The House
Helping you keep track of our move and updates to the house. Really, this will be fun.
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Saga of a Kitchen Floor 01/08/09 12/01/09 - The Mapleton house has been in foreclosure for two weeks, and it could take another five months before it's potentially on the market again. We decide that we should go ahead and replace the kitchen floor and enjoy it in the meantime. 12/03/09- I order the vinyl for the kitchen floor with the hope it will be in with enough time for it to be installed before Christmas. 12/16/09- The vinyl has been delivered to Lowe's and we get a call from the installers. They are booked and can't install until after Christmas. It's scheduled for the 29th. Also at this time we discover that the Mapleton house is back on the market! (If we had known this two weeks ago we would have thought twice about installing a floor at the last minute...) 12/26/09 and 12/28/09 - Mark and I rip up the original vinyl and the subfloor piece by agonizing piece, as it seems to be concreted to the original vinyl it was glued on top of. We move the appliances to the living room. 12/29/09 - The installers call and tell me that Lowe's ordered the wrong vinyl. We have to re-order. Lowe's expedites the order. (It would have been REALLY nice to know this two weeks ago!) 01/04/10 - Lowe's calls to say that the new vinyl has been shipped and should be here on the 6th. 01/07/10 - Lowe's calls at 11am to say that the vinyl just arrived and that the installers should call asap to schedule the installation. I call Lowe's back at 3pm to say they haven't called yet. They finally call at 4pm to say they can't come until 01/12/10. I call Lowe's and complain. The installers call me back and say they can come the afternoon of the 11th. I'm satisfied for now. 01/11/10 - ????????????????????????? Will it happen like it's supposed to? Tune in next week to find out. In the meantime, we've had five people come to look at the house, so we have our fingers crossed that one of them will be interested enough to put down an offer! _____________________________________________ The Bank Has Accepted Our Offer 01/01/10 We haven't signed the offical papers yet, but the bank has accepted our offer and we have the Mapleton house under contract. We'll close at the end of January, and move in the first of February. We're moving forward with this even though our Orem house isn't under contract yet--we feel that selling it is just a matter of time. House stats: These pictures were all taken in October when we first visited it. The very first one is from the original MLS so it's a little blurry, but it's still a good picture of the front. From the street:
Front door:
Front patio (side--I am SO excited for these, they'll be fun to fill with potted plants and chairs, etc):
Back yard (it sits on a one-acre lot--you can see the mountains to the east):
Kitchen (it's just missing a fridge, but we'll take care of that; it also has a hidden pantry! see the largeish cabinet on the back wall? it's actually a door you walk through to the huge pantry behind it!):
Great room (connected to the kitchen behind it, you can see the corner of the island in the bottom-left corner):
Unfinished basement (it's the same size as the main floor! it's HUGE):
One of Mark's requirements when we were looking for houses this time around was that it have an unfinished basement. You'd think that after all the work we did on the Orem house he'd be sick of remodeling, but most of the finished basements we've seen he's been unsatisfied with, so this way he can have it exactly the way he wants it. And since we plan to be in this house until he retires it makes sense to have something the way we want it without having to rip out what's already there. However, the HOA requires us to have the landscaping done ASAP, as well as finish up some stonework on the exterior. So once those are finished then we can get to work on the basement, probably not until next year at the earliest. But we have time! We plan to be in this house for a good, long while. One would think that I'd be dreading packing up and moving. However, those five months of tryng to buy a house and selling this house were a big stress for me; I really dislike the unknown and spending all that time up in the air caused a lot of anxiety. All the housecleaning, over and over to be ready for showings, and the dozens of calls from pushy realtors didn't improve my mood, either. Enough so that I'm GLAD and HAPPY to be packing up this household, even though there's a LOT to pack and unpack. And a lot to clean in this house and the new one. I'm the kind of woman who is happy doing something instead of sitting around. It will be an adventure. I'll post more pictures when we're moved in and it doesn't look as dusty. The bedrooms are boring open spaces, so once they're filled then I'll get pictures of them, too. We'll keep you updated on the sale of the Orem house as well as the moving dates, etc, when we know them. ________________________________________________ Orem House 12/22/09 We always knew that the Orem house was a transition for us. We bought it with the plan to remodel it and re-sell it for a profit and then move into the house we really wanted. You see, when we first moved here after Mark started his job at UVRMC we weren't really sure how much his new income would affect our lifestyle, so we bought what we knew we could afford for sure. Then we'd have time to look around and eventually sell this one. The change in the market was bad and good for us. It was bad because even though we put 15k+ worth of remodels into the Orem house, we won't see the money from that effort. We'll be lucky to sell it for a pitance more than the price we bought it for in 2006. The good part is, that three years ago we would not have been able to afford the Mapleton house. It's half the price it was when it was first built in 2007 (yes, hundreds of thousands of dollar's worth, it's crazy). Now that we know what we can really afford, and these houses are in foreclosure, we can buy much more house than we ever expected to be able to. It's kind of exciting. In the end even though we're losing a bunch fom the Orem house, we're gaining so much more from the new one. We won't know for sure until after Christmas what the bank has decided. Right now we're the only ones who've submitted an offer, so it's looking good! We'll keep y'all updated. _________________________________ Housing Update (Since Everyone is Asking) 12/18/09 Back in September, if you recall, we put our house up in order to buy that house in Mapleton (which we didn't get). We decided to keep our house up for sale and see what happened, in the meantime doing a few remodels, which we've since finished (except the kitchen floor, which will be installed soon). Well, after two months with a realtor and only five people coming to look at it, we decided that in order to lower the price to something more competitive, we had to ditch the realtor and go for sale by owner. After that we got a LOT of calls, mostly from realtors trying to get us to list with them. And even fewer people wanting to come look at the house. Frustrating. (What I learned from this? Realtors are pushy and obnoxious and I really hate talking to them on the phone.) In the meantime we still looked for houses, not wanting to give up yet. We did find another house in the same neighborhood as the original one in Mapleton. I like it better, actually, for several reasons. It was a short sale. We put down an offer. They accepted and wanted us to close within two weeks, so we counter-offered contingent on the sale of this house (naturally they refused). Unfortunately, we couldn't sell our house in time before the Mapleton one went into foreclosure at the end of November. Foreclosures in Utah can take anywhere from two weeks to six months. Well, it's been one month and that house was just listed again today (!). We thought we had more time, but we don't, and are trying a new push to sell the house so that we can get this one, since it's on a fast track sale much like the other one was. We'll see how it does. We've listed the house for a mere $3000 more than we bought it for (but have put 15k+ in improvements into it). Gotta love the market. Tell all your friends, it's listed on these sites (I linked it to the listing): <Crossing fingers> Update: We found a place that will list us on the MLS for a flat rate! Yippee! We will still retain our for sale by owner status, but will have to pay a lot less in realtor commissions. I'll post that link as soon as it's up. _________________________________ Project #3: Main Floor Half Bath 11/21/09 Before: We ended up keeping that mirror and just moved it to the kid's bathroom upstairs. It's the perfect size for that bathroom. Do you like my Halloween towels?
Dontcha love the green toilet?
Here Mark's done some of the demolition. He's removed the underlayment so we can put concrete board down for the tile. He's also removed the little wall they had there. He had to rewire for the light fixture and the switch/plug box. Since it was a two-sink cabinet and we're only putting a single one in, he had to cap off the end of the plumbing for the second sink.
The old wallpaper we found behind the sink cabinet:
After: New flooring, new sink, re-painted, new moulding, new mirror, new lighting, new doors. We put up some hooks for coats and will probably keep a box for shoes and boots there, as well. The original plan, before we decided to sell the house right away, was to get a storage bench with a lid. Wouldn't that have been so cute there? I wish I had some artwork to put up so the walls weren't so boring, but I've either packed a bunch of it away or else it's waiting to be framed.
New toilet.
_________________________________________________ Project #2: Laundry Room 10/30/09 Before:
I can't help but think that the flowery wallpaper was really considered in style at one time. They took great care in putting it up, it had the mesh underlayment and everything. Came off like a dream (as far as wallpaper removal goes). But it had to go. We took out ALL the shelves, and stripped the walls bare. We took out the carpet. Replaced the lights. Re-painted. Installed new closet shelves and doors. And, of course, tiled the floor. Voila. After:
Compared to the bathroom remodel it's not as much work, but I believe that removing that wallpaper alone completely changes the look of the room. To my sorrow we didn't replace all the shelving. We will if we stay in the house, but it was extra effort for something we don't need since all the stuff being shelved is now in boxes. I believe Mark and I should have put investment stocks into Lowe's seeing as how much we've spent there in there in the last few months. One place I can't speak enough of is Lighting Design in Orem. I know there's one in Draper and Layton, too, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE this place. Great lights. Knowledgable staff. Wide variety, good prices, and they special order anything and it comes within two weeks. They even replaced for free the transformer that somehow got waterlogged from a leaking pipe in the bathroom above (*cough*Mark*cough*). Behold the many possibilities: _________________________________ Project #1: Kid's Bathroom 10/13/09 Before:
After:
__________________________________ No, We Didn't Get That House and Other News 09/28/09 Well, the Mapleton foreclosure house was on a fast-track sale by the bank and since we didn't get our Orem home sold in time, the bank wouldn't take our bid, which means that we didn't get it. House Remodeling Our home is still for sale, but in the meantime Mark and I are updating the house, which includes: * the upstairs bathrooms with new flooring, new lights, new paint, new fixtures, new cabinets * new doors throughout the house to replace the 70's honey-colored lame ones there now * new lights throughout the house, but especially in the bedrooms, hallways, and dining rooms * updating the basement, including removing all the wood paneling and the tile cieling, putting in new lights and new carpet, and painting * updating the main floor bathroom with new vanity and toilet, replacing the carpet with tile and the lights * removing the hideous wallpaper in the laundry room, repainting, replacing the carpet with tile * (not sure yet?) new kitchen cabinets and floor We hope that these updates will make this home more competitive in today's market. If it doesn't sell in the next month, we'll probably put it up again in the spring when real estate generally moves faster. I'll post pictures when there's something to post, which should be soon. Sick Kitty In other news our cat Panda got really sick this weekend and I took him into the Urgent Pet Care Clinic in Orem Sunday morning (yes he was in that bad of shape). Our normally frisky, friendly kitty would lay down in the same spot for hours and not move or meow and Sunday morning he was declining rapidly. Fortunately the vet was able to fix him and he's going to be spending a couple of days there until he's better. He had a urinary tract blockage and it was making him very sick. We hope to have him home soon all better and happy again. Stupid Toilets So two of the toilets in our house are wall-mounted. In some ways it's great because they're less likely to leak, you can clean under them, and they're generally hassle free. Except when you want to replace them. The two we have in the upstairs bathrooms are Goldenrod Yellow and Sky Blue. Bleh. So I've been trying to find a replacement, which hasn't been easy. I found one for what I thought was a good price at a Plumber's Surplus website and I just got it via UPS today. But it was only the tank. I didn't know the bowl came seperately. Grrr. Stupid wall-mounted toilets are expensive. Don't get one. Ever. Real Estate Search Mark is out this afternoon with our realtor looking at other houses in the area to see if we can find another house like the Mapleton foreclosure. There were some in Provo, Springville, and Mapleton and we hope to find something comparable. If not, we'll just keep looking and continue getting our Orem house ready to sell. We had always planned on this house to be temporary. We bought it with the plan in mind to remodel and re-sell it (for a profit, but alas, the market didn't cooperate). The one good thing about today's real estate market is that we can find some beautiful homes for really amazing prices. We've been looking at places slightly bigger, nicer, and on bigger lots. Now that Mark's been in his job for a while we have a better idea of the kind of house we can afford, and we'd really like to upgrade if we can. We'll see how it goes, but in all likelihood we probably won't be able to sell this one until summer, and we'll move then when school is out. ___________________________________ 09/05/09 Yeah. You read that right. Mark's been perusing the house listings since December, and this week he found 'the house of his dreams'. It's in rural Mapleton, it's big, it's on a one acre lot, and it's for a great price because it's in foreclosure and the bank wants to get rid of it. So. If you know anyone in the market for a well-kept home, give us a call.
_________________________________ Happy Anniversary: Year 12!! 12/21/08 Today is Mark and my wedding anniversary. I asked for pots and pans. I got him a new ring (I'll post a picture later). The first couple of weeks of December were busy with a few improvements on the house, including a new railing for the front porch. It's very pretty, I think, and really makes the front entryway feel bigger and more inviting. We're quite happy with it. Right now, however, there's about 8 inches of snow on the ground, so I took this picture earlier.
We also replaced the old wood burning fireplace with a gas fireplace and I think it really makes the living room look finished and oh so snazzy:
Here's an in progress picture of the old hole in the wall and the new fireplace installed:
And the way it looked before we decided to rip it out:
___________________________________ Various New Stuff 06/10/08 New trellis for the climbing rose in my backyard. I made it myself and Mark helped me put it up on the wall. I'm predicting that this rosebush will one day completely cover the trellis.
The quilt for Brent and Becca's wedding. It's a lap quilt in the colors/pattern that Becca chose:
And our new garage door. The old one went kaput this week and I found a great deal on last year's model at a local place. It's a good quality one with insulation, windows, and it seals the garage nicely. Should help in winter, then the cat's dish won't freeze.
Here you can kind of see what it used to look like. It was wood. I like how the new one blends in a little more.
__________________________________ Painting the Walls 11/05/07 So the walls are done. I painted everything a light yellow base coat, including the ceiling. Then on the walls only, I ragged a texture with a darker color for the top coat.
Hopefully you can see the detail here better. The color isn't exact, since it's the internet, but it's pretty close.
So this week Mark has been trying to get the concrete out of the floor where the hearth from the old fireplace used to be. We decided against putting in another hearth, and just having the new floor go all the way to the wall. This is a messy and dusty project, but it's the last hard thing to do.
Also this week the wood flooring has arrived. It will sit in the house for a week to get acclimated. In the meantime, we'll be staining and polyurethaning the molding and casing for the doors, windows, and floors. Hopefully we can start installing those, soon, too.
__________________________________ Painting Has Begun! 10/31/07 Primer:
Base coat:
Whoa, that looks way yellower than it does in real life! Oh well. You get the idea. _______________________________________ Mudding and Taping 10/20/07 Now that the sheetrock is up, it's time to tape and mud the corners and screws. Mark bought a big box of joint compound and got to work. But taping is hard work and it's taken him a while.
Today his dad came over and helped with the second layer, since he's so good at making it all smooth and nice.
I'm glad I haven't had to do any of the mudding and sanding, but dang-it-all I have to clean up the mess it makes. And it doesn't just get stuff all over the room we're working on, oh no. It disappates to other parts of the main floor, so now I have a thick later of dust all over. It's just nasty and I hate having to dust everyday! Bah! I'll be glad when this phase is complete. Then comes the painting. ________________________________________ New Front Door 10/13/07 Ever since we first saw our house over a year ago (June 2006), we knew the front door would need some changes. At first it looked like this:
Then we had a new walkway and porch done (October 2006):
And now this week, a new door!
Isn't it just stunning? I LOVE it! I painted it myself. Then we hired a couple of guys to come take out the old door, widen the brick, re-frame it, and voila! Mark also installed a couple of snazzy sconces that flank the door. Isn't it so pretty? ______________________________________ Sheetrock Is Going Up 10/07/07 Yay!
_____________________________________ Sheetrock 09/25/07 When you remodel a room you don't always have to yank down the sheetrock. However, in this situation we really had to for several reasons: the most important being that they had crusty glue residue left over from the wood paneling, we had to take down a bunch from the old office anyway, the ceiling needed not only insulation but new lighting, and the walls needed updated wiring. So I hauled out A LOT of sheetrock. Here's the pile, which has gone down quite a bit. Only about 1/4 of it is left to load onto the trailer that our neighbor is letting us borrow so we can take all that trash to the dump.
Getting rid of the old sheetrock means buying new sheetrock and a large load was delivered yesterday morning so now it's sitting in the living room waiting impatiently to be installed (the big bundles are the insulation for the ceiling).
Mark's brother is coming over on Friday so they can start putting it up. It will be exciting to see the room take form again! Yay! __________________________________ Ode to the Hard-working Man 09/21/07 I watch you spend hours O, that I had your stamina for working
hour after hour, Instead I sweep up the wood shavings,
the abandoned wires, and old outlets. Today the studs are exposed, But we dream. We dream of what the room may become. Then we say, "The hard work will
be worth it." __________________________________ Wiring the Room 09/19/07 So Mark has been busy. Yesterday he finished fixing the floor (there were gaps in the floorboards from the office framing). Today the wiring is well underway. He has the main lights wired (as you can see in the picture). Now he has outlets, the entry light, the doorbell, and four small spot-lighty lights (the name escapes me at the moment, but they're cool, and you can adjust them to either light below or to the side).
The room is already brighter! Horray!!! __________________________________ Demolition is Complete 09/16/07 Everything that needs to be taken down is down. Everything that has to be removed is gone. This includes all the drywall, the light fixtures, the fireplace, the flooring...everything!
Now that everything is cleared out the next step is to fix things! First Mark will begin the wiring and installing lights. I liked the cannister lights best. No hanging fixtures and no flourescent bulbs (ick!). They'll be very similar to the lighting we put in our old house's basement (if any of you remember it). We're thinking of installing wood floor instead of carpet this time around--Mark wants to install it himself. The fireplace is a bit of a conundrum, though, because Mark wants it sitting on the floor, which means shifting everything down and maybe removing some of the cinderblocks and other metal inserts there. All I can say is, "Phew, that sounds like a lot of work there, Mark. Good luck with that!" Most of my job entails cleaning up after him and calling around for contractors to do certain things. Considering how much I hate calling people, I suppose this is a fair tradeoff. He does the hard physical stuff and I spend my time calling people who mostly say, "We can't do that" or "Pay us a ton of money and then we'll do that." Gee, which is worse? ___________________________________ The Front Office Is Gone 09/13/07 Enough said.
And I must say, I _________________________________ Living Room Demolition 09/12/07 Demolition is probably the funnest part of a remodel project (except, that we have to clean up after it...). We were glad to see the ugly white fireplace brick go, as well as the wood paneling. Fortunately, the wood paneling was glued in so it was easy to take down.
Spencer just couldn't get over the fact that daddy was breaking the walls. (Laughs) He thought it was the coolest thing, ever. It already looks lighter in here. Today we'll probably take down the walls around the 'office', which will add another window to the room, and help with light, as well. Eventually the ceiling is being pulled out, so that the light fixtures will be changed. I hate the ones we have now (you can see them in the picture) because they flicker and buzz. Drives me crazy when I'm trying to read or nap on the couches. **Update*** The office demolition in progress:
__________________________________ Remodeling the Living Room 09/11/07 And it's begun. After talking about doing it ever since we moved into this house over a year ago, Mark has geared himself up for the big project! It's exciting! We took down the wood paneling yesterday, and soon will tear down the wall to the 'office' in order to make the living room a 'great room'. We'll move the closet over so we can make a larger front door, and re-do the fireplace. Here's the before pictures:
Next time: In-progress demolition __________________________________ 04/28/07 It's finished. Well, mostly. There's still a few minor things to do, like plant this year's annuals, a few more perennials, adding some brick borders, and etc. But the bulk of it is finished. Come see it in all it's glory. The driveway flower bed hasn't changed much, except that I added mulch, and things are blooming! (Pictures of those later.)
The front side flower beds got some new compost, were mulched, and some bushes added, including bare-root roses. By high summer, those railings will have flowers climbing them.
The back flower bed got mulch, a new brick border, and some few flowers.
The vegetable garden was completely changed. Instead of running along the fence (before picture), I changed it to a quarter-circle, the radius 50 feet from the corner. It's hard to see in this picture, but those are raised beds of mixed compost/soil, surrounded with mulched walkways. The corner clear in the back is raspberries, and there's a section devoted to herbs. As things grow, I'll post pictures.
New sod! It finally arrived this week, after a week of delays. It still needs smoothing out, the wholes filled in, but it looks great! The back yard really feels like it's been opened up, now that the shed is gone. It's amazing. (Before pictures here and here.)
So there you have it, our new improved yard. Perhaps we'll have a BBQ soon in the future to share the fruits of our labors with friends and family. See a before picture here.
________________________________ 04/16/07 Last week we hired a landscaping company to come install a completely new sprinkling system in our yard. This was necessary for several reasons: first, the original system is quite old; second, the old system didn't work very well, so the lawn would have swampy spots and other parts would be too dry, and the system wasn't set up very well; third, we finally tore down the shed in back, removed the concrete and plan to put down sod, so needed sprinklers put there anyway; fourth, I changed where the vegetable garden is laid out, so it changed how the sprinklers were done in that part of the yard. Here's what it looks like now in the front yard:
This past week they actually finished putting in the sprinkler heads and re-filling the dirt. This week Mark and I will finish clean-up and I hope (cross your fingers) that they will be putting in the sod in the back yard. ________________________________________________ New Porch and Walkway 11/09/06 First of all, I'd like to say thanks to my loyal fans for being so patient ;) I love you guys. Last month we began the process to get our front porch/walkway done. We had the old one that ran in front of the house removed, the railing removed, and etc. Before:
A few weeks ago they poured the porch, a week later the walkway, and they stamped and colored the concrete. This week they finally put on the sealant so I can officially say it's done. Horray! After:
A closeup of the porch. I still need to build up the dirt and grass around it and do some other landscaping, but i like how it turned out.
Now people can enter the house from the street and it's so pretty! Next we need to replace the door and center it. We'll make it all nice, too, but that's not until next year. __________________________________ 08/08/06 Since the move to our new house our TV hasn't been working very well. The connections to the receiver aren't working, which means that our borrowed speakers are useless lumps taking up space in the basement. Mark had always planned to get a home theater, and with the TV not working right, well, he decided to get it sooner than later. Of course, he enlisted my help. And in the process of my helping, I met my new best friend:
Mark's DeWalt power drill. I love that thing. Mostly because I had to use it to drill holes into the ceiling beams. Yes, it was I who wired all the cable for this project. I am woman, see me wire! Fortunately, the ceiling was the kind with the movable tiles.
An old light fixture we found above the ceiling. Mark converted it to an outlet.
We wired everything to under the stairs, where we have a little closet. This way there's a safe place for the receiver and DVD player that the kids can't get to.
Mark installed the shelves himself. He claims to have used trigonometry to figure the length of the supports.
The subwoofer:
The projector that Mark installed in the ceiling (next to the convenient light-converted-to-outlet):
Finished:
It is so awesome to watch movies on! There's a front speaker behind the screen and two side speakers (that you can't see in this picture)--true 5.1 surround sound. Eventually Mark wants to get rear speakers to make it 7.something surround sound. But that's for further in the future. __________________________________ 08/06/06 We actually ordered this several weeks ago, but it didn't arrive until Thursday. We bought it at the Basset furniture store in Orem, where you can have them custom made. You choose the table style, colors, and the chair styles.
It has leather seats and is counter height. There are eight chairs/stools that go with it, but we're using three at the kitchen counter. It's a sight better looking than the one we had before, and considerably larger. We like it. __________________________________ 06/08/06 So we're in our new house, and have been since Saturday. I'm about 95% unpacked; however not everything is truly organized yet, except for the parts of the house that matter, like the kitchen and my bathroom. Of course you want pictures. Here's the moving van:
And frankly, I've been too tired and half-crazed from unpacking and taking care of three kids sans-husband for the past week to take any pictures since we've gotten into the new house. Except I did take this one:
This is our computer monitor. See the margins? It won't go any wider, and what I can see is all warped and fuzzy. This is why I haven't posted yet, although we had Internet access by Tuesday. Mark has ordered a new monitor and I've been waiting patiently for it to ship before I do any serious computer work because this ratty screen is straining my eyes. But I can ignore my adoring public no longer (haha) so I've braved the monitor just for you and finally posted after an entire week of silence. Which is a record for me. (By the way, the webpage development tool I use on the screen is Dreamweaver by Macromedia.) __________________________________ Inspecting the New House 04/27/06 Mark went to Orem on Tuesday to be there when the inspector looked over the house. The inspector was a former contractor, so Mark asked him all sorts of questions. The result is that Mark has plans to knock out some walls, enlarge the front door, put in French doors in the back, and etc. Mark has big plans for the house. There was one strange thing he found that we didn't notice the first time we saw the house:
The picture is a little hard to see with Mark's shadow in the way, but this little slab of concrete in the back patio is labeled "Buffy 1974-1985". They buried their dog in the backyard. I'm a little creeped out. We are planning on yanking up quite a bit of the conrete, including this slab, so poor Buffy will need to be exhumed. Yuck. On to nicer subject matter...note the lovely spring-blooming fruit trees at the new house:
They look like they're apple trees, and there's another cherry tree off to the right of this picture. That's one great thing about buying an older house: mature trees.
Here's a fence of grapes and a strip perfect for vegetable planting, as it gets lots of sun. I'll plant the garden once we move in at the beginning of June, which will still leave plenty of growing season. _________________________________ A Few More Pictures of The House (in case you care) 04/15/06
View from the front yard.
Back yard (ends at the fence--the playground is for the neighbors).
More of the backyard.
Master bathroom.
More of the master bath (they took
down the wallpaper and
An older picture of the kitchen. Sigh. It's going to need a total makeover.
Family room (the kitchen is off to the right). Notice the wood paneling. Lovely. ___________________________________ Have We Found the House of Our Dreams? 04/03/06 I wouldn't call it the house of our dreams, but it only took us a few hours to decide to put a contract on it.
It was built in 1974, but has only had one owner. It's on a 1/3 acre lot and is 3900 square feet. It's in the heart of Orem, but in a cul-de-sac--which means it's near everything, but still feels like a quiet neighborhood. It's around the corner from the grade school. It's less than 10 minutes from Mark's new work. It doesn't look fancy like some of the other houses we've seen (and could easily afford). No hardwood floors, no pretty textured walls. The bathrooms are old:
The kitchen is outdated and needs major renovation (this picture doesn't do it justice--yes, that's a random piece of furnture in the middle of the floor, they're replacing the carpet):
I won't even show you the living room fireplace and wood paneling walls. However, the house itself is solid with a great layout, which is hard to find in old homes. It's a semi-open floor plan, but it's something we can really work with. The best part is the price. It's only a little more money than the house we're in now, which means that with Mark's new job, we'll easily be able to afford updates. And when (if) we sell in about five years (to build the real house of our dreams) we should make a tidy profit. We made an offer today and baring any unforeseen problems, it will be under contract by the end of the week. Yay!
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