A New (Home) Life on the 27th

We're one step closer to being homeowners. We received our approval letter from the bank. Now we have three weeks to close. WOW! That's quick. But we've been told it can and will be done. We couldn't be more excited!

Our home. (As long as the process runs smoothly.)

We've posted about this house previously but to brush up, it's a house in Spanish Fork in a little neighborhood near the highway called Spanish Fields. We've looked at a number of houses in this area of Spanish Fork. The neighborhood is a little cookie cutter and the houses a little boxy but the prices are amazing. We really love the home though. The layout is so logical; nothing strange going on and it has plenty of room to grow. Built in 2006 it's newer so there isn't a lot of big projects. Except one. All new floors throughout.

The day we saw the house we were greeted with what seemed like burying our faces in 6 feet of wet dog fur. Obviously this was a concern right away. As we walked through the house we didn't see any major issues except the carpet. It was as if it had been found in a dumpster behind an old skating rink. There is even a gaping burned hole where it looks like a fire was built to keeps the wolves at bay. However, we pushed forward. The rooms were spacious and the closets in correct proportion with the room sizes. The master is just the right layout to put our king bed on the appropriate wall; it didn't leave us wondering where we would put the bed as some homes do, even with a big master. A major plus is the master bath and closet. Finally, my wife can have room to move around and enough space to hang the jammed contents of her current closet. Ok, my closet is equally jammed.

Looking out from the kitchen over the dining and family rooms. Not much separation so we're carpeting the family room and putting hard floors in the dining room, kitchen, pantry, entry and living room.

A logically thought out floor plan puts 2,921 sq ft on two floors without a basement. Walk in the front door and you enter a good sized living room. It leads down a short entry into a great kitchen connected to which is a huge pantry (YES!). Looking out from the kitchen is a good sized dining room and a family room, all open and spacious. Off the dining room is a sliding door that leads into the backyard where, luckily and unfortunately, the dogs (at least two great danes) took care of business. Not huge but enough for playing and a small garden. Needs a little work but with some seeding and fence finishing it will be great. Off the family room is the entry from the garage. In the entry is what would usually be the laundry room and opposite that, a half bath; something we decided was a must-have.

Living room.

The garage, ah the garage. Oh how long have I yearned for your trusting embrace and available space. It's not huge by any means but it doesn't really matter. It's a place to hang my tools and upgrade my man card. I'm as excited about the garage as I am about anything else.

Off the short entry into the kitchen/dining are the stairs that take you up into a huge loft or upstairs family room. What a great place for kids and informality.

Pretty stoked about the kitchen.

From there you enter the master. And it is a great master. Opposite the master is a hallway with the remaining 2 rooms, closets and bathroom. The first is Jack's room. He's going to absolutely love it when he's old enough to care. It's big and has plenty of room to store all of his possessions that he cares about equally as little as having a room. Except for an empty water bottle and a plastic package with a nursing cover in it which together make up his favorite toys.

Next to Jack's room is the laundry closet. We could move it downstairs into the empty room that should be the laundry room but we love the idea of laundry right next to Jack's room and on the same floor as the master.

Then the guest bath. It's a guest bath. Sink, tub, toilet.

One of the two closets across from the bathroom is for linens etc. and the other houses the 50 gallon water heater, awesome, and one of the two furnaces. One for upstairs and one for downstairs. Awesome as well. Something we didn't know about until our inspection. Also there is an AC unit for both up and down too. Can't beat that.

So that's our house. We close on the 27th and order new carpet. Then we will paint everything and rip out the old carpet the next week. We'll put in the new carpet and hard floors when they get there and move in hopefully the first half of February. We can't wait!

Oh, about the dog smell. We were worried but the inspector showed up and comforted us by saying it wasn't even that bad relatively speaking. It's not urine so replacing the carpet will take care of it. That was a weight off of our shoulders.

We'll post pictures and updates about how it's all going.