Our New House!

On January 6, 2011, Russell and I officially became HOMEOWNERS! We definitely learned know how to sign our name after closing; it seemed like we signed a whole stack of papers (probably because we did!) I really thought the whole closing process was going to be nerve racking and stressful because it would seem like we were signing our lives away but it wasn't that bad. I actually had a pretty calm, peaceful feeling during the whole thing. Now that I look back, it is really amazing how everything just seemed to fall into place for us to get this home. Everything seemed to work in our favor. We got the interest rate we wanted, the payments ended up being about $10 less than we thought, and the sellers paid $3,000 of our closing costs so we still had some money left over to do some repair work. I guess that means it was meant to be!

Here is our HOUSE!! (The front view and back yard). We both love the back yard because it has a lot of potential, it is big enough for Emily to play, and it is completely fenced so we don't have to worry about Emily going into the front yard and road. We even have a basketball hoop! Also, along the side of the house is a large gravel driveway as well as RV parking for our camp trailer and 4-wheeler trailer!

This picture below was take just before Russell RIPPED the for sale sign out of the ground! (I was trying to figure out the night mode on my new camera so that is why it looks like we are standing next to a bonfire.)

As homeowners, we can't call the landlord anymore if something needs repairing. Well we can but for some reason, Russell always answers the phone when I call and I always answer the phone when Russell calls. Before we moved in, Russell repainted the majority of the house. While I was at work, Emily "helped" him. Russell was painting our front room a pretty brown color and while he had his back turned to paint the opposite wall, Emily leaned up against the wet paint to look out the window at some cat and got paint all over her shirt and jacket! Russell almost got mad at her then he started laughing when he saw that her once white shirt was now painted brown! As you can see from the above picture, the paint would not come out even after washing it! I guess it is a good thing it was one of her play shirts. Another bummer thing about the paint was that Russell had painted all of the rooms one color then when back to Home Depot to get more the finish touching up some spots and they mixed the wrong color! They gave him a slightly darker shape of white and he didn't notice until he had touched up all of the spots and then we could totally tell it was the wrong color. Russell was soooo mad because now he has to repaint the walls again. He gave up painting after that so the walls are still two-toned in some parts because Russell can't bring himself to go get more paint. Oh well I guess. The house is still livable. The nice thing about owning your own house is you can do whatever you want to it. In the Utility/laundry room, we tore our two entire shelves and made room for my sewing table so now I have a sewing room! (that is shared with the washer and dryer...) Also Russell took one of the shelves we tore out and is going to hang it on the opposite wall above the dryer so I have more shelves to put cleaning supplies. We decided we needed this shelf because our smart little 2 year old has discovered that mommy keeps the cleaning supplies in a bucket under the laundry sink and she has been known to get them out and "clean" stuff. So time to get them out of her reach!

Time for the tour!!!

First our master bedroom, walk-in closet, and master bathroom. The first thing everyone says when the see our room is "Wow a red wall... Did you paint that?" No we didn't paint it but we didn't paint over it either like my mom said we should have. To tell you the truth, I kind of like the red wall! I like the closet because there is so much room you can actually find the clothes you are looking for. The bathroom is nice too except we are still trying to get use to having the light switch on the outside of the bathroom instead of inside. The bathroom also has a pretty good sized linen closet behind the door where we keep our sheets and towels.

As you go down the hall you will see Emily's bathroom (as she calls it) which, now that I look at the picture, definitely needs a shower curtain or something to give it some color. Next is the office/toy room. Actually between the bathroom and this room, is another large walk in closet we use for our food storage, my drum set, blankets and whatever else will fit. Definitely a selling feature for me. I decided to have one toy room so that hopefully this is the only room that will get messed up all the time. In each of the rooms are these built in shelves to store all of our great treasures (or junk)!

Next is Emily and Apple's room. I decided they could share for a few years. This room needs some pictures and curtains too. And this is their closet and my stash of diaper and wipes that I am hoping will last longer than a month! Also, as you can see, we need to find a dresser for Baby Apple because right now all of his clothes are either inside that red tote or on top of it... Aren't we great parents...

The front room. This is a nice little cozy room for when people come over to visit or when we want to watch movies. I always said I wanted a bay window in my house and now I have one! Someday when I get rich, I will put a baby grand in that window. Well on second thought, the baby grand might take up the whole room so I would need a bigger house. So my upright piano will work just fine. Some day Russell will hang up our pictures I hope...

Finally the kitchen. I love all of the storage space and the roll out shelves in the lower cupboards. I think it is the perfect sized kitchen and there is plenty of bar space to make cookies.

Not pictured is the dining room on the other side of the bar and my sewing/laundry room. I was too embarrassed to take a picture of them because they were a mess. Now that we are moved in, I am frantically trying to get everything ready for the new baby. I have less than a month to get all of the blankets, burp cloths, and other stuff sewn and put together for him. I think my sewing machine has been going non stop for two weeks and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I'll post something soon of all the things I have made but probably not until I am done. I also need to make some curtains for every room in the house so it won't look so ghetto and bare. Any way the reason I didn't take a picture of the dining room and sewing room is because I have fabric and sewing stuff all over the place. Someday, when I am done, I will clean both of those places.

Our next house project is to put on a new roof. When we had the house inspected before we bought it, the inspector told us that some of the shingles were falling off and that there was a small dollar sized leak above the kitchen. Because of that, the sellers agreed to pay $3,000 of our closing costs so we would have money left over to fix the leak. After calling around, we decided we could save ourselves quite a bit of money if we just repaired the roof our self. We decided to put on a tin roof so that we wouldn't have to replace the roof ever again. In the next week or so, we will be installing the new roof with the help of our family.

The other nice thing about this new house is the ward! We have only been to church for one week so far but already I can tell it is going to be good. Emily even loves the Nursery again! Our last ward she refused to go but this ward she walked right in and didn't even cry. After sacrament meeting I asked her if she wanted to go find her class and she said "Yeah." Then when we were walking down the hall, she say the door to the Nursery open and the toys and she excitedly said, "There it is, I found it!" We said "Okay go in and play." and she went right in without a fuss and stayed and played the whole time. Afterward we asked her if she had fun in her class and she said, "Yeah I want to play again!" She told us all about playing, blowing bubbles, having treats, and even sang us some of the songs she learned. I am so glad she had a good time because going to church will not be such a big deal any more.

Needless to say we love our new house and there is just something about it that makes it feel like home; something we have never felt before in all of the rentals we lived it. It is a really nice feeling.