If you’ve been following me over on Instagram, this is kind of old news. I’ve mentioned it in posts here a couple of times too but without detail. We’ve been in this house a little over 2 months and have already started remodeling this one. But let me back up…
So last summer we started talking about adding on to our old house. The kids are getting older, and all 3 of them were sharing a tiny hall bathroom. I kept thinking it would be pretty nice if we had another bathroom by the time anyone got into high school, or sooner.
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| listing photo |
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| listing photo |
It would be so easy, we thought– add on another bedroom and another bathroom to the back of our house. It would give us a room for each of our kids, 2 bathrooms for them to share, and we wouldn’t have to move.
And then we had a contractor come out and talk to us about it. Turns out our hopeful guesses for cost were WAY off and it was going to cost a ton more than we thought. It was November, and within a couple of weeks, we were looking at places online in our neighborhood. We even saw one in person and made an offer on it, but another higher offer came in so we didn’t get it. Looking back, that was definitely not the right house for us, but we were feeling a strange combination of urgency and desperation, and “let’s buy a house before the prices go up in the summer.”
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| taking down the big heavy curtains already made a huge difference! |
After exhausting the 3 possibilities that would keep us in exactly the same area, we started expanding our search. And we found the perfect one about 10 minutes away. Large main floor with separate living room, then big kitchen and family room area. The kids were super excited to have stairs in the house, and they each have their own room. Plus there’s a 5th bedroom where Steve has set up his home office. Saying goodbye to the backyard trailer was sad, but after 3 years, this seems like a much more long term solution. We’re in a cute little neighborhood with sidewalks and big trees.
We bought the house right before Christmas and moved in the very end of January. Then we had a few things to finish up at the old house and we got it listed 2 weeks later, in the middle of February. It closed last week and we’re back to just worrying about one house. 🙂
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| listing photo |
It didn’t take long for the remodeling bug to bite us again, especially since we knew we wanted to break up the monochrome look of the kitchen. (Plus we hate tile counters.) And the timeline for starting was affected by my sister getting married in Portland in June. Either we had to start right away and get it all done before family comes to visit, or wait to start until later in the summer. But then we’re running into me starting more college classes in the fall, so now seemed easier.
We’ve already broken up all the tile countertops and removed the wood counter underneath. Baseboards and laminate floor are out of the kitchen and we’ll tear apart the main floor half-bath this evening.
I have started doing some painting though, and the color looks great. We’ll be using this color on the whole main floor.
Stay tuned for all the progress!
