Sunday, January 3, 2016

Casa de Barnes 2.0 Update!

We did it! We made an offer on a house, got it accepted and are super excited!


It hits on all of our wish list, except that 3rd bathroom...sorry guests!! You'll still have to venture into the same bathroom where the boys pee. I don't go in there, but you must. 

We close on February 3rd and so that's a month after our house closes. A month. Luckily, my clients have great taste in houses and we'll be moving into my quasi step mom's townhouse I sold her last year. She had some plumbing work done so she moved out for a few weeks and is just going to postpone her return until we're outta there. We're lucky and Corliss - we left your thank you gift on your washer and dryer cause we're super scatterbrained right now but you can find it there :)

We love the house so much. We've been looking for years, literally. We've been seriously looking for months though. A couple weeks ago, we checked out about 12 homes and were fortunate that there were 6 that were serious contenders. Having a lot of options is just as tough as having too few. I know that sounds bonkers but I mean it. We kept coming back to two different houses - Oriole and Tumbleweed. Oriole had the single story we wanted, an awesome pantry, a great neighborhood and the pool of our dreams. Tumbleweed had the boys' dream backyard with basketball court, trampoline and pool plus they really wanted stairs in the house. The finishes in Tumbleweed were better and we could easily move in immediately without doing anything. The area was good, but farther to the school and parks. We even became those buyers who brought their entire family to the houses to get input. No effing joke here. My parents, my in laws and one of my sisters met us at both houses to give input. Thank God I'm a Realtor and I didn't have to subject another agent to this chaos. The sellers can however, see every time we go and look at the house which is shameful enough. 

This house has 4 great size bedrooms and a den/formal dining room that we'll likely use as an office since we eat on the couch watching tv like all honest human beings. right? Can we all just admit this once and for all?

The backyard is amazing and the house is more than twice the size of Orchid Lane. Also, the address is oddly similar to the one we've memorized for the last 13 years. 

We've got projects to do, but nothing crazy. The lot is about 1/4 acre and about half of it is full of pool, decking and an outdoor kitchen. The other half is desert landscaped with lime, lemon, orange and fig trees. Love the trees but we want grass space for the boys. Boys need to run. We will maybe put in a sport court too since they missed out on that with this house. 

The home has gorgeous 20" travertine tiles throughout and we planned to remove those and install the wood tile planks we LOVE, but then we found out that travertine is like $5/ft just to remove the damn stuff. That's bonkers. Also, every tile contractor or designer we brought in to quote us for flooring said we were idiots to even consider removing the gorgeous tile. Fine you win, it will stay. 

We'll be painting but I'm going to just skip the entire drama of selecting a paint color by going with the color we painted the Orchid house. Revisit here. We told the boys that they can each pick out an accent wall for their bedrooms. Bear picked Chicago Bears navy and Connor will have Miami Dolphins teal. I'm so completely outnumbered up in here friends. 

So we'll just have some tile regrouted, the house painted and I think we'll have the cabinets refinished in the kitchen, laundry, baths and hallway. There are like 10 fans in the house and every damn one is different so we'll be giving our 401k to Home Depot soon. Fixtures make so much difference...and add up pretty quick!

The buyer wanted our washer and dryer on Orchid so we'll have to grab a new pair of those. Any tips? The range from $400-2000 for a washer is beyond intense. 

There's a built in bbq but it needs some love so we're shooting to have that all rebuilt by summatime so clear your schedules and we'll maybe get around to a housewarming party around June. :) No promises. 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

We have Samsung appliances. The washer went out after one year. I was on the phone many times with the warrenty folks. After I asked dawn to handle it she was promptly given to the manager where we got it repaired. I think it was her charm. Needless to say, a 1200 dollar washer should go out in 13 months.