Our new house. And a really long post about how we got there. I would be shocked if anyone makes it thru this one... But I have to write all this out for me!
So, it’s a done deal. We found another house. Let me tell you how all of this went down…or really, let me record it for my memory’s sake….it was a LONG process.
The whole idea with us going thru with the sale of our old house was to make money, pay off a substantial amount of debt and find a house that would get us thru till ALL of the kids went to public school and we had NO more daycare to pay! Sort of a sacrifice if you will, to set us up in a good financial situation for our future. Well, it took a while to get there. I’ve always wanted to build, and the LAST lot in our neighborhood came on the market just as we sold ours. We were THIS close to making an offer and calling it a done deal. We had the builders come out, we had a plan, we had a budget, etc. But, in the end….we called it off. The lot is not that great and has a HUGE slope….in order to build any type of house, you would either have to have a LARGE crawlspace or add a basement….and the costs of doing either put us at the top of our budget. We were this close to going thru with it, but in the end we decided that the whole point in this was for us to SAVE money and wait 5-6 years and then build or move on the lake. I was pretty bummed as the thought of NEW everything was incredibly enticing…and it’s harder knowing we could have afforded it, but I know in the end it is the smarter decision for us, right now. THEN, a rather large, nice home came on the market in our neighborhood for a really good price. The current owners bought REALLY, REALLY low (comp wise) for our hood and only lived there a year. He listed it higher than we wanted to pay, but thought there may be some wiggle room….but again, this would have been at the top of our budget…but we were willing to consider it b/c the house was HUGE, nice and somewhere we could have stayed longer than 5-6 years need be. We made an offer the first day it was on the market, which is always risky…and the owners didn’t want to come off their price at all….(they were trying to make $35k in a year…and had done nothing to it.) So we walked. We weren’t willing to pay the listing price, but of course now…. Now that we are under contract on another house, he has dropped the price by $10k….guess he’s learning. Oh well. Again, it’s the smarter decision not to have gone with that house and be at the top of our budget, but sometimes it’s hard to see that:-) For me, anyways.
So…for several weeks, I was starting to stress. You wouldn’t understand if you don’t know this area, but we LOVE our location and I just wasn’t willing to part with it yet. And….we LOVE a neighborhood for this phase of our life and there really are only TWO neighborhoods that we would live in and stay in our current location. Ours and my parents……ha. I was getting a little nervous because prices were rising and I was scared we wouldn’t be able to afford to get back in our neighborhood and most of the houses in my parent’s neighborhood were out of our budget…and that might be a little TOO close to them, right? :-)
Anyways, I remembered that there was a house that was currently being rented in our neighborhood but would be going on the market soonish. (Thankfully with Mikey’s dad being a realtor we get the inside scoop.) The house needs some work but the price was low and would leave us with some money to do some renovations, so knowing that we went ahead and went to see it before it came on the market. It was hard for me to get excited about it….square footage wise it’s just a tad smaller than our old house, but it seems WAY smaller. I think half the square footage is in the bonus room, which is RIDICULOUSLY huge. The kitchen is TINY and way outdated….but thank goodness we will be remedying that ASAP. It has one less bedroom and one less bathroom than our old house, which seems crazy seeing as how we are adding TWO kids to the mix, but we will make it work. Our old house was a true 4 bedroom plus a bonus room…this house is 3 bedrooms plus a bonus room. But, the bonus room does have a closet and is so big we are going to use it as a guest room and a bonus room. Whatever works, right? All of the bedrooms are upstairs, which is weird to me…but probably best for this phase of our life. The second bath upstairs is pretty small…but there is a random “office nook” that I think we will add a third bath in eventually. I think for resale a third bathroom is much more beneficial than an office nook. Two positives is it has a formal living room downstairs….which we will use as a playroom. It’s just not practical for young babies/kids to have their playroom upstairs….all of Collins’ toys took over our dining room and den at our old house so I’m excited to turn the formal living room into a playroom. And it already has a fenced in back yard, which is so nice for our dog and our kidsJ Collins can walk outside and play and I won’t have to worry about her wandering into the woods or the street.
Before we move in, we are going to be tearing out the tile in the kitchen and replacing it with hardwoods. The way the tile stops between kitchen and living room makes the space seem even smaller, I think ONE cohesive flooring will help enlarge the room visually and it will allow us to pull the kitchen table out further towards the den, giving us more space. Reconfiguring the kitchen cabinets, getting rid of the island and adding a bar/more counter space at the end. New appliances, new countertops, new backsplash. And then in the hallway upstairs there is this AWFUL black and white vinyl flooring that will be replaced with hardwoods as well. Painting the WHOLE entire house. These are the big items that will be done before we move in. Of course, all of the door hardware needs to be replaced and I’d like to make some small changes to the master bathroom right away, but that can be done while we live there. I really do think these changes and the painting alone will make the house seem much bigger and make me like it more. It’s not that I don’t like it, but it is definitely a step down from our old house so that’s a bit hard to deal with. But, I have to remember we bought our old house REALLY, REALLY low for the neighborhood. Anyways, it’ll be a work in progress, but nothing I can’t handle;) Of course with the help of my amazing husband who can do all the demolition and my amazing daddy who can do all of the rebuilding!
Ultimately, what won out was staying in our current neighborhood. We absolutely love the location and the lake access. We could have gone to another neighborhood and built a brand new house for about the same price and much bigger, which is great for some people, but just not what we wanted right now. Although this is NOT my dream house ( or really anything close to it) I am super excited that we get to stay in our beloved hood.
Here are the pictures from the MLS listing when it was listed last summer….. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!!! And lordy mercy, these people had contemporary/awful taste, in my opinion. These pictures are not that great and they did not capture true sizes very well.
Happy to know where home will be!
Xoxo
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