By this time tomorrow. . . .

we should be starting in to some of our projects at the new house.  I am so excited  (and a little nervous!) about this exciting change.  

New House Excitement

One of the main reasons Tim and I were so interested in the house we are buying is the almost half acre yard (which is not very common any more in the suburbs around us.)















Half of the backyard is fenced in, perfect for the dog we plan on getting next spring and for my small children that like to wandering off.  We plan building a huge sandbox


I'm excited to have all of this wonderful outdoor entertain space.  I really hope we have the money (and find a really good deal on)  some outdoor furniture, since we only have patio table and chairs.  I'm not really sure what I would pick out, even without a budget.  It looks like I'll have to scope out some ideas on pinterest. Any recommendations on where to find some fun pieces?  

The built-in fire pit is another exciting feature.   I can't wait to have our first party next spring.  

4 more days. . . .

Until we close on our new house!  I can't wait!  And then 13 more days until we move in completely.   It will go by fast.
One of our first projects once we move in is to take down the horrible wallpaper in the two upstairs bedrooms.  I wish I had pictures of the horrible 1980s floral loveliness.  I'll post some after we close.
The boys have decided that they would like to continue to share a room for now.  (Carter was concerned that Jack might get scared at night without him.)  I plan on painting the walls of their room blue, but I'm not exactly sure what shade yet.  I'm toying with the idea of a pirate- themed room, but I'm not 100% sure on how to make it cute, but not cheesy.
Choosing a master bedroom color is a much more difficult choice.  Our current bedding from when we got married 6 years ago.  The pattern is Calvin Klein Bamboo Flowers.

Tim and I both still like the design, but after six years the bedding is starting to show some wear.  I'd love to paint our bedroom something that works with our current bedding, but would be fine with what we might choose for new bedding.  Tim is extremely fussy about colors and patterns, so it's going to be challenge to find something we both like.  

Appraisal

The new house is getting appraised today.  I'm extremely nervous about it.  We're 99% sure it won't appraise for the price we've agreed to because of the comps in the area.  We're hoping to be able to negotiate to whatever it actually appraises for.  The seller so far has proven to be very stubborn, so the whole deal could fall apart.  I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but Tim and I both can imagine our future in this house.  

Waiting

We playing the waiting game again.  We place another offer on the same house we were trying to get before.    Two weeks after we had originally walk away from negotiations the sellers had lowered their price.  Tim and I hadn't been able to get this house out of our head.  Even though Any house that was in our price range and in one of the school districts I would be okay with the boys attending we had already seen.  So we started negotiating again.
Our biggest issue has been the difference between what the seller thinks the house is worth and what the house will probably appraise from.  We finally worked out a deal that we would split the cost of the appraisal,so if the seller can't agree to sell the house for the price it's actually worth, we wouldn't have wasted as much money.
The appraisal was ordered Monday, so now we're just waiting to get it scheduled.  

Recap

We moved out of our townhouse a week and a half ago.  Tim and I were a lot more emotional about it than we expected to be.  It was the first place we lived in together.  The place where we brought our babies home from the hospital.  The place where we remodel together.  Even though we had outgrown the space, it was still hard to say goodbye.
We are currently living in my parents until we can close on a house.  (Which has it's own set of challenges that I'll write about another day.)  The house we put an offer on over a month ago is back to negotiations.  It's any one's guess whether this will ever end up as our home because we still have many hurdles to jump in the negotiations.  If all goes well, we could be moving in December.  The market is really slowing down for the holidays, so if this deal doesn't work out, we may have to come up with a different short term plan.
The boys are handling it about as well as a 2 and 4 year old can.  Carter is very moody these days.  Pretty much anything can cause a meltdown.  (A bad cold is also contributing to this, too.)  Jack has almost completely stopped napping and is up 3-4 times a night screaming.  They're trying to be so good, but living at my parents' house screwed up pretty much all routines in their lives.  I am thankful Carter has school three mornings and week and Jack has ECFE one morning, so we have at least one thing that has stayed constant for them both.  

Moving

I thought life might slow down here a little bit after we sold our townhouse, but it seems to have only gotten crazier.  As of right now, we are set to move out of our home next weekend and move in with my parents.  We had hoped it would only be for a few weeks, but it may end up being quite a bit longer.

We made an offer on a house last week.  It wasn't  perfect, but had most of our "must have" requirements.  The yard was huge.  There would have been plenty of room for a swim set, sand box, and for a large garden for time.  The house needed updates, but it was clean and well-cared for.  Unfortunately we couldn't get the owners to negotiate down to a price that the house would actually appraise for.  The lowest price we could get them to was probably 10K over the highest comparable sale and that house was in much better shape.  

So it's back to looking at houses for us.  The closer it gets to the elections and the holiday season, the less houses that seem to be added to the market.  

Sold?

Looks like 17 may be our lucky number!  Friday afternoon, our realtor had called to talked to us about potentially doing a price cut in the next week or so.  Because we are going to need to pay the rather sizable difference between what we owe and what we can sell it at, we were not excited to discuss this.  She also mentioned that she thought it would be a quiet weekend for us since there are typically not that many showings on Labor Day weekend.  It turned out not to be so true for us.  We had showings both Saturday and Sunday.
After the showing Sunday morning we decided to leave for the rest of the weekend. We really needed a break from it all and some time to clear our heads.  So we headed down to the farm (with a quick detour to drive by some houses).  The boys had a great time playing with their cousins.  Tim and I were happy to not have to be constantly cleaning.  After we put the kids to bed, Tim decided to check his email.  Our agent had    emailed an offer from that morning's showing, a good offer, not a low ball like some of the agents had been mentioning the possibility of.
We've negotiated back and forth on some of the little things and as long as we pass the appraisal and inspection we should be moving sometime in the end of October.

For Sale

Our townhouse was listed on MLS this morning at 10:30am. (with no pictures until this afternoon).  We had asked last night if we should be prepared for showings today.  The realtor had said it was unlikely, but to expect them for Saturday and Sunday.  So I was a little shocked to get a phone call at 10:40am requesting a showing for 11:30am.  They had requested to see it 11:30am, but since the kids and I were out running errands and did not leave the house showing quality clean, we had to push it back to noon. We rushed home, straightening and staging things as quick as possible.   Luckily Jack fell asleep in the car (and it was cool enough to keep him there for a few minutes with the windows down), so I only had one little munchkin to "help" me straighten up.  I didn't get to clean up quite as much as I would have liked, but it still looked pretty good considering the short notice.   I'll be curious to see if we get any feedback from the showing. 
I have a feeling the next couple weeks could be very stressful for us (me especially)!  Keeping the house perfectly clean with the kids is going to be challenging. 

House Hunters: MN edition

It doesn't surprise me much that House Hunters is not real.  If we had to choose one of the houses we visited last night, I think I would have cried.  We ended up seeing 4 properties (2 we requested were sold, pending inspection). 
The first, which online we had loved, was a disappointment at best.  The main floor was okay.  The three bedrooms were on the small side.  The downstairs, which was billed as a family room, was disgusting.  It was pretty much an unfinished basement with potentially asbestos flooring.  The one bright side of this property was the very large fenced in backyard. 
The 2nd place we saw was much better.  The upstairs was lovely.  The fixes/updates they had done were nice and it was very clean.  And then we went downstairs.  The 3rd bedroom was tiny.  Like I'm not even sure a twin bed would fit in it comfortably.  On the positives, it had a decent backyard, nice landscaping in the front, and a hot tub.  Another negative besides the tiny third bedroom was it location near a semi busy road. 
The third place we saw made us laugh.  It was like stepping into a time warp.  It was built in 1962 and nothing had been changed since then (including the furnace, air conditioner, and all major appliances).  It's one positive was it had a good layout.  If it wouldn't have needed to be completely gutted, it might have been a good pick.
The final place we saw was okay.  The house was built around the same time as the third house.  It was a little dated, but clean and well taken care of.  The yard was very over grown and would need a lot of work before the boys could play in it.  There was a lot of traffic noise from the extremely busy street nearby. 
So we're going out on Friday to see some more places.  Hopefully we'll have better luck then. 

Realtor

We've got ourselves a realtor and a to-do list a mile long.  Not sure if we'll make my self-imposed first of August date to have the place for sale, but I think it'll be close.  I just sent the realtor the list of the properties we want to look at this morning.  We're not in a super big rush to see houses since we probably can't make an offer until we have our place on the market officially, but there are a few places we've been watching for awhile that we've been watching for a couple months.  If we don't get to see them, I feel like it'll always be the one that got away instead of a house we may not even have liked. 
Our to-do list right now:
Declutter kitchen
Finish decluttering bathroom
Paint Master bedroom (Tim is doing this as we speak)
Declutter Master bedroom and closet
Clean Master bedroom closet
Touch up paint in the boys room
Clean boys room carpet
Declutter boys room
Declutter living room/dinning room
Clean wood floors
Clean carpet downstairs
Declutter downstairs
Get storage unit (we've decide on where, we just have to go sign-up)

Completed List:
Paint kitchen
Pack DVDs
Pack Books