When we bought our last house in 2003 I said I would not move again. When I was pregnant with the boys it was discussed that we needed a bigger house than 3,000 sq ft to raise four kids; I quickly nixed the idea as I was too big to even consider moving.
Just as we finished one of the major projects in the house (converting a formal living into an office), I happened to be checking out zillow.com and found a 5 bedroom just down the street. The only way I would move is if the layout was perfect for our family and the kids could stay in the same schools.
We went and checked it out and both Mike and I loved it. It had a three car garage, plenty of room for all including the growing boys and Lauren and her friends for many years to come.
After a long discussion and a second look we made an offer and it was accepted. We decided that we were not going to try to sell our house until we moved. Our agent advised that there were a couple families wanting to look at our house, so we did two informal viewings and on the second appt we had an offer for more than we had asked.
The rest is history. I won't say that both sales went without some drama, but it was a pretty easy transaction for both houses.
We closed on this house on the 14th of June and moved ourselves over the weekend and had movers on Monday (my birthday) to move the big stuff. We continued to move ourselves for the next 5 days. We worked from 7 a.m. until 10:00 each night from the day of closing. A family of 6 has a lot of stuff! ;-) I don't consider myself a pack rat and purge twice a year so I'm not sure where all this "stuff" came from.
Here are some pics that I took today (minus the outside shot - that was when our offer was accepted).
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| yeah the pic is crooked...turn your head to the left just a bit |
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| This is the current view when you walk in...the box right in the middle of the way is typical right now. |
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| The office is to the right of the door. |
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| Living room |
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| My so spacious laundry/mud room! |
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| Upstairs playarea/game room. |
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| The media room! |
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| My view from the backyard. |
There are some nice features in this house but I was not prepared for "little" things to go wrong once we moved in. Mike calls them little things, but there have been many little things lately (one of them being the $2k dishwasher that leaks that the home inspector didn't find) and a couple days ago I had a defeatist attitude. I'm back to normal again and ready to tackle the "little" challenges this house may present.
