Our House

So, this is our house. We told our realtor that we really wanted to find a house on that trip to Rochester so we would like him to schedule us to see lots of houses the first few days. On the first day we ended up seeing 13 houses. We had several more appointments scheduled for the next day, but decided that none of the MLS listings of houses we had appointments for on that second day seemed to compare with our top choice houses we had seen on the first day. So, that next morning we went for a second look at our top two choices, and we decided on our first choice house and made an offer on it that afternoon. Since we only had one week in Rochester and wanted to get as much done as possible while we were there, we offered the sellers $8,000 less than the asking price, hoping that they would think that was a reasonable offer and accept it without having to counter-offer back and forth for days. They came back with a counter offer $1,500 higher than our offer, and we accepted. We had the inspection at the end of the week, and were pleased that the inspector only found minor things that we could fix without much effort or cost. In fact, our realtor told us that this was only the second house in his entire career that didn’t have any items in the “defective” category on the inspector’s report. So, we are still waiting to close on the house, but as long as everything goes well between now and then, we will have a house. We are so excited. The night that we made the offer on the house, I stayed up late and made three lists: a list of improvements that we want to make to the house, a list of tools and materials that we will need, and a list of furniture, appliances, curtains, etc. We are very pleased that we found a house that has lots of fun little projects that we can do together, but it doesn’t need any major work in order to be move-in ready. And I am glad that Michael seems as interested and excited as I am to do those projects, and that I think that we will hopefully be able to complete all (or at least most) of the projects on our list in the next few years. Now we keep saying we really wish our families and friends could come out and see the house, but I guess these pictures will have to do for now. But, you know, you all have an open-ended invitation for free room and board now (we will even have a room that we plan to use as a craft room/office/guest room). And our house is close to lots of cool places like Palmyra, Niagara Falls, New York City, Canada, Baltimore, Washington D.C., etc. So, you’re always welcome.

So, here’s a little info about the house. It’s a four bedroom, 1 ½ bath house built in 1972. The house is 1,748 square feet with about a 1/3rd acre lot. The exterior is brick and vinyl, and it has a 2-car attached garage. On the main level it has a family room, a dining room, a kitchen (with a nook area that could be used as an eat-in kitchen, but I think we’ll just eat in the dining room), a powder room, a couple of coat closets, and a living room with a large fireplace and a door that leads out to the garage. Upstairs there is a master bedroom with an extra large walk-in closet, a full bathroom, a large linen closet, and three more bedrooms. And in the full basement there is one really large room, and then a door that leads into a room the size of a small bedroom (where we plan to have our food storage and other storage items), and that room leads into the laundry room where the furnace and water heater are also located. The basement already has the drywall up on the walls and the ceilings are pretty high as far as basements go, so we are looking forward to finishing the basement and making it an actual livable space. And the roof is new and the house has all new vinyl windows (which should be helpful with the cold winters there), and new front and back doors. All of the nice stainless steel kitchen appliances are included. The back yard is a good size with a little picket fence and a nice little deck off the back door that comes out from the kitchen, a small cement area behind the back door from the garage (where we were thinking a sand box might fit nicely), a lot of open grassy space, and several very tall trees (unfortunately, the trees are tall and skinny, so probably wouldn’t support a tree house, oh well). And our realtor pointed out to us what kinds of bushes are in the yard (since most everything wasn’t in bloom yet when we were there), and we’re excited that it seems like it can be a pretty low maintenance yard, but that it has a number of mature bushes that will be very pretty at different times of the year, including rhododendron, hydrangea, burning bushes, a rose bush, a raspberry, some ferns, some vining plants, tulips, and some other Spring flowers. In the front yard there is a good sized tree, and off to the corner of the yard there is a really pretty pine tree that I thought would be nice to light up at Christmastime. Here are some pictures of a few of the kinds of plants in the yard:

Hydrangea:

Burning Bush: (turns bright red like this in the Fall)

Rhododendron:

(Although I’m sad, because I noticed online when I went to find pictures of these plants, it says that rhododendrons are poisonous – I guess that means that we should take it out of the yard, just to be safe with the kids. Darn, they look like they have really pretty flowers. So, then I had to look up hydrangeas and it says they can cause upset stomach, but shouldn’t do much more unless you eat a lot of the plant. . . . Well, I just found another site that says “100 to 225 grams of rhododendron leaves must be eaten to seriously poison a 55 lb child,” so maybe if my kids aren’t out feasting on large servings of rhododendron salad we don’t have to be too worried??? – Oh, so many fun things that you get to think about when you have kids).

Anyways, we are looking forward to doing some fun updates to the house. I think one of the first things will be to remove the wallpaper and paint the kitchen. Eventually I think the plan is to paint all but one room in the house. I really want a nice dark red dining room, and the living room is already a nice light brown shade, so I think that we’ll probably end up doing the kitchen and the family room in a nice neutral tone that will go well with the color in the dining room. And for upstairs I haven’t decided yet, but I am leaning towards different shades of blues and greens for the bedrooms. We are also planning on building a bench with shoe cubbies and putting some hooks on the wall in the garage to make a little "mud room area" for the kids to take off their shoes and hang up their backpacks and coats when they come inside. The upstairs bathroom is definitely on our “to do” list – the pastel green tile will eventually have to go, and we have heard that tiling is something we should be able to learn to do, so wish us luck with that project (especially since that is the only tub in the house, so once we do decide to start on that project we’ll want to try to finish it up as soon as possible so we can have use of the bathroom again). We want to finish the basement too, which will add a pretty large living space to the house. And we have ideas for putting a raised bed vegetable garden in the back yard, but I think we’ll miss the planting season this summer, so that’ll wait until later. Also on our list is eventually replacing the interior doors – the upstairs doors could use some updating and the door to the basement has a cat door in it. Also, I think that all but one light fixture in the house could really use some updating. And eventually it would also be fun to put in some crown molding in some of the rooms, and maybe even some wainscoting in the dining room. But really, all of the projects we have in mind seem like things we could probably do ourselves, so that should be fun. The house also has potential for a few bigger projects, like putting in a master bathroom or adding some more cupboards and counter space in the kitchen nook area, but I don't know if we'll get to those things while we live there.

I was going to post each picture of the house and tell a little about each one, but uploading each one would take forever (you know me, I like to take lots of pictures). So, here’s a slideshow instead. Enjoy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com