The house drama has continued....
We had to drop our buyer :(. They were not getting their loan settled and were not willing to come out sooner to finish the loan qualification. This was just a long drawn out process that had bad news written all over it. We thought it would be easy since they were a relocation with Walmart, but we were wrong. Once we dropped the buyer we decided to put our house back on the market. Oh man, talk about stressful! Our house was 75% packed at this point because we were supposed to have moved already! Ugh! Who was going to buy our house with it all packed!?
We decided to try to lease the house we were buying so we could move out of our house to help it sell faster. We really didn't want it listed until we were out. Our realtor told us that the market was getting pretty hot for houses in our price range and that we needed to list it ASAP! I was pretty skeptical and told her that she would have to tell people what was going on and why our house was such a mess. We also decided to paint a few of the family room walls to make it more neutral. Then we wanted to update the master bathroom and paint the bedroom as well. We were hoping to list the house just a little higher and get a bit more profit out of it.
After we listed we ended up with 2 showings in the first 2 days. The second showing made a strong offer and we were under contract again! That was a huge blessing! Now we had to wait to be sure everything was really going to work out this time, but everything looked great from the beginning. It was also so hard to live in limbo... we are moving, no we aren't, etc. I think us choosing to move for real helped all of the right pieces finally fall into place, even though it was super stressful!
While waiting on closing we did move into the new house and lease it for a month.
The thing about this house is it's right up in the Arlington area just 15 min or so to Jeff's work, 5 min to church, on a half acre of land, across from a small lake, around the corner from a quiet park, police station, and city hall. The house was built in the mid 80's and was really nicely done... just not so updated as we would like. Basically after really getting into the home renovation shows we decided to try our own fixer upper! It's going to be a crazy ride to get the house the way we want it, but it will be our family adventure to enjoy together!
The front of the house. Let's just say that it doesn't have a ton of curb appeal. It really just looks like a ski lodge. Then I'm thinking.... where is the front door?
However, if you turn around this is your view. Seriously the long bank of windows gets to stare out at this! It makes my mornings feel so peaceful to watch the sunrise over the lake!
I found the front door! It is off to the left of the house. Once you enter you are in this large foyer.
After the foyer you continue into the house and on your right you find the "blue" room, or Living room. This is the room with the windows that look over the lake. The dining room is along the bank of windows too. This room is actually really large, though this photo doesn't make it look that way.
Now, instead of turning to the right to the blue room, if you continued into the house you walk into the "yellow" room, aka family room. This room is also quite large.
On the far right of the yellow room you reach the dining nook...
And when you turn around you see the kitchen. Let's just call it a future project.
Now we are on our way down to the master along the hall off to the left of the yellow room, and surprise, you find a yellow powder room! Man, that yellow is serious! Can't wait until the yellow is gone!
You also walk by the laundry room that leads to one of the garages. It's a smallish laundry, but there is a sink and room for an extra fridge so that's nice.
On the right of the hall you will find the guest room. I know you weren't expecting more yellow ;). It's not a huge room, but perfect for guests.
The guest room is even equipped with it's own bathroom. The door at the end of the bathroom leads outside to the pool area. It's awesome to have access to a toilet when everyone is outside swimming without having to walk through the house!
A little further down the hall you hit the office/den or library as we are calling it. This picture makes it look kind of large, which it's not. It's quite small and has doors to the master, the hall, and outside. All of those doors leave little wall space and what wall space there is ends up being used for a built in desk and a fireplace. I'm still not sure why there is a fireplace in this room. It turns out the fireplace is decorative as the owners had sealed up the chimney ;(.
Welcome to the master suite. It is seriously a suite in the fact that it has it's own loft above it. This whole area is counted as the master! It's very cool to look at, but it ends up being a lot of wasted space. This is our first big project on the house.
This is the loft. Through the door is attic space above the back 2 car garage. We plan to turn that into a media room in the future.
This is the master bath. I will say that it is a huge bathroom! It's too bad the Jacuzzi tub doesn't work :(. It is also very white and we aren't huge fans of the tile, sinks, and cabinets. Let's just add this to the project list.
There is this huge 2 person shower that is amazing! That makes up for some of the other issues in the master bath. You can also see the entrance to one of the closets. There are 2 closets so that's interesting. They are kind of odd shaped and we would prefer one huge closet instead.
We are now upstairs in the game room between the 2 kids rooms. I was going to have this as our school room. We used it for a school room for a few months until we decided to try doing school downstairs. This is also the kids toy room and sharing school and toys was pretty messy. It's a nice space and it has doors that lead out to a deck that overlooks the pool.
The girls' room. They weren't thrilled about the purple. It is one of the first projects to paint. There is tons of room and that is great!
The best part of the girls room is their attached bathroom and closet! Perfect for when they get a little older.
Here's the view off the deck :)
Our pretty pool. I will say that pool ownership is a new experience for us! Hopefully we can figure it out!
The boys room. The girls really wanted this room, but this one doesn't have nearly as nice of a bathroom so we let the boys have it. It is so huge and has it's own balcony that overlooks the lake. So amazing!
The boys small bathroom.
The balcony.
There is so much to do that we will be busy for quite some time. I'm afraid now that we are here it is a bit overwhelming. I'm sure it will all work out, but it sure is hard when we want it done now so we can enjoy it for many years to come. Once we moved in it is amazing to see how large the space really is. The main living areas are huge! Our furniture fits and there is still so much space. We have a lot to get done and we will update on our fun progress!
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