Our (prospective) new house

We’ve been holding our breaths on this one, hoping and praying that all would work out…and it appears to be!  We are getting close to the closing (moving all our stuff this weekend!).  It is going to be busier than normal around here for a while as we move and settle in. 

We’re very excited!  I have to say that once we found this place, a lot of my sadness at leaving our current much-loved home was mediated.  I think a lot of that was just that leaving felt so much like an ending, and now it feels like a beginning too which makes it much easier to embrace.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but it does in my head.  :)

The lot is 4.5 acres, mostly wooded, but with one huge grassy area close to the house (for kids to play/garden!)  Lots of mature trees, lots of flower gardens to potter about in, a couple of small outbuildings, and a chicken coop!!  Yay!

The house itself was built in the 1990s, so considerably newer than our existing house.  The outside of the house is a colonial style which I’m really happy about (we looked at sooo many homes that were simply hideous on the outside!).  It looks very similar to this (though the colors are different):

The house hits all of our “must haves”…4+ bedrooms, finished basement, not requiring a lot of work, 2+ acres, and a floorplan with good flow.  It will need some updating (still stuck in the 90s/early 2000s) but as far as we know that will all be cosmetic.  After doing lots of extensive remodeling on our current home, it is really nice to know we won’t be remodeling constantly for the next 10 years to get the house the way we want it! 

Now, that’s not to say I/we don’t have plans to turn this builder grade home into something a little more special.  :)

See?  Very orange…ugly vinyl floor…and those lights on the vanity have.to.go!!  But, everything is in great shape, and has the space we are looking for.  It will be rather strange to go from 1500 square feet to 2700 square feet!  But nice to not have to juggle the 9 mos old from room to room for naps/bedtime.  This will be the nursery:

Again, not my style (yet)…and the floor looks really dark and just bad here—it is actually brand new carpeting and not that dark IRL.  It is a small room but is next to the master bedroom so is a perfect nursery. 

This is the kitchen.  I love how open it is to the dining area (this picture was taken from the dining area).  And, dining area below:

I was trying to take these pictures really fast as we were walking through showing my in-laws the house last Sunday.  Hence the crooked, dark photos.  :)

Right off the kitchen/dining area is something that I just love.   It is a sunroom/4 season porch.  I’m really excited about it!  It has a gas fireplace out there and lots of screened windows and doors.  I can just imagine sitting out there on summer evenings when the mosquitoes are bad outside with the breeze blowing in through the windows and doors.  Eventually I would like to extend the deck area outside to make it even more usable. 

Another favorite thing about this house (upstairs):

The master bedroom closet.  Seriously, it is bigger than our largest bathroom at our current house.  I feel actually a little embarrassed about this as we certainly weren’t setting out to find a “luxury” master bedroom by any means.  I would have been happy to find something the size of our modest current bedroom and closet.  However, now we have both a big closet (with a window…how interesting!) and a big bathroom attached.  It’s not what sold us the house (um, that would be the backyard!) but it is a nice perk!

I’m planning to take more pictures as we move, but I think this is enough for today.  It may be kind of like vacation pictures…the vacation-goer loves to show their pictures, but to the viewees, it can get kind of old!