New Adventures

Well, after careful consideration, we've decided to go ahead and announce to the world that we are buying a house! We are under contract and set to close by September 23rd. So, if all goes well, we will be renovating soon. Exciting? We think so!

The house needs some love (OK . . . a lot of love, but not as much love as the last house we made an offer on), but we are excited to make it our own, and we got a great deal on it (it was in foreclosure). We made an offer quite a bit under the asking price, so we were trying not to get too attached, because we knew we most likely wouldn't get it. I couldn't believe it when I called Chad on Thursday night and found out that Snow had called to tell him our offer had been accepted.

Pictures of our future home follow:

The outside of the house from the front of the lot.

House from the side (sun room/reading room side)

Other side of house and car port


Back of house and deck


Workshop and storage area attached to car port

So, hopefully you are envisioning some landscaping improvements, because I certainly am. Those will probably have to wait until the spring, because the inside will be the number one priority. Plus, I'm going to be counting on my Dad to work his expertise and give us some pointers on transforming the yard.

The inside of the house is a little over 2,000 square feet. It has four bedrooms and two full baths. There is hardwood throughout the entire home (some of it hiding under yucky carpet, and all of it in desperate need of refinishing), except in one area that we want to tile anyway.

When you walk in the front door, you are standing in a poorly wall papered entryway (think Miami Vice/1980's color palette) and to your right, you find the living room:

The door on the right is what you just entered through (the Miami Vice entryway)

Straight ahead is the dining room, to the left is the hallway to the bedrooms, kitchen, etc, and to the right is my FAVORITE room in the house, the READING ROOM!

Seriously, I am in love with this room. It is the spot that made me willing to deal with the less than satisfactory kitchen space (pictures to follow). I cannot WAIT to transform this sun room into my reading sanctuary. Just look at all of the beautiful natural light! Doesn't it make you want to run to the library right now, so you can plan what to curl up with? I KNOW!

This is me basking in the glory that is my future reading room. Notice the handy-dandy built in shelving waiting for paper backs? And how about those precious double doors leading into the living room? Charming.

The other side of the reading room

OK. Now that we've toured where we are going to read, it's time to move on to the less important features of the house: like where we will eat and sleep. Let the picture tour continue. Follow me, please.

Going through the charming double doors previously mentioned, and passing through the living room, we enter the dining room.



Not huge, but room enough for a nice dining room table, which we do not own, but someday will. Oh, and you can also get a more up-close-and-personal look at the condition of the wood flooring here. I know what you're thinking. "Have I seen floors like that before?" And the answer, folks, is yes. Yes, you have seen them. If you've ever seen a shiny gymnasium floor, you've seen the travesty that someone has put the hardwood in this house through. There is this horrid glossy varnish covering all of it, most of it put on so quickly that there are lovely little bubbles dried into it. It is shameful. But it will be remedied. Hopefully, without any swearing on my part.

Go through that swinging door (which we aren't huge fans of, but will probably keep) and you'll find yourself in the kitchen.

If you're thinking it's not too bad, I must say the pictures make it look better than it does in person. It needs some help. I think there are a total of two actual drawers (any advice, Meredith???). Although, I must say, I'm such a FAN of the wallpaper, I really don't know if I'll be able to part with it (insert sarcastic cough here).

That little window area looks into this room:

This is the only room in the house other than the kitchen with no hardwood hiding underneath. We are planning on tiling it the same way we do the kitchen, and making it into a kind of breakfast room/extension of the kitchen.

The door straight ahead leads you onto the deck out back, or you can turn left and enter the room that will be our master bedroom.

There is a closet, you just can't see it in this photo.

Through the master you can enter a Jack and Jill bath



which connects to the house's second bedroom.

This room will probably eventually be used for the first mini-Reese who joins our family.

When you leave future mini-Reese's room, you enter a hallway.



If you go directly to the left, you see the second bathroom.

If you go straight ahead instead, you will encounter the nightmare that is supposed to be the laundry area. This is going to be enclosed into a closet space capable of holding a side by side set, instead of a stackable, after we rip out a section of cabinets in the kitchen (the first project).



Remember, you are still in mini-Reese's room, looking into the hall, trying to decide where to go. Well, if you choose the right, you enter the third bedroom.

The window AC unit will go. There IS central air (we are not silly enough to buy a house without it in a place that has ridiculously hot and humid summers). And YES, that IS a vine growing through the window into the room. Think Jumanji; I did. This room will eventually be the guest bedroom.

Down the hall a bit further, and to the right, is the fourth bedroom.

Wow. The design choices. Wow. This room will probably be used as an office.

And if you continue down the hall, you're done and back to the living room again.

We are really excited to be embarking on this new adventure together. The best part of all has to be that after paying our mortgage payment and utilities each month we are going to be paying substantially less than we did to rent our two-bedroom condo from our crazy, Asian landlord in Orem. Now, that is a good feeling.

I don't think I'll feel completely un-nervous about the whole thing until the deal completely closes, but at this point the only way the deal won't go through will be because of unforeseen termite damage, or some other insane thing. We have already been pre-approved for our loan and are under contract. The inspection is on Wednesday, so as long as everything goes well, we should be in good shape.

Once the renovations begin, please prepare yourselves for boring blog central. I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of before and after shots. I'm just excited to get started. I can't wait to watch the rooms transform as we make the house our own.