Home Sweet Home

We have been working hard getting settled in our new home!  Things are getting back to normal this week: Auden started his new school today, I start back at work tomorrow after being out on medical leave, and all three of us are living under one roof with no grandparents in sight, ha:-)  The house still needs a lot of furniture, as you can tell, but things are coming along.  We ordered new family room furniture since our sectional doesn't work with the space, so I will post more pictures later once that furniture comes in.  Cody and I made a deal that we will find our dining room table before Thanksgiving (we want to take our time looking), so for now Auden is one lucky boy and has half of the downstairs as his own personal gymnasium. 

Enjoy some more before and after pictures!

                                                         BEFORE: eat in kitchen area

                                                      AFTER: eat in kitchen area

BEFORE: family room

AFTER: family room

BEFORE: dining room and formal living room

AFTER: dining room and formal living room

(still needs lots of furniture and new light fixture)

BEFORE: formal living room

AFTER: formal living room

The formal living room will be Auden's play room until he is old enough to play down basement by himself:-)

AFTER: foyer

                                                                   BEFORE: Foyer

                                                                     AFTER: Foyer

BEFORE: foyer/upstairs hallway

AFTER: foyer/upstairs hallway

BEFORE: master bedroom

AFTER: master bedroom

BEFORE: master bedroom

AFTER: master bedroom

BEFORE: Auden's room

AFTER: Auden's room

                                                              BEFORE: guest room

AFTER: guest room

                                                              BEFORE: guest room

AFTER: guest room

                                                                  BEFORE: my office
      

AFTER: my office

                                                             BEFORE: Child #2 room

AFTER: Child #2 room

                                                              BEFORE: laundry room

AFTER: laundry room

And here are some deck pictures, future plan is get some comfy deck furniture to have something like a living room outside:-)                                                                                                                

Not pictured yet: kitchen and bathrooms which have only been painted and will be updated in next few years.  We also have an awesome finished updated basement with bar and bathroom, but currently still covered in boxes:-)  

The Big Reveal!

I am more than happy to report that the work is finished on our new house!  Since we are busy unpacking and getting settled, below are pictures of just the exterior.  It surpassed all of our expectations and we are in love with our new home!  All that is left for the outside is landscaping and that will be done shortly.  Enjoy the photos!

                                   BEFORE                                 

                                                                                                                                                      

AFTER

As you can see, nothing was left untouched.  New roof, windows, siding, shutters, gutters, trim, light fixtures, garage door and front door.  What makes the biggest impact are the new dormers on the second floor windows.  We were wavering on whether we should do them because of the cost but in the end it was more than worth it, we are thrilled with how they turned out!  Big shout out to Cody who worked tirelessly on getting the dormer design just perfect on top of everything else that he did! 

Here are some more BEFORE pictures:

                                                     

Here are some more AFTER pictures:

Stayed tuned for before and after pictures of the inside of the house!

Let There Be Light!

Here is a sneak preview of some work that was done on the house this week!  The one side of our house that makes up the outside walls for the formal living room and dining room was completely windowless.  Although Cody was skeptical about adding a window to the formal living room since he didn't think we would be spending a lot of time in the room anyway, I managed to convince him.  After it was done, Cody admitted that it was the best decision and we both are so excited about our new window!  It was actually completed in one day.  As of right now: roof finished, windows finished and the siding is being done as I write this!

Before Picture

New paint and here comes the new window!

Ta-dah!!  Our awesome new window!

On the move!

Wow, what a crazy month!  We closed on our new house on March 12th, a tad more than one month after we put in an offer, so it may have been the quickest short sale ever, ha.  Right after closing that day we picked Auden up from daycare, drove out to the house where Cody proceeded to rip up every carpet in all five bedrooms and life has been in overdrive ever since!

The last two weeks of March were all about getting the townhouse ready for sale.  We got rid of more than half our stuff (stored it in the basement of  new house) and painted practically the entire townhouse.  Then came in the professional staging company that gave it the finishing touches.  The hard work paid off, we had over 20 showings in 48 hours and 150 people through the open house!  The end result was a bidding war which landed us a contract for well above our asking price!  We are excited for closing on the 27th.

Here are some pics of the townhouse staged:

                                                        Newly painted white cabinets

                                      No, that is definitely not our bedding or pictures on the wall

We are planning to move completely into the new house by the second week of May.  Cody has been working tirelessly with the all the contractors and is getting a tad frustrated because he thought we would be a bit further along in the renovations by now.  But isn't that usually how it goes?  We have already done a couple big things like refinish all the existing hardwood floors and installed new hardwood in the family room which didn't have it.  The new railings for the stairwell are on their way as well.  Cody's parents were a big help in power washing the deck and pulling out all the dead huge bushes in front of the house.  So, what still needs to be done?
- Exterior: windows, roof, siding, shutters, front door, garage door, paint the brick, gutters, new fixtures
- Interior: all new interior doors, crown molding in one room, recessed lighting, paint throughout, fixtures
I know Cody is going to look at this list and say I left off about 20 things too, ha.  Daunting, you bet.  Cody is overseeing all the renovations on the new house and doing a great job despite how stressful it is right now.  All his hard work will be worth it once when we see our amazing house in the end!

I'm sorry if you all are anxious to see pictures but we really want to wait until we can show before and after pictures...so you will have to wait a couple more weeks!  However, here are some pictures of the primary reason why we bought the place- the land.  It sits on a cul-de-sac and is the biggest lot in the neighborhood.  It is a walk out basement, then a pretty drastic hill that flattens out at the bottom.  Next to us is woods that are parkland owned by the county.  About 50 feet into the woods is a creek, which Auden can spend hours throwing rocks into.  The bike path that Cody will take to work runs behind the neighborhood.  As for the neighborhood- we've already been to a potluck dinner that rotates around the neighborhood, there was a neighborhood Easter egg hunt, there is a "community" trampoline, and every weekend someone else invites us into their house to check out all their updates and renovations so we can get ideas.  Did we hit the jackpot or is this what all suburban neighborhoods are still like in 2012?

                                                                               View from our deck

                                                                    Creek in the woods

            Our friends gave us this awesome swing set that they weren't using!  Thanks Peter and Patty!

Auden loves going to the new house, he has lots of girlfriends that he already knows by name and repeatedly says "shoes off! shoes off! trampoline!" when he wants to go on the neighbor's trampoline which is like every second.

Stay tuned for more pictures!