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So in May - we found our house! What a whirlwind it took to get to this place. wow. We knew we wanted this house to be "the" house - the house our kids grow up in and we retire in. Of course, if that is what the Lord has in store for us in this house. Things can change quickly (Ohio, anyone?). So we were VERY picky about looking at houses. After 3 months of looking and finding nothing, we decided to get a bit looser in our qualifications - just to see what was out there. Well, we found a house (in my #1 neighborhood) that was nothing like we had envisioned. From the start, we were always in agreement the dream would be a big open ranch with a basement on a decent size yard in an established neighborhood (big old trees, and not cookie cutter houses). Try finding that in Raleigh. ha! Anyway, the house we were looking at was not a ranch, no basement, but did have a big yard! 1 for 3. On our third showing to see the house and talk about renovation plans, we had decided to take the Memorial Day weekend to think about it, then probably put in an offer the next week. Apparently, that is NOT what God wanted us to do because He sent a lovely email in the form of FM Realty house alert to our inbox that Friday.

On paper it almost met all of our criteria. It wasn't in my favorite area (at the time), but it was Ryan's #1 neighborhood so we decided we would always wonder if we didn't go look at it. The rest doesn't take too long to type - it went something like this: we looked at it, oh man, this could be it, went home and thought about it, prayed about it, crunched some numbers, had parents to look at it with us a second time, put in an offer. Boom! First day on the market and they got an offer - how nice, right? They had tried to sell off and on for about 2 years so we got some extra goodies out of their eagerness to sell quickly this time. Anyway, we haven't regretted one thing. It is wonderful.  I'm so thankful for our house. I love it. I love my kids running through it. I love that we moved right in but have YEARS worth of updates and additions we can do to it to make it "ours." I love our neighborhood -oh man, could talk for days at how wonderful it is living here. I L.O.V.E our yard. I could go on and on but all anybody wants is to see a picture for pete's sake. So.....

Home sweet home. We love the curb presence of the house - not over the top, not extravagant, not out of place. It looks cute and sweet, but it is deceiving! In fact, when we pulled up the first time to walk through the house, we thought "no way this is going to work - the sq footage must be wrong!" Then we walked around to the back yard and saw the beauty of the house!

Now, just imagine painted shutters (they are currently down waiting to be painted), a new, craftsman style front door - also painted a fun accent color, and a welcoming craftsman porch with big pillar columns. aaaahhhhh. And if Ryan has his way, some stone facade on the jut out over to the left. All in the next 30 years...

  

Saving my pennies to replace the Entry door and Sidelights. Can't wait to switch this out!

 

Walking in the front door you can see parts of 4 rooms. We LOVE how open it is. You can see the Kitchen to your right, the riving room with the stone fireplace, the dining room to the right of that and the family room/sunroom over in the far right corner.

 

 

 

The Kitchen is very nice. Way nice. They completely re-did the kitchen in nice, expensive stuff - like imported granite, custom wood cabinets, upgraded appliances...of course nothing that I would have chosen, nor my style. And since it is made with such nice materials....I can't touch it. ha. So, we will just make it work with some decorations and such. It is a great size for me - not too big because let's keep it honest here - I'm no Julia Childs - and not too small with kids running thru it all.day.long.

 

The only thing I can tell you to imagine in here is better curtains, probably a fun paint color and some type of back splash. When you walk in the kitchen, directly to your right, is an open area under a window. We are going  to add a built in bench to put a kitchen table there. We are currently eating in our dining room because we sold our old table up in Ohio (outgrew it!). I'm in love with my window bench plans - what a warm place to do homework, have breakfast...just the 5 of us....love!

 

 

 

 

On to the living room. It is a great room with lots of character that we are working on "refining" I shall say :) This fireplace is trying to defeat me in an epic battle we have going on. It is a mixture of real river rock and manufactured concrete to look like river rock. Strangeness! Anyway, the fireplace (and rest of the house) is a bit too "santa fe" / dessert feel for me so I had grand plans in my head to modernize the fireplace a bit. This is what I will say: it doesn't look like the picture below anymore and it is FAR from the picture in my head. I'm currently stumped at what to do next and devastated that it is not in a condition to decorate for fall....oh, the horror!....more to come. :)

 



 

This room also has built in bookshelves screaming for good decorations. I look forward to getting it fancified. The floors are so great. Wide hardwoods. If I had my way, I would have stained them a darker brown before moving in...but with three kids - that project is just going to wait until we are done throwing toys, driving metal trucks across rooms, spitting up and potty training :) 

 

 

The Kitchen also opens up to the dining room - which is really just one big open space that overlooks a step down to the family room/sunroom. That family room is the money room. I really can't tell you how much we love it. We hardly ever turn lights on because it is so open and filled with light. It overlooks our wooded backyard which is beautiful to look out over and our choi pond. If you lay on the couch you can hear the waterfall in the choi pond. Curl up with a blanket, hot coffee and the sound of a waterfall....eureka. That is my official nap spot.  I am currently experiencing paint-color-paralysis in this room and do not know what in the world to do about it...so I just stop thinking about it and refuse to make a decision :)

 

 

 

 

 

If you walk to the left of the fireplace room, there is another room they added on at some point. We call it "toy zone." It houses our toys and our computer desk. This picture is from our walk thru so it still has their furniture in it. Trust me when I say it looks quite a bit different now :) Imagine not being able to see any carpet from the piles of toys and 456 puzzle pieces thrown all around. 

 

 

 

 

Our hall bath is a head scratcher. It has two doors as you can see below. And not just two sinks...two vanities! So, we are so welcoming to guest, we give you an option on where to wash your hands in our bathroom. ha! Obviously, we have plans to make sense of this bathroom, but that will be later after the kids have need for a bathroom that makes sense.

 

 

 

 

Our basement right now is a bedroom, walk in storage closet area and full bathroom. It functions nicely as a place for guest to stay. It is all sorts of decade confusion. We have brass, dark wood, light wood, brushed nickel...oh my, you name it. We have big, BIG plans for this space to bust out two walls (it is a walk out basement) and expand the area to be a big bonus room (for three teenagers one day and their friends) and keep a bathroom/bedroom/guest suite. We love the vision of being able to host small groups and gatherings with a place for the kids to go and have plenty of room to spread out.

 

 

We were so excited to walk in our Master bathroom and see that the shower has been remodeled! And the hilarious part is that it is almost exactly like the bathroom Ryan redid in our Erinsbrook house. Whew - checked off the list - no bathroom shower remodel needed!

 

 

 

And now, the yard. This, my friends, truly is our yard. The pictures are a mix of MLS and our cameras. We have beautiful landscaping that we are trying to keep up with and not kill!, a choi pond with double waterfall, 4 big choi and about 8-10 smaller goldfish, old, HUGE hardwoods and a bridge over the creek!

The kids love feeding the fish - thankfully, we do not have to do it regularly for them to survive. They eat the algae or scum or something in the pond. The food is a treat for them and us! The owner before us personally built it and apparently it was his baby. He did a great job and has it decked out in nice features, pumps and filters. It has been quite the learning curve for Ryan, but I think he has figured it out now. He has become quite educated in choi ponds:)

 

The decking is pretty phenomenal too. It needs a lot of work - imagine it all pressure washed, cleaned up and stained something else besides the horrible red/brown! ugh.  And I'm currently working on the door trim and outside light fixtures. HAD to go...had to go.

 

 

Thank you, Lord for our house!