Hahaha! Get used to it people, because I'm going to use and abuse that joke for the remainder of my earthly days.
Last week, Justin and I flew out to Idaho for a house hunting vacation (yes, vacation, because we went with NO KIDS)!! The week leading up to the trip was incredibly stressful. My floors were raw, we were working desperately to get the house on the market, our dryer broke (hello, Laundromat, you're disgusting), and we had our first showing (before the house was officially listed). The cherry on top was when Justin tore his ACL the DAY before we left (you win again, church basketball, you win again). To say I was a basket case is a serious understatement. I was so tightly wound and stressed and emotional it was ridiculous.
The day before we left, my mom flew in. She is basically a saint who volunteered to stay with our children (in a hotel, mind you, because they couldn't walk on the floors while they were being finished) while we were gone. I took Josie with me to pick her up from the airport. When I saw her walking to our car I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I'm 34 years old and I still, very much, need my mommy. Josie said it best. When she saw Grammy she said, "Mom! There she is! I'm so happy I could cry!" Me too little girl, me too.
Honestly, I don't know what I would have done without her. Just being with her for a few hours made me feel so much better. It was like, I knew everything was going to be okay because she was finally there. I really hope my kids still feel that way about me when they're adults! (**Yes, my mom is super cute and yes, she totally copied me with the bangs.**)
The next morning, Justin and I were out of there. The plane ride was actually really nice (for me anyway, poor Justin was such a trooper with his newly torn and incredibly swollen knee). I got to sit, read a book, drink some water, sleep a little (a very little), and have some fun chats with Justin. It's amazing how much I don't mind a long trip when there are no children involved.
We got to Idaho and I immediately rolled my pants up to capri length and fist pumped over my wise decision not to wear socks. The weather was in the 60's! It was dry! The sun was shining! Absolutely gorgeous.
We flew into Boise and, at the recommendation of one of the interns (who is from there) checked out its, sort of surprisingly, very cool and hip downtown. We ate at a really yummy restaurant and took a short walk of the downtown (but we didn't go too far - I was so, so afraid of doing more damage to Justin's knee - not that it could have gotten much worse). After that we drove to Jerome - an hour and a half away. Our hotel was nice and we were just relishing the time we got to spend alone (which, this month, meant we turned on the TV and watched our March Madness brackets bust wide open).
The next day, Monday, was house hunting. As much as I hate (HATE) selling a house, that's how much I love (LOVE) looking for a new one. I adore house hunting. It is possibly one of my favorite things in this life. Even when we're not looking to move, I am constantly looking up houses for sale. Houses for me, for my siblings, for my parents, for my friends, etc. Seriously, I love it. So this was like Christmas. We looked at about 10 existing homes. Some were immediately ruled out (the house with the giant pond in the backyard and the mural of Tuscany painted on the living room wall) and some were awesome but not for us.
Then we found this awesome foreclosure. It had everything we could ever want in a house. 7 acres of land, 5200 square feet, updated EVERYTHING, gorgeous. Seriously. It was built for 1.2 million and then the owners walked away. We could have snatched that baby up for $400,000. And we were tempted, oh boy were we tempted. We got preapproved at the bank and everything. We both really, really wanted this house. In the end though, we decided against it. The main deciding factor was that if, for some reason, this job didn't work out, we'd be stuck with a million dollar home that we'd never be able to sell (people in Jerome just don't spend that kind of money on a house). We don't expect that to happen to us, but we'd heard so many cautionary tales that we just couldn't pull the trigger. Not going to lie. I was pretty bummed about it (even though I am 100% sure we made the right decision) but Justin just told me to make notes of what I liked in that house and, someday, we'll build the one I'm dreaming of.
So, after a hard day of house hunting, we didn't see anything (reasonable) that we thought would work for our family. Then our realtor took us into this new development. The homes are still being built (although it's mostly all developed at this point). She showed us around and showed us the largest lot that was still available (.23 of an acre) and told us that one option was to build there. I'd looked into it a little bit before we went out and had actually seen a floor plan I liked. Justin and I took about a half a day to mull it over and then we decided to do it. So we got land!
Standing together on our land. Notice the blue sky. It was heaven.
Us on our land. .23 of an acre in a master planned development is far from our dream home, but we're so excited because this is going to be a great place for our family for the next 5 or so years while our kids grow and we save the money to build the house of our dreams on the acreage of our dreams.
While we aren't excited about the small lot size or the proximity of our neighbors, there are a lot of things we
LOVE about this neighborhood.
1. See that brick building on the left (in the bottom picture)? That's the elementary school where Noah and Josie will go. Awesome, right? They do elementary school a little different out here. There are two K-3 schools and one 4th and 5th grade center. The 4th and 5th grade center (where Clayton will obviously go) is the furthest school from our house (counting the high school and middle school). Justin and I drove one day from that school to our lot. Less than 4 minutes!! Sweet!
2. What you can't see is that right across the street from the elementary school is a big park. So our yard might not be huge, but we'll be in easy walking distance to a nice park.
3. The church is about a 10 minute walk. I would absolutely NOT do that on a Sunday (in heels, no way). But for scouts or mutual, absolutely.
4. There are sidewalks throughout the neighborhood and, at the end of the development, it drops you off onto a nice biking, running, walking path that goes for three miles one way. It's really an awesome location. I can actually see myself taking a daily run on that path (once I get used to the elevation, of course)!
5. When we went there to look at a few spec homes we noticed that there were kids EVERYWHERE! Honestly, we saw zero adults, but there were tons of kids out. They were running in between yards and down the sidewalks and riding bikes. It was awesome! Especially since there seemed to be quite a few boys who looked like they were Clayton and Noah's ages. Instant friends for our kids. And, from what we could tell, apparently I could just send them outside all day to play with friends! Gotta love small town living.
6. Our realtor was telling us who lives in this community. The new veterinarian, the high school band director, a jewler, a manager at one of the dairies, etc. Basically, it's a community full of young professionals and their families. Perfect for us.
After learning all of this we were sold. Hard. I honestly can't wait!
This is Justin. Licking a rock that we took from our property. You better believe that we brought that rock back with us to Indiana!
These are our neighbors. We are kind of at the end of another dead end street (which we absolutely love). Our realtor told us that the people who live in the green house have four young kids too! Yay!
After signing all the paperwork, we made an appointment to go to the design center in Boise to choose all our finishings. Honestly, I couldn't wait. Being able to choose my own stuff!?! Awesome. Especially because we are viewing this house as a temporary home, this gives me the opportunity to get a few things figured out before we build "the big one" someday!
If you want to see our floor plan, here's the link:
http://www.cbhhomes.com/floor-plan/legacy/sundown-3200/
The only thing that will be different is that we are taking bedroom #4 upstairs and converting it into another bathroom (I really don't need that many bedrooms, but when we have guests, we'll be so happy to have that extra bathroom)! They are currently working on the updated plans, but I don't have them yet.
We drove to Boise on Thursday (we were leaving from there on Friday) and went to eat before our design appointment. We went to
Boise Fry Company! This place is going to become a tradition when we go into Boise for sure! Oh my goodness, amazing!
Then it was on to the design studio. Basically, we spent 4 hours there, choosing finishings. Here's a very small sneak peek:
This will (probably) be the flooring. Wood in the dining room, kitchen, entryway, and mud area. Shag carpet in the bedrooms and all throughout the upstairs (well, except the bathrooms and laundry room). Tile in the downstairs bathroom and master bathroom (the two upstairs bathrooms will be getting linoleum - I know linoleum isn't great, but the price was right).
Kitchen preview. The wood floor, the white cabinet (this isn't the actual cabinetry we'll be getting, it's close, but not the same - we are using it because it's white, which is the color we'll be doing), the light colored granite countertop, and the dark gray subway tile for the backsplash with the long rectangular tiles thrown in about halfway for one row. I love it and cannot wait to cook in this kitchen!
Exterior. The middle color (which is a light gray) will be the majority of the house, the white will be the trim, the darker gray will be at the top of the house, the stone will go around the bottom, and the door will be daisy yellow!
The fireplace surround (I think). A large, light gray, glass tile with the long rectangular ones running through it to tie it into the kitchen (it'll be a double sided fireplace between the living room and the dining room so it'll be visible in the kitchen and we thought it'd be nice to have them coordinate somehow).
Half bath sink.
The bathroom faucets (the kitchen one we picked out is also very similar). They will be in a brushed nickel finish though, not so shiny.
Our shutters (bottom left). They will stay black.
After our appointment, we ate one last meal in fabulous downtown Boise, spent one last night yelling at basketball on TV, and then flew home.
As far as the house goes, they are currently working on my updated floor plans. When they're finished (hopefully next week), we'll sign off and they'll start construction! We have a tentative closing date of August 15th. I really want to be in there before the new school year starts but we'll have to see. I'm not really holding my breath for that one.
We came home to four happy kids, brand new floors, and my awesome parents. Seriously, they rock. My mom did most of the heavy lifting. She did crafts with the kids, swam with them almost every day at the hotel, took them all to the Blue and Gold banquet (for scouts), and shared a bed with two kids every night. Seriously, I need to give her some sort of award.
My dad came out and helped Clayton start on his Pinewood Derby car. My dad is kind of a Pinewood Derby legend (Clayton thinks he's famous) and it made my heart so happy to watch the two of them work together. My kids are beyond lucky to have these selfless and loving grandparents!
Now we're back to stress over keeping the house clean for showings, surgery for Justin's knee (oh how wrecked it is!), spring break (next week! Yay!), and preparing for our move. It's really making me a little crazy, but I know it's going to be so very worth it. I am excited for our new adventure. Now that we're to this point it seems so real and I feel like these next three months are just going to drag. When they start building our house, I'm going to have our realtor go by and take pictures for us, so those will definitely make it on the blog! Stay tuned! Big things are happening!!
