It was a long struggle to get this house, and it was definitely a stressful 4 weeks working on getting to the closing, but now we're here, and I couldn't be happier. For those who don't know, we've been trying to purchase a home again for a few years now but had to wait, save, and watch the market. We didn't want to rush into the wrong house. We didn't want to jump in too early when we couldn't really afford it yet. The time was finally right, and with God helping things come together for us, we're in.
Let me walk you through the house. From the outside, it's a typical, single-story home. It's in a nice neighborhood, on a quiet cul-de-sac, with great neighbors, and we're one street over from a golf course (and homes selling for 2 and 3 times what we paid). Our back yard does abut a busy street, but there's an 8 foot wall and with double-pane windows, you don't hear it from inside the house. With windows open, it becomes white noise. The front of the house has a nice lawn I hope I don't kill. I have trouble keeping anything green alive. There's a driveway on both sides of the house for plenty of parking, plus a garage. We have a small porch that provides a little sitting area under our front window. There's an area on either side of the front door for plants. Jordan will put herbs on one side and flowers on the other. She's great with growing plants.
When you walk in the front door, the dusty rose tiled floor goes from the door to the hallway, where it takes a right and goes past the bedrooms. On your left, is a sunken living room. It's got light brown carpeting in it that we'll probably replace at some point. The walls are white, but we plan on painting accent walls in this house. The living room will be a light gray.
If you walk to the hallway and take the right, there's a linen closet, the kids' bathroom, our room with it's walk-in closet, en suite bathroom, and sliders to the back yard. Across the hall is Logan's room and Jordan's room, both with views to the front. Her room has wainscoting covering the bottom half of her walls and a laminate floor, Logan's is carpeted.
Back out by the living room, if you take a right, you find yourself in our "middle room". It's an odd room. It has a brick fireplace (that I plan on repainting white), and it's carpeted. It's a cozy room, but because of an addition they built (bringing the home from 1500 sf to 2300), and having an open concept kitchen, it's an odd. For now it's our dining room, but it may become a sitting area when we get a square pub table for the kitchen.
The kitchen has laminate flooring and it's got oak cabinets with (outdated but decent) green marble looking laminate countertops trimmed in light wood. During the expansion, they split the kitchen in two parts because they had to keep the load bearing wall in place - or at least part of it. On one side of the wall is the fridge, cabinets, and stove. On the other side, there's an island built around it plus an additional back wall counter with a few more lower cabinets. Also on the island is the double porcelain sink, under-counter storage, a few drawers, and our dishwasher. There's room for 3 to eat comfortably at the island, it's actually pretty big. It's an odd layout, but it makes it easier for multiple people to be doing different things in the kitchen without bumping into each other. It sort of works. Off the kitchen is the large pantry, and the laundry room that continues out to the garage. The kitchen addition has a bright window and a door to the back yard and one of the two patio areas.
Off the kitchen, there's a 4th bedroom that's been converted to a craft room. It's all white. It has a counter that runs almost the entire length of the right side, there's built in cabinets on both sides for plenty of storage, and a door that goes out to the second, smaller patio area shared by the master bedroom. There's also a skylight in that room that makes it so bright during the day, I still find myself trying to shut off the light when it's not on.
The last room, in the back corner of the house, is a 5th bedroom. This is the largest bedroom but not the master since it has no private bathroom. It's just shy of 12' by 18' long. That's Adam's "bachelor pad" room (since he's paying actual rent now). He has it broken into several areas: his sleeping space, his sitting area, his guitars & amps, and a built in desk with overhead shelves for working on his computer or using his recording equipment. He's also got a large closet with plenty of extra space. By his bed, there's a bay window that's made up of 3 windows and a window seat with lots of storage inside it.
The back yard has a curvy lawn, bordered by small rocks and plants that don't require much water. There's also a huge orange tree with really sweet oranges on it. It was covered when we were here for the inspection, but the owners took them before closing. They left about a dozen or so that we've had already, and now the tree is covered in blossoms making the back yard smell amazing.
So that's it in a nutshell. I plan on taking more pictures and posting them soon. I tried to take some over the weekend, but others weren't cooperating and kept messing up the areas I wanted to photograph. Hopefully that'll be done in the next day or two.
