Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts

07 May 2013

A realtor update and, oh hey, a new rug...

Thank you so much for all of your wonderful advice on my post yesterday! Here's a quick update:
  • We met with the realtor and her business partner last night.  
  • We loved them.  
  • We'll likely use them but we didn't sign a contract yet {I'm having it sent over today so that we can review it.}
  • They want to list the house for basically the same price that we paid for it 7 years ago. {Which we sort of expected.} 
  • Someone please hold my hair back while I puke at the thought of completing $40,000 worth of renovations and losing all of it.
  • I know it could be worse.
  • Our house will be listed within 24 hours of signing the contract.
  • AHHHHHH.
So, yeah.  There's that.

But, hey... check out our new rug!

While preparing for both Reid's Baptism party and the listing of our house, we cleaned and organized every room from top to bottom.  And our master bedroom? Well, that probably needed the most work. {Sadly.} But now that it's done, man does it feel good to have everything organized. Out with the old, in with the new.  And just look how pretty it turned out =)

Oh... do you see that new pretty little thing in the corner of the picture?  That's our new area rug...
 
I love it! And anyone with hardwood floors can understand this... good area rugs are a MUST.  But finding quality rugs that are also in your budget? Nearly impossible. 

Enter: Rugs USA

After all that cleaning and organizing, I was finally able to put out my new Keno Trellis rug.  I could not wait to roll out this gorgeous rug in my room, but I wanted to wait until it was perfectly clean so that I could fully grasp the beauty it.  It totally brightens our room and the quality is fantastic.  And the kids love it almost as much as I do...

The rug is so plush, and the trellis design matches the style of our room, perfectly.

Rugs USA is currently having a 50% off sale! Use the code ESMA50 at checkout!

Happy shopping and thanks again for all of your wonderful advice yesterday!  Stay tuned for a full "before & after" house post coming soon. :)

I was provided this rug in exchange for my honest review.  As always, all opinions are my own.


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06 May 2013

New Listing

After 7 years, 1 wedding, 1 puppy, 3,268 renovations and 3 babies, we're putting our house on the market.

Like, tonight.

I'm both excited and nervous.  Happy and sad.  It's bittersweet, ya know?  We fixed our house up from top to bottom and built our little family there.  We love it to pieces {especially now that it's completely renovated, right?} but it's just time to move on.  We've simply outgrown it.

Our realtor is coming after work today. I found some great resources online, but I also want to hear from you, my lovely readers, as this is our first time going through this process as a seller... 

So, do you have any tips for us?  What things should we know? What questions should we ask our realtor? Should we try to negotiate the commission, or leave it as is? {According to reviews/recommendations, our realtor is pretty bad-ass so I don't want to offend her, after all, this is her living. But to save even .5-1% would help us tremendously considering that we're losing money on the house. Which isn't her fault either, so I go back and forth with this. Any realtors out there?}

Basically? HELP US.

I think I have it staged pretty well and now I just want to "depersonalize" a little bit more {why yes, Bob, I do think I'm on HGTV, thankyouverymuch.} I have things pretty much cleared out and stored away.  Closets and drawers are organized, the house is clean, the kitchen counters are bare, for the most part {don't make me put my coffee pot away. Ahem.} So, I think we're pretty much ready.

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of our house the day we moved in vs. a picture I took yesterday.YWIA.

Those shrubs! That awning! Those windows! Those shrubs! {I know I said that already, but they still haunt me.}

And here's Bob and I opening our front door for the very first time after settlement. {With his empty wallet, ha!}
Oh, you kiddos you. You've come a long way.

I have an entire post planned for our "Before & After" house stuff, so stay tuned for that.

So, yeah.  Wish us luck!


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04 April 2013

Happenings Lately...

I feel like I have so many things I want to talk about here, but no time to actually talk about them.  At least in separate posts.  So, because it's been awhile since I did a 'Happenings' post {the last one was the morning before my dad died... man how things have changed since then} I figured now is as good a time as any to catch you up on our world lately.

***

Carter.

Ya know, the baby that I feel like I just brought home from the hospital?

 {Erin Farrell Photography}
Yeah, him.

He registers for kindergarten tomorrow.  

Bob and I are taking him to school where he will meet the kindergarten teachers and visit a classroom while we complete the registration paperwork.

This boy.
 {Stephanie Glover Photography}
He's not a baby anymore.

And I just can't believe that he will be 5 in July and off to school for the very first time this fall.

I mean, I remember turning 5.  {Crap, guess we need to watch what we say/do now, huh?}

Now my first baby is old enough to have this memory too.

I just can't believe it.  I'm in shock.

Please hold me while I sob.

***

Currently, I'm in the midst of planning Reid's Baptism.  Like Brynn's Baptism, we're going to have the ceremony at the church and then have the party at our house.

We're a little late in planning this, but I think everything has been a bit delayed since my dad died.  Just the thought of holding these events without him hurts my heart immensely.  But life goes on, and we're trying to get through these things together.  And, in the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal that Reid will be 7 months old at his Baptism.  I'm still glad we're doing it.

We had a bit of a hard time finding an outfit for the "little" guy though ;)  {18 month clothing just isn't normal for a 6 month old.  Well, I guess it's normal for my 6 month olds. Ahem.} But I think we picked a winner.
Adorable, right?

Okay, so because we're having about 50 people at our house for lunch on the last Sunday of April, the ol' to do list is too long to even write down.  Besides my nephew Ben's birthday party this Saturday, we've basically cleared our calendars for the entire month so that we can get the house ready for the party.

***

Which leads me to the next point.

We're selling our house.

We hope to list it literally right after Reid' Baptism.  We got new siding a few weeks ago which now leaves us with only 1 big project left to do: our laundry room remodel.  I definetly have to take a "before" picture of this room and post it for you because it will give you a better idea of what the state of our entire house looked like when we moved in.

Disasterous.

I mean, there is drawer-lining contact paper on our walls.  Like, for wallpaper.

Yep.

We start that this weekend.

***

Can we talk about the housing market real quick?  Great.

Since we've renovated every. single. room. in the house {most of which were complete gut jobs} we hoped that we would eventually be rewarded for our hard work by selling our house at a higher price than what we paid for it {or, ya know, be able to include the renovation costs in our listing price like in a normal market.}

But ya know, this isn't a normal market.

Since everything crashed, we'll be lucky if we can list our house for what we originally paid for it.  And, of course, also losing the 30-40k of money we put into the house on things like a new kitchen, bathrooms, windows, roof, etc over the last 7 years.

Awesome.

But, ya know.  These things happen.  My only saving grace is that we will be able to buy a nicer house at a cheaper price too.

Hopefully, right?

Oh, and our moving plans are pretty settled now.  We're going to move in with my mom for a few months.  This will allow us to do two things: (1) help her financially since things have been rough since my dad died and (2) save money while we build {or search for a >5 year old} new house. No more fixer-uppers for us, thankyouverymuch.  We plan to move into the same town as my mom anyway, so this also works out with Carter starting school in the fall.

More on our moving/new house plans later.

***

Also on the planning agenda?  Brynn's birthday party.

She'll be 3 in May. {HOW?}

I'm trying to book the party this week so that I can design the invitations and get them out by mid-April.

She picked Build-A-Bear for her party location, by the way. Which, on one hand I find adorable and I know she loves it there, but on the other, I find annoying because now I have to figure out how the hell to also feed people.  I'm going to call the mall today about reserving tables in the food court and then I guess getting some pizzas and/or Chick-Fil-A trays and calling it a day.

Oy.

Anyone been to {or had} a Build-A-Bear party before?  What did you do for food?

***

So yeah, as you can see, we're not busy at all.


04 October 2011

Wordless-ish | Because this is real life.

Yes, this post is scheduled. Because little ol' me? Well I'm enjoying my Disney vacation with my husband right now. And? I refused to bring my MacBook with me. It's home. Where it should be.

Carry on... =)
__________
Yeah, so last week I posted my fall home tour pictures and got a bunch of comments using such nonsense words as "clean" and "clutterfree" and "IMMACULATE" to describe my house. I even think I saw "super hero" in there some where.

Well, I'm here to set the record straight.

This is what my house really looks like. I didn't go home and mess things up just so I could take these pictures.

This is real life people.

Real life is busy.

And dirty, apparently. {Oh, my mom is going to kill me for posting these... sorry Mom!}

The family room on any given week day.
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Why yes, that's a dog hair tumbleweed. {They tend to make their way to the corner of every step in our house.}
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But since it's from this handsome guy? We don't mind {as much.}
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Anyone else having trouble with fruit flies lately? Because we are. We're trying to trap them in this wine/juice mixture. {It's working!} It's actually still sitting on our kitchen windowsill as of today. And? In my gorgeous Kate Spade bowl, nonetheless.
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Our trash is always {ALWAYS} full. Always.
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The place where shoes go to die. {Or? Just sit over night.}
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Though it does sometimes make for cute pictures.
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So, once we've hit our breaking point {which tends to happen every Sunday around 10am}... the house gets cleaned.
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And even though it may look like this 30 seconds after we've finished...
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...it looks like this about 10 minutes later.
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And that my friends? Is real life.



I hope you are all having a fabulous week!

You guys? Rock.
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23 September 2011

Y3W | Fall Home Tour

Every year, fall arrives just as we return home from our family vacation. By Labor Day, every area of my house is fully decorated and the air smells of pumpkins and cranberries {because of Febreeze plug-ins, not because I'm baking.}

I took these pictures the day after we returned from vacation. Yes, my house was decorated before we even unpacked.... what can I say, I just love fall.

The Dogwood Tree out front...
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Living room...
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Entry way/kitchen...
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These pumpkin candles and leaf rings were from our wedding =)
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Dinning room...
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Family room...
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Behind my favorite wooden pumpkin is an engagement pic of Bob and I from 2005 =)
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Just a few touches in the newly remodeled bathroom...
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So, there you have it. Fall. I just can't get enough of it.
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I hope everyone has a lovely weekend! Mine will be filled with parties and baby showers! Oh, and I guess a little bit of packing since, um, we leave for Disney in a week. =)

PS- What do you think of the new fall blog header?? I can't believe it took me this long to put it up!

Vote if you love fall!
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