All moved in!

We finally signed all the papers on July 24th and got our keys the same day. I think we both were in shock for a few days and I'm not sure it will really sink in until our first house payment is due in September. The house is looking more like home and is mostly unpacked. The garage is the next project because it's a jumbled mess. Most of what's in the garage is doll stuff from when I was a kid, things I need to sell or baby stuff. Ken's going to put up shelves in the back of the garage so we can get most of the mess off the floor and eventually get my car inside.

The first weekend we were in the house we painted, well Ken painted more than me. We decided it would be easier to paint the kitchen and living room before we moved in. We also started moving boxes over from our garage at the apartment. We were really lucky to have so many people to help us move the rest in on August 1st. Now we're just waiting to get the blinds ordered and installed and the stairwell and hall upstairs painted by the professionals. Ken doesn't want to attempt the 20 ft ceiling and stairs. I don't blame him.

Here are some pictures of downstairs. I'll post pictures of upstairs in awhile.

Moving in with the essentials, including toilet paper.

The living room and kitchen.

Kitchen

The view from the kitchen to the living room.

The house is almost done!

The house is almost done! We only have 4 weeks and 4 days to go until we should close escrow. In the last 3 weeks the house has gone from being drywalled, to textured and painted. The doors were all put in and the vanities in the bathrooms. All of our gorgeous cabinets went in all 3 bathrooms and the kitchen. The cultured marble countertops went in the bathrooms and our tile counters went in. We were really surprised to find that our cabinets were so dark. We don't remember during the design center appointment them being darker wood. It looks so nice though! Who knows if it was their mistake or not, but we're not saying anything.

Last week they poured the cement for the driveway, the walkway, porch and at the foot of the doors in the backyard. Oh, and the house was painted about a week and half ago. It's beige with white trim and has a dark green door. Can you tell I'm in love with my house? We're so ready to leave this apartment, but it's always a little bittersweet to leave any home, no matter the size.

June 11th

The port-o-potty was still in front of our house!

Smelly and it had a pin up girl inside of it!

We found this lovely drawing on our master bedroom wall a couple week ago.

Thankfully, it was painted over about a week later.

June 21st

It's painted!

Our huge kitchen. I can't wait to fill it up!

The cabinets are so high I will need a stool to reach anything above the 3rd shelf.

9 inch deep sinks

Double sinks in master bathroom. They are higher counters too!

The view across the street from the 2nd bedroom.

June 28th

House Updates & Family

The house is coming along really well. In the last two weeks they put in the door frame on our master bathroom. It was supposed to be an open arch, but with Ken's schedule there was going to be no way that we could make it work without a door. They also put the plumbing in the master bathroom for our double sinks. This week they put in all the drywall in the house. It looks so closed in now and smaller than when it was just framed, but it's looking more like a house. The canned lighting went in the kitchen. Luckily, we will have smaller lights throughout the kitchen rather than one bigger one. Ken was excited to see that his surround sound pre-wire was done too. Here are some pictures:

The doorway to our Master bedroom.

One of the pre-wires for surround sound.

The archway coming into the living room from the front door.

In the laundry room I noticed a carved out hole in the ceiling. It looks like that will be an opening into the attic. There's a light switch up there. I never thought I'd be so excited to see attic space but with 2 bedrooms and the 2nd one with a small closet I was happy to see more storage space.

This was on the ceiling in the 2nd bedroom. Evidently this drywall was supposed to be on a wall with a door. Hmmm...

No Trespassing!!!

It's becoming a weekly event to walk through the house every Sunday after church. The house is still progressing quickly. The builder says that it will still be done around July 31st. Last week they added walls upstairs, so it wasn't just framing upstairs. I think it was a week and half ago that they put all the windows in. I realized there were a few more than 10 windows to cover with blinds. It turns out its about 16 windows. They also started putting in insulation.

May 15th -

The view of our master bedroom before they closed it in.

Last week I couldn't wait until Sunday to drive by for a look and noticed that they had put up a "No Trespassing" sign in one of the windows. I guess they are on to us. It won't stop us from going in. We'll just continue to go in on Sundays when they aren't working ;)

Today we went to go take a look and there were quite a few things that they did this week. They put in the piping for our water system, continued with insulation, put in air conditioning vents, and started putting on the tile roof. We also noticed they put our bathtub/ shower in. The bathtub/ shower for the baby's room is in a box in the 2nd bedroom. It should be in by the next time we go see.

May 24th -

This is our Smart Design Water System. If we ever have water problems we can turn off that specific pipe. It's supposed to make the water warm up faster.

Air Conditioning Ducts

Home Sweet Home

The new house is being built really quickly. I guess it was originally supposed to be done in September, but the builder decided to get them done in July. They are still telling us it will be around July 31st before we can move in. Actually the timing has been perfect. We were excited to hear that it would take that long because our lease at the apartment is up on August 1st and it will give us a few more months of savings in our pockets. It's been really fun to walk to the house from our apartment or drive-by after work. We've become stalkers of the house progress.

On May 1st it was just a foundation. This was the house on May 2nd.

And this was the house on Friday, May 8th:

As you can see the 1st and 2nd floor has been framed. We found out on Saturday that our backyard is bigger than the standard lot. The standard lot for our floorplan would have given us 10 feet from the back of the house to the fence for our backyard. We will have 25 feet. We were really excited, even though that means we'll have to buy more grass and pour more cement. It will be a great selling point in 5 years when it comes times to sell.

Here's a picture of what it will look like when it's finished:

We don't know what the color will be, but our house is the reverse version of this one and has more of an arch on some windows and on the porch arches.

My parents will be into their house 4 blocks away in 2 weeks. It's been fun and exhausting to walk the aisles at Lowes looking at blinds, lawnmowers, fans and refridgerators. The house has been such a great distraction for me. I'm so thankful that we will finally be homeowners in July.

This picture was taken from where our fence will be. The hole in wall is the kitchen window where I'll watch my babies play in the backyard.



The view from my parents upstairs front bedroom. You can see our house right now being built, but in a month or so there will be another row of houses that will block our house some.

We bought a brand new house!!!!

This post is going to be much for upbeat than the last couple have been. It's been a great distraction. Thank goodness!

We have been saving for quite a while to buy a house. The plan was to wait until the end the summer or the fall to buy so that we would have a bigger savings. With the Federal and State rebates going on and a new Schools program to cover our down payment we had more options.

We took at look at the Beazer homes just about a mile from our apartment a few months ago and really liked them, but the ones we could afford were townhomes and we really wanted a yard. A week ago today, my parents bought a house in that community and after hearing that one of the Cottages, they have a small backyard, had been reduced by $20,000 we became interested again. Unfortunately, by Tuesday evening when we went to walk through the house again, the one that had been reduced had been sold. The good news was that they had just started building another one of that model and it would be ready in July. We were happy that the house wouldn't be ready for another 3 months, so we would have 3 months more of savings in our pockets before closing. This house wasn't reduced, so with the help of the Beazer people they told us to low ball the offer and we'd meet somewhere in between. We ended up paying $20,000 under the list price, will get $2,000 in options towards upgrades, and Beazer is paying all of our closing costs. That added to all the rebates made it so that we would have our down payment and closing costs covered with nothing out of pocket unless we want to lower our monthly payments. We never thought we would be buying a brand new home for our first home, but we're really excited to watch it be built and to have input on upgrades. The nicest part about this community is that they have a really nice park (located across the street from my parents), movie nights in the park every month, farmer's market, lighting of the Christmas and pictures with Santa. We will be living 4 blocks from my parents house which I think will be really fun.

For the hour after we accepted the counter offer from the builder I was excited, but also nervous. I guess it would be weird if I wasn't since this is such a huge decision. I never regretted saying yes to buying the house, it's just a new phase in our lives which is scary and it is a lot of money. I'll attach a picture of the floorplan. It's a 2 bedroom, 2.5 baths, and it's almost 1300 square feet. We're looking forward to saying goodbye to this itty bitty apartment in 3 months!