Moving

Well, it's finally time. Dani and I are leaving this apartment. We've really enjoyed our time living here--we've been here for almost three years (2 years and 9 months, to be precise). We've had a lot of wonderful neighbors here, and some not-so-wonderful neighbors (Stogey's Smoke Shop and Ozz, namely). We've had a lot of fun in this ward. N and V were born here.

Unfortunately, our apartment has grown very cramped with two kids. We have to move furnature around every night to comfortably sleep everyone. V sleeps in our bedroom until we go to sleep--at which time we shift our living room around a bit and roll her out to sleep near the book-cases.

Right after we got home from Arizona this last Christmas, we realized that we wouldn't be able to stay comfortable for the next year or so while I finished school, and we started looking for a house to buy. This new job has been very good for us financially, and we've been saving up for this since I started working there.

Well, when we did our taxes, our return brought us to exactly where we needed to be to get a down payment on a home. We looked and looked, and found a number that had a lot of potential. Long story short, we found one.

Incidently, the google street view is one of the best pictures we have of the exterior. The house is 2600 sq ft, was built in 1980, has five bedrooms and three baths. It's currently occupied--this house was a short-sale. Here's the upstairs living room:

We really feel like we found the diamond in the rough. There are quite a few smaller jobs that need to be done on this house, but it is, overall, in great condition.

It has a huge backyard for N to run around in. we'll be planting a garden this Spring and I'll be making plans to build a swing set for the girls. Here's a pretty good shot of the south-half of the yard:

Here's the kitchen, it's really quite spacious, but some of the appliances need updating. Dani and I are planning on putting in a new stove and dishwasher.

This is the room that I'll probably spend a lot of time in, the downstairs basement. This house is already wired with cat 5e (computer network/internet jacks in the walls), and is good to go for fiber optic internet access. I'm very excited to get a 60mbps dedicated line to my office.

I don't know what we'll do with the bar. . .that door leads to the hot-tub outside (we're hoping we can get it working). I just see it as desk space, honestly, and a good item for entertaining guests.

Did I mention that this house has two kitchens? The basement one only lacks a stove. Actually, if we finish the last room in the basement to be a bathroom--then the basement could be a nice renter's apartment. We plan on doing that as quickly as we're able to. It will take a while, as we need to redo all the bedrooms too. In case you can't tell how ugly they are from this picture, let me point out that these walls are wood-paneled, not drywalled. I'm gonna have a "bedroom vs crowbar" day after we close on this room.

So, there's a quick whirl-wind tour of our soon-to-be dwelling. We're very excited to be moving up in the world here. I'm excited for the heated workshop attached to the garage, and N is very excited for the back yard. Dani is just happy to give V her own room, so she can have the chance to catch a breather when she's particularly fussy.

We'll be moved in by the end of April, and we'll close in the next two or three weeks.