The House

We finally bought a house! Well, we haven't technically 'bought' it yet. We close in mid-September. But all the purchase agreement papers are signed so it's practically a done deal. These photos were taken when we first saw it in April, just before we moved to Iowa. We saw it again last week and it's beautiful with bright flowers. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!

Here it is! Of course we have all sorts of things we'd eventually like to do to improve the curb appeal. Shutters, glass storm doors, re-finish the deck, window flower boxes, and landscaping to name several. We aren't going to delude ourselves into thinking it's all going to happen immediately, but down the road, when we're done with it, it will exude charm.

Dining room and Kitchen. We are looking forward to painting. And changing out the carpet in the dining room. I won't bore you with the colors we've picked out. But I will tell you it will look very different. Consider all of these pictures to be the 'before' shots : ) We love all the cupboard/counter space in the kitchen. And the appliances are decent. Some other huge pluses, all the windows and the roof were replaced in 2006. It's an older home so it's nice we won't have to worry about that.

We really like the layout of the house. The living room is right off the kitchen and down the hall is a full bath and a bedroom (which will be my jewelry studio). There is new carpet throughout the main level and the current owners keep the house very clean. We like the banister too, it's classic.

The house has a bathroom on every level. The basement has a 3/4 bath, the main level has a full bath (I love the claw-foot tub), and the 2nd level has a half bath. They are all in great shape and very clean. And they have tons of built in storage. That makes me so happy!

There are 4 bedrooms. The top-left is downstairs and will be my studio. The others are all on the 2nd level. They have really deep closets and some have built in storage (in the closets). The current owners built a laundry closet upstairs so it has living-level laundry as well. We LOVE that! Oh, and we also scored their high-efficiency front load washer/dryer out of the deal. Which means we can sell ours. Anyone need a washer/dryer?

The basement is finished and the water issues have been resolved. This is a huge deal. While looking for homes we learned that just about every house in Iowa has water problems in the basement. Even in new homes. I'm not sure why, I guess it's just really wet in Iowa? Basements usually aren't finished for this reason. I'm so glad we don't have to worry about that. There is an office/storage room (we worked the standing freezer into the deal too, yay!); a huge family room; a bathroom; and foyer area that has a wood furnace to supplement the hot water heat. The owners installed the wood furnace because Iowa is also known for ice storms and losing power due to them. We'll be toasty warm though (as long as we have wood, that is).

There you have it. That's our house. I have lots more pictures of closets and such, but those are really only exciting to us. Now we are just praying the rest of the process goes as smoothly as it has so far. If all continues to go well, we'll be moving in less than 60 days. This couldn't have worked out better because our 6 month lease ends right around then.