but I don't think anyone is feeling it but me.

Here is a different view of the front of the house, which I think is pretty cute.

One of the upstairs bedrooms overlooks this cute balcony, but lacks a door out to it. We plan to find out if it was built for walking on, and could add a door at a future point. But is that just providing teenagers with too much temptation for trying to sneak out?!

This is the 3rd car garage, which we would probably use to house bikes, strollers, and rarely used other storage items. I love the carriage lights on both it and the other garage.

I also really love that both garages have windows. This one is to the smaller garage. Also, now that I'm looking at this picture, I'm wondering if that plant in front of Isaac is rosemary. If yes, yay! I won't have to go snipping it from the common area landscaping. :)

The front of the house also features this cute little courtyard.

This cute home really does feature some nice upgrades and I am excited that it will be ours. Our plan is to paint it before we move in, and to replace the linoleum and some of the carpet with tile before too terribly long. And it would be nice to purchase some new furniture. And to get a nice backyard in.

And so begins the neverending list...

more houses

Today we looked at four houses, two that seemed pretty good, one that was okay, and one that was just completely weird.

Here was our favorite--2800 sq feet, 4 bedrooms, plus a bonus room and a master retreat.

cute front, with a 3 car garage. However, this house is in serious need of some paint throughout and new flooring in a couple of the bedrooms. The house is painted with white flat paint, and this paint did not weather the last few years well.

Front bedroom overlooking porch, which we would use as a toyroom.

Cute kitchen, with granite countertops and lots of cabinets. No appliances present. Through the doorway is a dining room, and the front entryway.

Master bedroom has a balcony that overlooks the backyard.

master retreat.

One of the upstairs bedrooms with a walk-in closet.

upstairs stairway with built in desk. Also has a built in desk in the kitchen.

Backyard, while only containing dirt and weeds, is really big.

A view of the entryway with the toyroom off to the right..

Located in a cul-de-sac.

This house also had a nice under the stairs storage area.

Second house

Around 2600 sq feet, 3 bedrooms plus a den. Best feature--the pool and hottub outside.

Front den, with a weird built-in lighted shelf system.

The kitchen was rather unremarkable, except for the dishwasher was raised up. I thought that was pretty cool. But the appliances were all pretty old and slightly yellow.

My biggest complaint about the kitchen, is that it just didn't have enough cabinets. Especially upper cabinets.

Another weird feature--built in intercom system that looks like it was installed in the 80's. Comes complete with tape deck. Oddly,the house was built in 1995.

One of the bedrooms. Wallpaper border that would have to go.

Other bedroom with a cute window.

Walkin pantry. Sorry this is out of order, but I am not willing to mess around with it right now.

Nice 3 car garage with sealant on the floors.

I really liked this laundry room. Lots of space.

It has become apparent to me through this house hunting that I am attracted to nice yards. Especially when the yards have a pool and hottub. The master bedroom looks out on the pool and has its own exit to the patio.

I liked the little ledge just below the hottub, a nice place to sit.

I also liked this ledge by the stairs. Another plus--it has 2 built in places for umbrellas, and it is a large pool. While it is unfenced, it does have the holes built in to add a fence pretty easily and inexpensively.

This was the side yard. We would rip out the bushes and build a swingset.

The master closet was huge and had lots of built in shelves.

The master bath featured a jetted tub,  some ugly and ill-applied wallpaper, and everyone's favorite in a bathroom--carpet. That was missing the carpet pad, except for a random square. The master bedroom also had a small patch missing the carpet pad.

Back to the kitchen...I really liked the Corian countertops with the smooth built in sink.

Not really digging the large amount of cracked tile.

Onto house number 3.

2700 sq feet, 4 bedrooms, den with a door, and a large master with bay window. The master is on the top floor, in the front of the house, and directly below it is the den.

Cute den, or playroom, as I like to call it, with feux wood floor.

Living room. Painted orange, and no central light or fan. Hmm. Does have a chandelier for a dining table, which I would not use this room for.

One side of kitchen, which overlooks a small family room. You can also see the stairs. Would need to buy a fridge.

Other side of kitchen with table area and door to laundry room and walk-in pantry.

laundry room, which includes the washer and dryer.

pantry

Harry Potter's room, or, the closet under the stairs.

mastser bedroom with bay.

pink bedroom, which Sareny already called.

Second kids room upstairs, probably Finley's.

Third kids bedroom, Isaac's.

Backyard has this cool built in bbq.

Backyard is huge. Unfortunately, it is a whole lot of nothing.

Even the side yard is huge.

3 car garage with reverse osmosis system.

View out the back door...literally. I forgot to take this picture until after we had locked the door down, so it is a little dirty looking.

Cute neighborhood park just a few houses down.

House number 4

This house was completely crazy. I just cannot describe quite how weird it was. And there is not a chance in heck we will be making an offer on this one, but I included it here so you can also bask in it's strangeness. It is over 2500 sq feet, but because of some interesting choices, only has 2 bedrooms. The outside was cute, and the windows had nice plantation shutters.

This room was nice too--a large den with french doors.

And then it gets a little freaky. Awesome maroon carpet in the living room.

Really strange metal doorway to rest of the house, which locks from the other side.

Empty room/storage closet thingy(?) with ripped up walls, and electronic stuff that looks like this room used to house a server or something.

And this backyard just needs more than one picture to fully appreciate.

Firepit surrounded by flagstone and possibly a raised brick seating area...okay. I can live with that. But what is that built up thing behind it?? We just could not figure it out. The best we could come up with is a fountain, but it is really deep--it goes all the way to the ground. Perhaps you are wondering if it is some kind of small, built in hottub. Nope. That is featured in the center of the yard.

Again, not too terrible. I could live with that. But then we come to this.

Very bizarre stone fountain thing. why?? Creating this overall effect.

You can also see that it has yet more stone where they built in a bbq. But they of course stripped the appliances right out of it. Anyway, I find this yard and house very unappealing.

And that is pretty much it from our recent house hunting outing.