We finally did it!!

We bought a house!! We are both so super excited to get into a home. It really is a great time to be buying. Can't wait for the 8 grand from the government. Anyway, onto the story.

So we have been looking for a home for a really long time. We just weren't finding anything that we loved that was in our price range. Our realtor is in our ward and we were considering putting an offer in on a couple homes in Kaysville and he called and said that he had a home in the ward that was going to sell. So we went and looked at the house and I loved it. I should explain, I loved the layout, the area, the yard and just all the space it had. Remember I am coming from like a 900 square foot apartment. Dan wasn't totally sold b/c it needs a ton of work but he saw the potential like I did. Anyway, the house is a complete fixer upper. Both Dan and I said that we didn't want a fixer upper but we decided that it had a ton of potential. The house never actually went up for sale.

The man that owned it bought it on an auction for one of his employees but apparently the employee couldn't afford it or something fell through so he had to get rid of it b/c he had some company money tied up in it. So, it was foreclosure that went to auction. Yes, we got it for an AWESOME price. So good our realtor made us promise not to tell anybody what we bought it for so the neighborhood wouldn't get mad. (You know, the price of their house going down, blah, blah, blah).

I took a picture of our house and then the neighbors house which is identical. Just so that you can all see our vision for the home. It isn't the best picture of the home but I didn't want to be a weirdo and go stand right in front of the home and take a picture. Oh and no, we didn't buy a new truck. One of our neighbors is an ex-cop and he parks his truck there so that people think the home is being lived in. Super nice of him I guess. The neighbors are super protective of the neighborhood. They were all super worried about who was going to buy the home. They were all worried that it was going to turn into a crack house. Most of them were considering buying it and renting it out so that they could have control of who bought it. Pretty crazy if you ask me. I guess it is a good thing. So we have had some VERY happy neighbors coming over and telling us just how excited they were that we bought it.

I will give you the run down of our plans for renovation and then post some before pictures. It is pretty nasty so just a warning if you are eating or something. :-)

Replacing all of the windows. Those should be here at the end of next week.

Refinishing the wood floors in the front room and down the hall. (The house has beautiful wood floors underneath the carpet. Why they covered the floors I have no idea.)

Carpet in the 3 bedrooms upstairs

New cabinets, countertops (granite-so excited for those), stainless steel appliances

Tile in the kitchen and dining room

Painting the entire house

Gutting and replacing both bathrooms. Both bathrooms are super small. But we will be getting new vanities, toilets and a tub. Tile on the bathroom floors

Canned lighting in the basement. There aren't any windows down there so it is kind of dark. Unfortunately the basement ceiling has asbestos in it so we will have to hazmat suit up to remove it all. Lame!

Carpet in the family room downstairs and one of the bedrooms. There is a large room where the washer and dryer go and we will probably make that into a little gym as well.

There is another room in the basement but it was like their shop so we probably won't worry about that room for a little while.

I think that I got it all. We are trying to do all of this by November 1st. Why you ask? We pay our first mortgage payment November 1st and we don't want to pay rent and mortgage. I think we can do it. We have to do all of the demolition, paint and tile. Everything else is going to be installed and completed by somebody else.

When Dan and I were in the singles ward one of the counselors in the bishopric owns a company that does house stuff. So we went into his showroom and took a couple hours and choose out everything that we wanted from cabinets to bathrooms to carpet. So his company will be doing all of the installing. He must be giving us a deal b/c the bid came back for all of the remodel and it was within our budget. So great! I am getting more and more excited as we finally start to get the nasty outdated crap out. I think the windows alone are going to make the home look tons better. Anyway, for the pictures

Living room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Bathroom #2

Bathroom #1- I know, super small huh?

Today was a super busy day at the house. Our new tub and toilets were delivered. Doors were measured. New doors and locks should be here next week. Got all of the nasty carpet that we had piled in the dining room loaded in a trailer and taken to the dump. Plumber came and gutted both bathrooms. Our great old neighbor from my childhood Lee Francis came and checked the heater, AC and water heater. All are pretty new and working awesome! As a side not this guy is seriously the nicest ever. I asked him if he would just bill be and he said "oh don't worry about it, consider it a house warming gift." What?? So nice, I do plan on doing something for him.

Since the home was a foreclosure there was a bunch of crap left in the home and in the sheds in the backyard. I keep forgetting to get a picture of the backyard, I will. So there was a nasty couch and chair left and we were just going to take them to the DI. Well, I thought I would try selling them on KSL. So I took pictures of them and put them up. They sold in 2 hours. I only listed them for $50 total but still they were nasty. I was thrilled they sold and that we didn't have to worry about taking them to the DI. I am just kicking myself for not trying to sell the for a little bit more. I really need my hair colored. :)

Hall-not the best picture of the wood but...

One of the bedrooms upstairs

Look at all the nasty carpet. Seriously, pulling all of that up was disgusting. Glad that is over and that the carpet is sleeping safely at the dump. We got a ton accomplished today, i will have to take pictures of the demolished bathrooms. Progress is being made and it feels good.

I absolutely hate our apartment now. I cannot wait to get out of the place and have room. I am so excited that my gym, office and living room will no longer need to be together.

And a quick shout out to my mom who has been our babysitter as we work on this house. THANK YOU for watching Sam so that we can actually get something accomplished. We really, really appreciate it!