Pending!

Pending inspection and appraisal, this is OURS!

You guys should be SO excited. You don't have to hear me whine about sharing a 950 square-foot, one bathroom home with FOUR boys anymore!

So how exactly did this come to be when we are upside down on our mortgage? Well, my coworker's husband specializes in real estate transactions. He kindly walked us through our options and referred us to the many people who have made this whole thing possible. First, we had a contractor look at our current home. He gave us estimates for completing our basement (to add two bedrooms and a bathroom).

Then we talked with a real estate agent who kindly told us that no way in hell would we be able to recover all the money it would take to finish our basement. But she did tell us we could rent out our current place for approximately the price of our monthly mortgage payment. She also hooked us up with a loan officer who pre-approved us to purchase a new home.

Thus began the arduous and painful process of house hunting. There is NOTHING on the market right now. And with my husband's long list of must-haves.....our house hunting proved so incredibly useless. I fell in love with every house. He hated every house (except for one house that he said was "ok").

We were just about to give up and let our search efforts lay dormant until.... my husband emailed me a link to a 1980's, newly remodeled home on 1/3 of an acre in a quiet development. It had only been on the market three days. We dropped everything and went to tour the house.

And we fell in love.

That night, a Sunday, we rushed to our agent's office, completed the paperwork, and put in our offer. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.

If you are in the market to buy a home, I highly recommend against purchasing from an older couple who are in the middle of an RV trip somewhere in the middle of Nebraska. Especially when that couple lacks both an email address and any sense of urgency. But, here we are, 72 hours later and we have just been notified that our offer was ACCEPTED!

We are beyond thrilled. We are ecstatic. After eight years of hand washing every single dirty dish and utensil, I will have a DISHWASHER. After eight years of doing my make up and hair while sitting on the floor in front of my closet door, I will have a working outlet in the bathroom and COUNTER SPACE (no more legs falling asleep in between doing my mascara and blush). After eight years of yearning for a fire on dark and stormy nights, we will have a fireplace! After eight years of sharing one bathroom with way too many people (all boys), I will have my own sink! And, probably one of my most favorite features of the new house.....

A basement devoted SOLELY for little boys and their toys!

The house is a tri-level. When you walk into the house, there is a large landing that is entirely a living room (with vaulted ceilings!). Then you can walk up the stairs to the dining room and kitchen (omg, my dining room and my family room and my entry way will no longer be all the same room!) and all the bedrooms. Or you can go down the stairs from the landing to the basement and the laundry room (a room JUST for laundry...it's too good to be true!) and the large two-car garage.

The living room/landing. Note the very strange fireplace. I'm 99% sure those bricks will end up white-washed.

The family room from the top of the stairs.

My dining room. A room JUST FOR EATING! And you can see my deck just out the sliding glass windows.

Renovated kitchen. It has a sky-light! And a bar!

I'd post a picture of the backyard...but it looks like a large patch of dirt and brown grass. We already have our first home improvement project picked out.

The sellers just put $60K into renovating the entire interior of the house. It looks immaculate. And at 1,900 square feet, it feels ginormous compared to our current 950. I have no idea what I'm going to do with 1,000 extra square feet. Actually, yes I do. I'm going to roll in it, and prance through it, and do snow angels in the carpet!

CARPET ANGELS, HERE I COME!