I wanted to update you on the progress thus far. We can not do anything until closing date on May 7th, but are in the process of getting supplies for the kid's rooms. Each of the kids have their own space and we told them they could tell me how they want it decorated and I would do it for them the two weeks following closing date.
Loralei's design: Very light purple walls (she doesn't have any windows in her room). She also wants a silver-leafed ceiling (wowza lol). The furniture in her room will be all black. There will be a lot of mirrors in her room and I am going to give her a feature "Jewelry wall" as a surprise :) So far I have gotten lots of things to hang jewelry on and lots of shelves and such. I got her a headboard from the thrift store for only $6! It was black and I am going to tuft the two square portions of it with a lavendar velvet material and crystal buttons. I have the material and buttons already - waiting on purchasing the foam and batting for the tufting and I will be able to start that project.
Alexis's design: She has requested hot pink walls with glitter on them! I looked into this and Valspar makes a glitter additive for paint now. I am going to paint the walls with a hot pink matte paint and then take a clear paint and add the glitter to it and put that on top of the pink. All of her furniture is going to be white. I got her a toddler bed at the thrift store for only $20. I have a ton of shelving and decor for her as well I have collected from the thrift stores. I want to get in there and paint and set up the room to see what I have room for. She loves to dress up so I was thinking of a dress up station or a stage...not sure about the play corner. I of course will have her play kitchen in there :)
Gavin's design: He wants the epic boy's room with sports/biking/skateboarding theme? haha. So, he will have one wall be bright red (the one his bed will be on) and the other walls will be grey. He will be keeping his current furniture because it works with what we are doing. I have been given street signs to hang in his room - they are pretty neat. I just need his curtains and comforter and his room will be ready to go :)
Next post i will put up before pictures and then some inspiration photos for the girls rooms.....
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Friday, April 20, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
New home!!!!
Well, I thought this day would never come! The day when we finally are purchasing our new home! This will be our first home we have ever purchased and the only home we will ever purchase. Our plans are to stay in this home for a very long time! The process has been interesting and we will get to that in a moment, but my excitement has been so much more than the stress it has caused. I am so ready to finally move in and so ready to finally start designing and decorating the house! I have my projects lined up and my ideas on paper - now I just need to start them!
So, to give you a little back story on this whole process. We have been looking for a house for almost a year now. We (my husband and I) figured if we are going to purchase a home we want it to be everything we want it to be - nothing less. We wrote up our list of "must haves" and started the search. The list started out, however, much differently than it ended ironically enough. This is mostly due to the fact that as we searched for a home we would see things we liked about one home, but didn't like in another one and started to add to and take away from our list to make it what it ended up being. We figured we had time on our side (we rent) and didn't feel pressured to move in any particular time period. I would suggest for anyone to do it this way. When you are not forced to move in a month or 3 - it is so much easier to be picky and to ask for things you wouldn't normally think you could ask for in a home. Our list started out like this: end unit townhouse, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, hardwoods, screened in porch, in Cary school district. We looked at pre-existing homes for a bit, but in the back of my mind I wanted a single family home - however hubs didn't :) So, I wanted to let the man of the house (seeing he is the one that pays the bills) make the final decision. About 5 months into the process we started to look at a new construction town home. During this process we have prayed that God would open the doors and close the doors perfectly so that we are continuously in his will. We might have our list, but we want what is on God's list and nothing less or more! We put an offer on the townhouse - they accepted we went in to do the financing and God closed the door - on the companies end - not ours. So we took that as God saying - this is not my will. We moved on - continued to look and then we got new neighbors (funny how God works). Our new neighbors were very loud and very obnoxiousness! That made Chris change his mind about purchasing a town home and it put us in the single family home department - yay for me! :) We continued the search - would periodically find a house we liked, but something always made the door slam close....either someone would have just put an offer on the house, or it would have issues we did not want to deal with. All along the way we continued to change our list and mold it more and more. Finally - our eldest daughter (we have three kids) who is 13 told us she would like her own room (what child doesn't want their own room lol) and that her reason was because she wanted to live with us while in college until she married - apparently lol. So, once again - another change in the line-up. At some point I decided I wanted chickens too (don't ask - I just love farm life lol). So, that changed things a bit as well. We also were ok with being outside our kid's school district. Homes would come on the market - we would be interested - the door would slam shut. Right when we were ready to give up (doesn't God work like this?) it happened. I was doing my daily check of the market to see what had been placed on the market for that day and it was sitting there saying to me - I am your house :)
It was a Friday morning. The house had literally listed just moments (minutes) before I saw it on the listing sight and I feel in love with it immediately. Now, our must haves list had morphed into something a little odd to most - we wanted: ranch style home - basement - 4 bedrooms, 2+ bathrooms - enough land to have a garden and chickens - hardwoods (due to allergy issues) - updated roof, hvac and water heater. The house that hit had all those things - except it was listed as a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom with a full finished basement. Well, I figured - the girls can share a room lol. We asked for more info on the home to be sent to us and in the info was a floor plan. It showed the three bedrooms, but it also showed an "office" room!!!! What is this....our much wanted fourth bedroom maybe? We placed a showing on it for that afternoon at 5pm. When we arrived to the home - it was just as beautiful in person as it was on the website. There it was - a ranch style home, full finished basement - hardwoods in every single room (except the second bedroom). The upstairs (ground level) had the kitchen, living, dining rooms, master bedroom with a HUGE walk-in closet, master bathroom, second bedroom and guest bathroom. It also had a 1 car garage.....bonus in our eyes :). The basement had a third bedroom, the office (which will be our fourth bedroom), 3rd bathroom, bonus room with a really AWESOME bar and kitchen! It also had an aquarium built into the wall lol. How cool is that? The plot of land is a half of an acre large....large lot! We both went home that night thinking - we saw it - that was it! It was the house of our dreams. It was everything we could ever want and more! We went back on Saturday for a second showing (Friday and Saturday had 5 other showings besides ours - so other people loved the house too) and brought my father to "inspect" the house....he is good with houses and he would be able to tell us if it was sound or not. We placed an offer that day! What an exciting thing to do! We then waited....that was the hardest part....the waiting. Sunday afternoon it was complete and official - the offer/counteroffer was accepted and we were going to be the owners of this amazing house! Monday was our home inspection.....it came back with almost $2k in electrical issues that needed to be fixed - ugh.....we asked the sellers to take care of it and they ACCEPTED! How cool! Then the radon inspection came back on Wednesday......radon level of 13.9! Eck......that is crazy! We asked them to get the house mitigated around $2.5k in work.....they ACCEPTED! Wow....God is giving us favor and even better he is making sure the house is ready for us :) We had a pest inspection - all good (except for a few carpenter bees in the deck we can take care of ourselves), the HVAC inspection - they are taking care of the repairs on that as well and a mold inspection which came back perfect :) I would suggest to any potential home buyer....these inspections might be expensive, but they are good to give you a peace of mind in your home purchase (the biggest purchase of your life) and you never know what might come up! The radon inspection wasn't necessary, but we did it anyways and are glad we did. Do your due diligence buyers and don't be afraid to ask the sellers to fix it - most of the time their agents prepare them for things they will need to take care of and always ask for the (in the purchase offer) seller to provide a buyers 1 year warranty. This will cover anything that breaks in the home for the first year you own it...another thing that gives you peace of mind!
So, here we are - on the backside of the inspections, offer and process and now are just waiting on the financing to finish on it - which will be fine (we are all good in the money department). Our closing date is scheduled for May 7th and I have already packed up half our house :) The decorating design ideas are on paper and I am ready to start executing the projects and process of getting them ready :)
This is when the fun part begins!
23 days till closing date.
So, to give you a little back story on this whole process. We have been looking for a house for almost a year now. We (my husband and I) figured if we are going to purchase a home we want it to be everything we want it to be - nothing less. We wrote up our list of "must haves" and started the search. The list started out, however, much differently than it ended ironically enough. This is mostly due to the fact that as we searched for a home we would see things we liked about one home, but didn't like in another one and started to add to and take away from our list to make it what it ended up being. We figured we had time on our side (we rent) and didn't feel pressured to move in any particular time period. I would suggest for anyone to do it this way. When you are not forced to move in a month or 3 - it is so much easier to be picky and to ask for things you wouldn't normally think you could ask for in a home. Our list started out like this: end unit townhouse, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, hardwoods, screened in porch, in Cary school district. We looked at pre-existing homes for a bit, but in the back of my mind I wanted a single family home - however hubs didn't :) So, I wanted to let the man of the house (seeing he is the one that pays the bills) make the final decision. About 5 months into the process we started to look at a new construction town home. During this process we have prayed that God would open the doors and close the doors perfectly so that we are continuously in his will. We might have our list, but we want what is on God's list and nothing less or more! We put an offer on the townhouse - they accepted we went in to do the financing and God closed the door - on the companies end - not ours. So we took that as God saying - this is not my will. We moved on - continued to look and then we got new neighbors (funny how God works). Our new neighbors were very loud and very obnoxiousness! That made Chris change his mind about purchasing a town home and it put us in the single family home department - yay for me! :) We continued the search - would periodically find a house we liked, but something always made the door slam close....either someone would have just put an offer on the house, or it would have issues we did not want to deal with. All along the way we continued to change our list and mold it more and more. Finally - our eldest daughter (we have three kids) who is 13 told us she would like her own room (what child doesn't want their own room lol) and that her reason was because she wanted to live with us while in college until she married - apparently lol. So, once again - another change in the line-up. At some point I decided I wanted chickens too (don't ask - I just love farm life lol). So, that changed things a bit as well. We also were ok with being outside our kid's school district. Homes would come on the market - we would be interested - the door would slam shut. Right when we were ready to give up (doesn't God work like this?) it happened. I was doing my daily check of the market to see what had been placed on the market for that day and it was sitting there saying to me - I am your house :)
It was a Friday morning. The house had literally listed just moments (minutes) before I saw it on the listing sight and I feel in love with it immediately. Now, our must haves list had morphed into something a little odd to most - we wanted: ranch style home - basement - 4 bedrooms, 2+ bathrooms - enough land to have a garden and chickens - hardwoods (due to allergy issues) - updated roof, hvac and water heater. The house that hit had all those things - except it was listed as a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom with a full finished basement. Well, I figured - the girls can share a room lol. We asked for more info on the home to be sent to us and in the info was a floor plan. It showed the three bedrooms, but it also showed an "office" room!!!! What is this....our much wanted fourth bedroom maybe? We placed a showing on it for that afternoon at 5pm. When we arrived to the home - it was just as beautiful in person as it was on the website. There it was - a ranch style home, full finished basement - hardwoods in every single room (except the second bedroom). The upstairs (ground level) had the kitchen, living, dining rooms, master bedroom with a HUGE walk-in closet, master bathroom, second bedroom and guest bathroom. It also had a 1 car garage.....bonus in our eyes :). The basement had a third bedroom, the office (which will be our fourth bedroom), 3rd bathroom, bonus room with a really AWESOME bar and kitchen! It also had an aquarium built into the wall lol. How cool is that? The plot of land is a half of an acre large....large lot! We both went home that night thinking - we saw it - that was it! It was the house of our dreams. It was everything we could ever want and more! We went back on Saturday for a second showing (Friday and Saturday had 5 other showings besides ours - so other people loved the house too) and brought my father to "inspect" the house....he is good with houses and he would be able to tell us if it was sound or not. We placed an offer that day! What an exciting thing to do! We then waited....that was the hardest part....the waiting. Sunday afternoon it was complete and official - the offer/counteroffer was accepted and we were going to be the owners of this amazing house! Monday was our home inspection.....it came back with almost $2k in electrical issues that needed to be fixed - ugh.....we asked the sellers to take care of it and they ACCEPTED! How cool! Then the radon inspection came back on Wednesday......radon level of 13.9! Eck......that is crazy! We asked them to get the house mitigated around $2.5k in work.....they ACCEPTED! Wow....God is giving us favor and even better he is making sure the house is ready for us :) We had a pest inspection - all good (except for a few carpenter bees in the deck we can take care of ourselves), the HVAC inspection - they are taking care of the repairs on that as well and a mold inspection which came back perfect :) I would suggest to any potential home buyer....these inspections might be expensive, but they are good to give you a peace of mind in your home purchase (the biggest purchase of your life) and you never know what might come up! The radon inspection wasn't necessary, but we did it anyways and are glad we did. Do your due diligence buyers and don't be afraid to ask the sellers to fix it - most of the time their agents prepare them for things they will need to take care of and always ask for the (in the purchase offer) seller to provide a buyers 1 year warranty. This will cover anything that breaks in the home for the first year you own it...another thing that gives you peace of mind!
So, here we are - on the backside of the inspections, offer and process and now are just waiting on the financing to finish on it - which will be fine (we are all good in the money department). Our closing date is scheduled for May 7th and I have already packed up half our house :) The decorating design ideas are on paper and I am ready to start executing the projects and process of getting them ready :)
This is when the fun part begins!
23 days till closing date.
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