Somebody Stop Me!

I absolutely can NOT stop shopping for house stuff online. It is way too easy having every store imaginable at my fingertips. Thankfully, I have enough self-control not to buy anything. I might buy more after we actually move, but I don't want to have to move it from one house to the other.

Ok, so I've bought a few things. I bought four outdoor folding chairs from JCPenney.com because they were on clearance, and since we're going to have this totally awesome backyard, we're going to need some comfy chairs to sit in. They are really nice chairs and I got them for a steal.

Also, I bought some cute little French coffee cups from Pier 1 to hang on the hooks by the sink (the current owners have some there, but mine are way cuter). I had to buy them now because they were on clearance and might not be there later. Right? Right!? Aren't they adorable?

I am especially obsessed with organization. I am bound and determined to keep my new house organized and relatively clutter free (or as clutter free as it can be with two small boys). Oh how I wish we had a Container Store closer than The Cities!

I'm organizing all my new-found obsessions on Pinterest. You can check it out, if you'd like. Here's my Pinterest page. I've got paint colors, organizing ideas, decorating ideas, etc.

Now if only I had a few extra thousand dollars to blow on all this neat stuff...

SOLD!

Ok, so this post is a bit overdue, but we've been crazy busy lately.

We sold our house!!

It officially went on the market last Tuesday (we had to wait because of Labor Day). We had two showings that night, and one of them made an offer! It was a very reasonable offer - full asking price minus some closing costs. We listed the house at a price higher than we actually expected to get, and the net offer was higher than I had hoped to get for the house, so we accepted! And not a moment too soon, and I'll tell you why...

When a sale is contingent on the buyer selling their house, as it is with the house we're buying, the seller can still accept another offer if they want to if that offer doesn't have that contingency. If that were to happen, the sellers would have to give us 48 hours to remove the contingency, or our contract would be void and they could sell the house to someone else.

Well, when our realtor came over to present the offer on our house on Tuesday night, he told us that the house we're buying got two more offers that day. So it was very good that we sold our house so that we could remove the contingency if we had to. About 20 minutes after the realtor left, he called and told me that they did, in fact, ask us to remove the contingency. So, if we hadn't have gotten an offer that day or the next day, we would have lost the house. Yikes! That was close!!

So last Thursday, we had both the inspection for the house we're buying, and for the house we're selling. Both houses passed, so now we only have to worry about the appraisal. Our realtor used to be an appraiser for a bank and said he doesn't think either house will have any issues with appraising for the selling price. So it looks like this whole thing is really going to happen! It's so crazy to think that in 6 short weeks, we'll own a different home!

I think this whole process is a bit more exciting for me than it is for James. Last week, he said, "It was more exciting the first time around," to which I replied, "This IS my first time around!" James owned this house before we were married, so I didn't get to pick it out, or get all excited and think about where I was going to put what, and how I was going to decorate, etc... It's stressful to buy a house, but so exciting!

And I'll leave you with this picture that I look at when I need to be reminded that this is really happening...

We're Buying a House!

Yep, we're buying a house!

It just went on the market on Friday evening. I called our realtor that night and told him we'd like to see it. We went to see it at 1pm on Saturday, and we were already the fourth viewing that day. Yikes! That's a lot of interest in one day. Long story short, we loved it. So I called my parents and they came to see it while we were there. They loved it too. We decided to put in an offer. Later that evening, our realtor called and said they countered (they only wanted to pay half our closing costs instead of all of them). We accepted. Woohoo!

Here's a picture:

Four bedrooms (three upstairs, one downstairs), two bathrooms (one upstairs, one downstairs), 2208 square feet, decent kitchen, huge dining area, lots of closet space, nice finished basement, double attached garage, and a decent back yard. We totally love it! There is nothing that we have to fix in this house. There are some things we'd like to do eventually, but nothing pressing. For example, some of the carpet/linoleum is not my style, so we'll replace that someday, but it is in good condition, so I can live with it. The kitchen will probably need updating in 5-10 years. The downstairs bedroom has paneling, and I'd like to tear that down and put up sheet rock. The family room in the basement has wallpaper, so we'll get rid of that. James would be able to do that and he could do it at his own pace because we don't have to live in the basement. The siding is in good shape and freshly painted, so we won't need to mess with that for a while, although eventually we will probably get steel or vinyl siding. And it will probably need new windows in about 5 years. The only thing we'll have to do sooner rather than later is put in a fence. No big deal, James could easily do that. Now that I think of it, we do have to repaint the master bedroom. It's bright pink right now. Yeah, no.

The best part it that both of my kids will have their own bedrooms!! I am so incredibly thrilled by this! And we'll have almost 1,000 more square feet than we have now. The neighborhood is really nice, I can totally see my kids growing up there. Although neither a double garage, nor an attached garage were requirements for us, we're so lucky that we're going to have both! And I can NOT wait to have an actual dining area rather than a tiny table crammed into the kitchen! I am so happy to say that this could very well be our forever house! We may never have to move again.

And oh, the move. I am not looking forward to packing up our entire lives and moving.

I should say that the sale is contingent on us selling our house. We have until October 7th to get an offer, or there will be no new house. Please cross your fingers for us!