New house!
Welp, we are putting an offer in on a house, hopefully today! We have been looking and looking. My husband has very high standards (that's why he picked me for his wife!!!) and it has been difficult to say the least. We had found two homes, both were off the market before we got a chance to see them. I happened upon a home on Monday and emailed it to him. For some reason it had never come up in our search parameters before, even though it met all of our criteria. So that was weird.
Anyway, he went and saw it that day, and I went and saw it the next day, and I think we decided to make an offer! It's a foreclosure so it's in rough shape, but the good news is we have savings, a giant tax return coming at some point (hopefully soon), plus a nice bit of equity in our current home. It's within 4 blocks of a middle school, high school, AND elementary school which is awesome. How sweet will it be just to walk to school or once the kids are older let them walk themselves? And for them to be able to walk home from all their sports practices and activities after school? Yeah! And price wise it will get us into a very nice neighborhood which we normally wouldn't be able to afford. For an example, the home two doors down (not a foreclosure) is on the market for $90,000 more than this home is on the market.
The house isn't in awful shape, but it is dirty and everything needs a fresh coat of paint. There is some pretty awful wallpaper throughout it, namely in the kitchen and living area. I am just sooo not a fan of wallpaper! The carpet is really dirty, we are going to try to clean it and if that doesn't work then we'll have to get new carpet. If it does get clean, some of the carpet will have to be restretched. The basement finish was pretty poorly done, probably most of it will have to be taken out and redone (but the bright side is that we can change the layout). It has 4 bedrooms on the 2nd floor and is way way bigger than our current home. One thing I think is weird is that there are two "living rooms" on the main floor. I know this is common in nicer homes but...it makes no sense to me, I just don't see the point!! We're already thinking about how/if we can make the kitchen bigger by utlizing some of the other space on the main floor. It has two fire places (squee!), a master bathroom with two sinks and a nice big tub, walk in closet in the master (double squee!), not one but TWO pantry areas in the kitchen (our pantry is currently in the basement so this is a huge improvement). The bedrooms are all decent sized and have good sized closets. The yard is nice, it has a great big patio, 3 car garage (we currently have a one car garage). One other thing that is cool considering the number of children that we have is that the hall bath upstairs has a separate area with a door for the toilet. So someone can be going to the bathroom in private and someone else can still use the sink/mirror area (it also has two sinks).
So, we shall see! It's very exciting though. If we get it we will most likely pay somebody to remove wallpaper and do the painting before we move in. No idea how much something like that costs but I just don't think we have room on our plates do take on a project like that at this time. The basement and all that will just have to wait.
Ben had his 4 month check up. He weighed 9 lbs 7 ounces. He is gaining slowly but surely. I was pretty nervous about his weight gain, but his doctor was very encouraging and thinks he is doing great! She was very surprised that he is socially smiling (he has been for a couple weeks now!) and said he is doing great with his head control too. The only thing she said is that his head is a little oblong, which is very common in preemies, and that the more we can keep him off of it the better. I think his head might be part of the reason he doesn't like the carseat so much, because it thrusts his head forward. When he lies on his back his head normally tilts to one side or the other, again I think because it is uncomfortable to be just straight on his head. He doesn't have any flat spots though so that is good too.
Brian tried to contact bio mom on Facebook to let her know we wouldn't be making a trip down to visit her but that she is welcome to come visit the kids. The message came back; it appears she has again deleted her facebook. She never said anything to me about receiving the package of stuff I sent her or saying "thank you" or anything. So, that would have been nice but I don't know why I was even expecting anything. I wonder if she was disappointed with what I sent, but if she was then I guess oh well. I know that I do need to do a better job of getting pictures at events, like birthdays and things like that. So I will just try to do better going forward I guess! I'm done reaching out to her though; if she wants to contact me she knows how to do it.
Anyway, he went and saw it that day, and I went and saw it the next day, and I think we decided to make an offer! It's a foreclosure so it's in rough shape, but the good news is we have savings, a giant tax return coming at some point (hopefully soon), plus a nice bit of equity in our current home. It's within 4 blocks of a middle school, high school, AND elementary school which is awesome. How sweet will it be just to walk to school or once the kids are older let them walk themselves? And for them to be able to walk home from all their sports practices and activities after school? Yeah! And price wise it will get us into a very nice neighborhood which we normally wouldn't be able to afford. For an example, the home two doors down (not a foreclosure) is on the market for $90,000 more than this home is on the market.
The house isn't in awful shape, but it is dirty and everything needs a fresh coat of paint. There is some pretty awful wallpaper throughout it, namely in the kitchen and living area. I am just sooo not a fan of wallpaper! The carpet is really dirty, we are going to try to clean it and if that doesn't work then we'll have to get new carpet. If it does get clean, some of the carpet will have to be restretched. The basement finish was pretty poorly done, probably most of it will have to be taken out and redone (but the bright side is that we can change the layout). It has 4 bedrooms on the 2nd floor and is way way bigger than our current home. One thing I think is weird is that there are two "living rooms" on the main floor. I know this is common in nicer homes but...it makes no sense to me, I just don't see the point!! We're already thinking about how/if we can make the kitchen bigger by utlizing some of the other space on the main floor. It has two fire places (squee!), a master bathroom with two sinks and a nice big tub, walk in closet in the master (double squee!), not one but TWO pantry areas in the kitchen (our pantry is currently in the basement so this is a huge improvement). The bedrooms are all decent sized and have good sized closets. The yard is nice, it has a great big patio, 3 car garage (we currently have a one car garage). One other thing that is cool considering the number of children that we have is that the hall bath upstairs has a separate area with a door for the toilet. So someone can be going to the bathroom in private and someone else can still use the sink/mirror area (it also has two sinks).
So, we shall see! It's very exciting though. If we get it we will most likely pay somebody to remove wallpaper and do the painting before we move in. No idea how much something like that costs but I just don't think we have room on our plates do take on a project like that at this time. The basement and all that will just have to wait.
Ben had his 4 month check up. He weighed 9 lbs 7 ounces. He is gaining slowly but surely. I was pretty nervous about his weight gain, but his doctor was very encouraging and thinks he is doing great! She was very surprised that he is socially smiling (he has been for a couple weeks now!) and said he is doing great with his head control too. The only thing she said is that his head is a little oblong, which is very common in preemies, and that the more we can keep him off of it the better. I think his head might be part of the reason he doesn't like the carseat so much, because it thrusts his head forward. When he lies on his back his head normally tilts to one side or the other, again I think because it is uncomfortable to be just straight on his head. He doesn't have any flat spots though so that is good too.
Brian tried to contact bio mom on Facebook to let her know we wouldn't be making a trip down to visit her but that she is welcome to come visit the kids. The message came back; it appears she has again deleted her facebook. She never said anything to me about receiving the package of stuff I sent her or saying "thank you" or anything. So, that would have been nice but I don't know why I was even expecting anything. I wonder if she was disappointed with what I sent, but if she was then I guess oh well. I know that I do need to do a better job of getting pictures at events, like birthdays and things like that. So I will just try to do better going forward I guess! I'm done reaching out to her though; if she wants to contact me she knows how to do it.
Hope everything works out with the new house,it would be so nice for your family:)
ReplyDelete