The House Story, Part III

That initial offer was refused, as we were expecting, but at least we were in the running!

After discussing it, we decided to "tempt fate" and wait for the next scheduled price drop, which would be less than two weeks away.

I know, I know....move on the house already!  Believe me, we talked it through, but ultimately we really felt like waiting was the best plan.

I had been regularly stalking driving by the house and, one evening during this waiting game I noticed tracks in the snow and a light on in the house.  That got us nervous so the next day Shaun made another offer.

That was MLK Day and a week later we'd still heard nothing.  This was a good sign to us since our original offer was declined in a matter of hours.

Then one night we had a terrible wind and rain storm all night long.  Oddly, even I had woken up!  In the dark Shaun whispered to me Chris just texted me...we have a contract on the house!  

Shaun was up most of the rest of the night, going over kitchen floor plans, working on numbers...doing whatever men do.

I want to pause here a moment and just say how grateful I am for my husband.  He has a long history of making sound, wise, calculated decisions.  He is extremely knowledgable about so many things, and he really shines in real estate.  I have such confidence in him to make consistently good choices for our family....what an incredible gift he is.

So, with the news, I was happy it was settled and, in celebration, I allowed myself some time on Houzz that morning.

From the very beginning I tried to remain as emotionless as possible, so I had to change my thinking to being excited about it.

This is not the first house we've bought and remodeled, so I'm well aware of the sacrifice involved in making those Pinterest rooms possible.  :)

Our plan is to close next month and then in April, when tax season is over, we'll start in on the work that needs to be done.  Specifically, insulation, new windows, flooring, making new doorways and redoing the kitchen, for starters.

We also need to make and implement a plan for the third floor.  Right now its a large master bedroom suite (that needs work).  Its very tempting to keep it for that purpose, but we're leaning toward making one of the small bedrooms on the second floor ours and putting a bunch of kid bedrooms on the third.

Because we are a therapeutic foster home, our agency requires that each child (our biological excluded) who comes into our home has their own bedroom...no sharing.  So, we're going for quantity over quality...hoping to get to six-ish bedrooms!

In addition to the fact that we'll have more than the one bathroom the six of us (plus a regular flow of house guests and respite kids) are sharing now, here are just a few of the selling points for me:

A legit mudroom...with a large closet.  As a matter of fact, EVERY bedroom has a closet AND the bathrooms have storage, too!  Crazy, huh?  With the kid traffic we have, I know I'm going to be loving this space.

The breakfast nook/homework & family computer area.  My office and the kitchen will be the adjoining rooms...nice and central to lots of action.

The closed in front porch.  I love my wrap-around now, but I think the bug-barrier trade-off on warm summer evenings will be totally worth it!  Looking forward to entertaining out there!

 And the yard.  Quite possibly the biggest selling point of all.  We live in a pretty congested area so the .62 lot is enormous to us!  The kids are going to make so many great memories!

And now...you are up-to-date!  Its far from a done deal still, but if it does go through, this house will be consuming us, so you'll no doubt be hearing and seeing lots more.