House

Poor Scott often comes home to a big mess I have made. Sometimes I get bored and start tearing things apart. I have complete intentions of fixing and doing the work all by myself, but he kinda always gets sucked in. One day he came home to bamboo ripped off the walls…you’ll understand why when you see the pictures. Another day he came home with the crown-molding on our cabinets removed. Another day the garage was destroyed as I built a coffee table. I am refraining from doing any more damage until we finish these two big projects, but Scott will surely come home to no hardwood floors in the future.

I forgot to ever post pictures of our house when we first moved in five months ago, so here are a few I took back then and the story of buying it.

We looked at a few houses early in April and May before our Idaho home had sold. Every single one either needed a lot of work or was out of our price range. None made me too excited about buying a house, but then we saw this one. As soon as we stepped onto the porch I was in love. The porch was tall and I knew the ceilings were going to be nine feet, which was something on my list of wants.

In fact here was my list of what I wanted in a house:

• Under $300,000
• Built after 2000
• A yard big enough to fit a trampoline
• 4 Bedrooms
• Nine ft. ceilings
• Three car garage
• Neighborhood with sidewalks
• Good school district

We walked inside and Scott and I were both in love. The price was perfect, and the house had everything we wanted except a third garage. We left feeling devastated. Our house in Idaho wouldn’t close for two weeks. Three days later, our dream house was “pending.” We began looking at other homes, but every time we did they never compared to this house. Then a miracle happened, the sale fell through and a month later it was back on the market. Tons of people were looking at it, and we knew that if we were going to get it we would have to offer way more than the asking. We offered $23,500 above! We were thrilled when we got it and spent the next two months fighting to keep it. Financing was a nightmare, and when we were told we would only have to bring $4500 to the table turned into $21,000. It caused a lot of tears, but in the end we know it will be better in the long run and we used our savings to get in our house.

Here are the real estate agents that showed the home. As you can see it was a battle to get it!

Here are some photos. I am too lazy to take any of the rest of the house!

A view from the living room to the eating area in the kitchen

The kitchen. I absolutely LOVE it! There is so much cabinet space, and the island is butcher block.

Along the side of the family room is a hall to the bathroom, closet, garage, and stairs. It has open arches in the hall.

You can see the family room with the lovely bamboo all over the walls. UGH!

Here is the dining room and living room. It has already changed so much! Eventually I will post pictures, but for now here are all the befores.

We often would come and lay on our backs and stare up. It is such a bright room with the windows and tall ceilings.

Bamboo! And a look at the hall again.

Anyways, I have been working so hard from home to make enough money to remodel our house. I love how it is and don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I do want to add my own flare to it. We aren’t doing anything crazy of course, just paint and trim. The money I make each month I am putting back into our house. We are hoping it will appraise high enough this summer so we don’t have to pay mortgage insurance. The neighbors house sold for $365,000 a few months ago, so we are praying the market stays strong!

We are working on the kitchen, and I can’t wait to have it done so I can show pictures of it. We are painting the cabinets white! The bamboo is gone and the walls are destroyed, so a lot of patching and repair is in order for the family room.

We are definitely so thankful to be in our house, and there isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t count our blessings. I never thought that I would have a house this awesome in Washington. I know many people want bigger or fancier homes, but this home is huge to us and definitely nice enough.

I know that owning a home is not what defines a person, nor is it what makes a family. From our tiny apartment to this home, we still continue to do the same things. If you sit on your butt all day and watch TV in a tiny place, you are going to sit on your butt and watch TV in a mansion. I always have to remind myself that “things” are not going to make me a better person. While I am grateful for our home, I am more grateful for my family and our good health. I would give up any “things” to be with them. I never want to let my worldly wants to come between me and my family.

WOW! That post went on for longer than I thought! I mainly wanted to share the before pictures so I can share the after ones soon. I got a little off topic, but I don’t want people to think I am posting pictures to brag!

Alright, alright, I will be posting a post on Mav soon! 18 Months and a monster even more!