As I mentioned in my last post, after we found out I was pregnant, our heads started spinning about what to do with our house. Our original plan has always been to stay in our house until we have it paid off, which would be in another 5 years or so (I believe). Technically, I think we could stay here and make this house work. Brooklyn and Savannah would have to share a room, and the new baby would get the nursery. It would be doable. Crowded but doable.
But…Brooklyn will be starting kindergarten in another year and a few months. Isn’t that hard to believe?? We don’t like the idea of having her start at the school we’re currently zoned for (Legacy) and then potentially having to change schools a few years down the road. We have always thought about moving to Madison city limits just for the schools, but we haven’t ruled out staying in the Monrovia area either. The uncertainty about what school zone we’ll end up in makes us want to go ahead and move now rather than wait. Plus, interest rates are rising, and the higher they go, the “less house” we can afford. It would also be WONDERFUL to have a little more space to spread out. We would love to have a bonus room/playroom, and Travis wants his own office too (right now his desk is in our room). It would be so nice to be able to keep most of the girls’ toys contained in a playroom and just shut the door at the end of the day and not feel compelled to clean it all up….as opposed to tripping over toys throughout our entire house right now ;)
So those have been the influencing factors in our decision to go ahead and put our house on the market and try to move sooner rather than later. We could wait and list our house next spring and hope to sell it and move by the end of next summer, but it doesn’t sound too appealing to have to have our house “show ready” all the time with THREE kids. It may be difficult to do this process while pregnant, but I still think I’d rather do try it now than try it with a new baby.
So, in early February, we met with our realtor who helped us buy this house in 2011. She came to our house and gave us a few ideas about things to do before we put our house in the market. We’ve been working like crazy since then to do what she suggested plus a bunch of other things we had in mind, and we’re almost there!! Here’s the list of what we’ve already accomplished (or had someone else do):
- Fixed the hole in our foyer closet and put down carpet (much cheaper alternative to replacing all of the parquet flooring in the foyer!)
- Fixed and painted the drywall and baseboards in foyer closet
- Repainted the kitchen to a neutral color (a tad lighter than the color of the dining room)
- Repainted the chimney
- Fixed the lock on our back door (it was getting hard to turn the deadbolt)
- Had our carpet professionally cleaned throughout the house
- Touched up the white trim around the back door outside
- Replaced ceiling fan in living room (last white/brassy gold ceiling fan to go!)
- Restained the playset in the backyard—looks even better than when we bought it!
- Planted fresh flowers around the mailbox
- Pressure washed the driveway, sidewalk, curb, and back patio
- Washed windows on the outside
- Replaced the seal on the garage “pedestrian” door
- Replaced and re-caulked the trim around the garage door
- Replaced “106” stickers on mailbox
- Raised the gate on the fence (driveway side) so that it swings without dragging the ground
- Recaulked the master bathroom countertop
- Replaced master bathroom floor with new vinyl floor
- Added fresh mulch to flower beds
- Dusted the blinds and ceiling fans throughout the house
- Cleaned and shined kitchen and bathroom cabinets
All of that has happened basically in the last 2 months. No wonder we are tired—and we didn’t even do most of the work ourselves. But, just coordinating and hiring people to do the work takes a lot of time and effort. But…our house is looking better now than it probably ever has—at least since we’ve lived here! It makes it a little sad to think about leaving after putting so much effort into fixing it up.
Even though our house isn’t technically on the market yet, we have gone ahead and started looking at homes for sale just to see what’s out there. We knew we were going to be pretty picky this time around, and it’s true. We have a spreadsheet with our “must-haves” and “would-love-to-haves”, and so far we haven’t found a single house that meets all the criteria. We are realizing that we probably won’t find our “dream home” that has every single thing we want. It may not be out there, and that’s okay! We’ve looked at 13 resale homes, and we found a couple that we think could potentially work. One of them has already sold. Who knows what will actually be available by the time our house sells. We’re not getting too attached to anything we see at this point because the first step is actually selling our current house. Can’t do much until that happens!
The most promising house we’ve stumbled upon is actually a new construction floorplan in a neighborhood called Crown Pointe in Madison. The floorplan we’ve fallen in love with is called the Willow. It’s got 5 bedrooms + a bonus room, a separate office, and a very open living space on the main level. There are also 2 bedrooms on the main level in addition to the master, which is something I really think would be nice to have while the kids are young. There’s not a 5 bedroom Willow that’s currently for sale, but we could build it in that neighborhood if that’s what we decide to do.
The floor plan above doesn’t actually show the 5th bedroom (a.ka. Paw and Rae Rae’s room!). It would be off the bonus room on the upstairs level.
We really really really love this floorplan. It’s got almost everything we were hoping for. We feel like it would be a great house for hosting parties and get togethers because it is so open downstairs. It’s got a huge pantry, which I’m really excited about. The back patio is covered and has a ceiling fan. Travis would have his own study. There’s plenty of nice-sized closets throughout the house.
The drawbacks to the Willow are really both related to the garage. We don’t love the front entry garage. We think a side entry garage looks nicer because you aren’t staring at it from the street. A front entry garage also means the driveway is shorter than it would be otherwise. Not a huge deal except our girls love to ride their bikes and tricycles in our driveway right now. It’s so convenient to be able to do that as opposed to having to ride down the sidewalk away from our house. I’m not sure the driveway on the Willow would even be long enough to ride in much at all. The other drawback to the garage is that it’s pretty narrow on the inside. Yes, it’s a 3 car garage, but there’s not much room around the edges for storage shelves, bicycles, yard equipment, etc. once your cars are parked in there. We are pretty sure we will keep both of our sedans when we get a minivan, so we will definitely have 3 cars parked in it. We can add some additional feet to the garage to make it deeper, but of course that costs extra…and it pushes the rest of the house back, which takes away from your backyard space.
Crown Pointe is currently building in its 7th phase (the blue section in the top right), and there are only a few lots left. We could have picked between several lots (172, 180, 167) and gone ahead with construction right away…even before our house sold! Kinda crazy, right? The problem is that the lots are pretty small…all right around 0.25 acres or so. Lot 167 was flatter than the other two, but it was actually 7 feet more narrow than 172 and 180. None of them were ideal. We took a week to think about it (and they actually offered us lot 186 at the end of the week), but we decided not to go ahead with construction. Lot 186 was nice from the fact that it didn’t have neighbors directly behind, but the backyard would have been pretty sloped and definitely not ideal for a swingset or kids playing. Basically, there’s a reason that these lots were some of the few that are left. No one else wanted them!
After they finish up with the 7th phase, they are supposed to begin the 8th and final phase this fall (hopefully in September). It doesn’t show on the map above, but it will be in that green space over on the top right side. There will be 34 lots available, and we are on #11 on the waiting list to choose one. We are hoping that if we haven’t found another house by then, we’ll be able to pick out a bigger lot than we could have gotten in this current phase. We’ll see! We aren’t ruling out buying a house in a totally different neighborhood, but so far we haven’t found anything we love nearly as much as the Willow. But we’ll keep looking in the meantime just to make sure there isn’t something else out there :)
So what happens if we put our house on the market and it sells quickly?? (That would be so amazing!). We are mentally prepared that we’ll most likely end up moving twice. I highly doubt the stars will align so that our house sells right at the same time that we could move into another home or finish building a house in Crown Pointe. It just doesn’t seem likely that it will go that smoothly. So, we’ll probably end up moving to a rental house or apartment in the meantime. Not ideal, of course…but we think it would be worth it rather than rush to buy something once we get a contract on our house and end up settling for a bigger house but one that we don’t really love. Who knows…maybe we’ll get lucky and it will work out to where we only move once, but we’re not counting on it.
I’m trying really hard to keep everything in perspective. We are definitely blessed to even have the house that we have now. This house would probably be considered a luxury for people in most parts of the world. I don’t want to get caught up in thinking that we “have to have” all these things in a house to be happy. At the same time, I don’t think it’s wrong to want to have something a little bit bigger…just some extra space to breathe. And I don’t think it’s wrong to be picky about what we want. We are planning to live in our next house for quite a while…20-30 years most likely. If we’re going to be paying on it for the next 30 years, I definitely want to find one with all the features we’re looking for. Hopefully, whatever house we end up in, we will use it as a tool for helping others: having people over for supper, hosting birthday parties and baby showers, and just getting to know others. There are several families at church that do such a great job with hospitality, and I’d love to have a little more space to be able to do the same.
So, that’s the update on our house search/getting our house ready to sell. I’m hoping we’ll be ready to officially list ours in the next week. That’s the goal in my head at least :) We’ll keep you posted on the latest!
Verses to Remember:
5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” – Hebrews 13:5
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. – 1 Timothy 6:6-10
