An accepted offer! Finally!!!

Our offer wasnt accepted for Hope Farm Rd. I was so bummed by it! But I kept on looking and still wasnt finding much. Then our agent reccommended a house in the Lakeside area we love so much. Crazy thing is this is the very first house I looked at months ago. I dismissed it because back then I had a laundry list of things our home had to have, not knowing that our budget wouldnt get us all of that. So I thought ewwww and walked away. So we looked again and its like I seen it through new eyes. Its been listed since November 2010!! The price has dropped almost 10 grand!! Its moderate fixer upper.
I offered the sellers my first bid and they came back at $1000 less than asking. I offered $3000 less than asking and they pay for a survey and they agreed. We hope to take possession in 30 days.




Just look at that porch. Can you already imagine the hanging ferns, a swing and old carriage house type lights flanking the front door?















Those scraggly bushes are going buh-bye. New vinyl siding and shutters would give it much needed updating.















The back side. New deck. Cut down a tree or two.....or three.






Yes, its leaning. We'll demo it first thing to avoid law suits from when it falls over on some one. New 20x20 garage!


















Front room. Front door. Most of the wood work is painted. That bums me out.

Stairway and coat closet.

Dinning room. Ick to the red wall.
A bay window? Yes please!

Out dated kitchen. Ive always wanted to design my own kitchen.

Kitchen with shot of breakfast area.

Breakfast nook. Im going to make it the mudroom.

Half bath.

Clean dry basement, no MOLD. yay

Upstairs landing.

Full bath

Master bedroom. oooh love me some paneling!

2nd bedroom

3rd bedroom

4th bedroom

Putting in another offer!

We've (I) decided to put in an offer on Hope (Hog) Farm Rd house. It fits the bill on 90% of the things we were looking for in a house.
What it has going for it=
-4 bedrooms (large rooms)
-more than 1 full bath (it has 2 full, 1 half)
-All bedrooms upstairs or downstairs. Not half up half down. I like to be on the same floor as my kids.
-Large yard
-2 car attached garage
-around 2000 square foot (its 2500+ square foot!!!)
- In a great neighborhood (walking distance to a great Christian school)
-Quiet street (on a cul de sac)
-Fireplace

What it doesnt have=
-Central air (I hate sweating. Gonna be a long summer). Has 4 window units to cool the house. Wow there goes our electric bill.
-Hot water baseboard heat.
-Carpets are shot. Sellers had about 90 dogs. None house trained.
-Ugly paint colors and border.
-Dark paneling in family room.
-Outdated kitchen. With carpet. So gross.
-Outdated bathrooms. With carpet. Should be agains EPA laws.



Here's the listing pic. It's been listed for over 100 days. It's a short sale. We hope to get it for a song. I'll post more pics after we get an accepted offer.

Still looking...............

Alrighty. Let's get this over with. We looked at these houses Tuesday. Nothing exciting to report.

Our bids on Collbran were outbid and now its way out of our budget. Oh well. Wasn't meant to be I guess but its still very disapointing.

This one was a foreclosure. Needed a whole kitchen. Yup, not a sink or cabinet in it. Huge yard that was so over grown (as you can see) that you couldnt make your way to the back door. You can see daylight through the basement wall. Nice. NEXT!

I actually liked this one. She's ugly but has a lot of potential. It needs the garage door and trim repainted. Its a weird raspberry and teal combo right now. Ick! It needs floors, paint, appliances and has a room for another bathroom roughed in already. 2 full baths and big bedrooms. 2 car garage. Living room and a family room. It's a repo so the price is right. Oh and it may have termites. Orkin is doing a free inspection tomorrow so we'll see. Big yard that needs fenced in.

If all goes well, i'll more than likely put a bid in on it.

This next one is HUGE. 4 bedrooms 3 bathrooms. Living room and family room. Very outdated and creaky. Literally the stairs and upstairs floors creaked BAD. Its only 33 years old but sounded like a 100 year old house. Out of our price range but sellers are desparate to sell it and its been listed since December.



This one is in the awesome Lakeside Park neighborhood and in walking distance to Isabella's daycare. I knew it was a no after about 5 seconds. The upstairs seems structurally unsound. Just look at that room above the carport. Looks like its leaning a bit? It is. Wow.

This house is on Hope Farm Road and hubs and I are having fun making up diff names for it- Hog Farm Road. We're dorks. Anywho, I'm looking at this one Sun. Its 4 bedroom 3 bathroom. Its a short sale and out of our price range but our agent assures us that they bank is willling to do what it takes to get rid of it. Stay tuned............

More house hunting.

We looked at four more houses today. I liked one. Sorta. It was a repo with potential. And termites (which I mispronounced terminites and then had a 15 min long giggle fit bout mennonite termites. ahem, anywho...). The wood around the windows and door was ate up.
One had no kitchen and the you could see daylight through the basement walls. Neat! Sky lights in the basement.
Another was built in 1978 but the floors creaked and groaned like a 150 year old house. Not good.
The next one was old and rickety. I was seriously scared to walk around the upstairs because the floors rolled and felt unstable. Wow.
Heard back from agent about the house on Collbran that we keep bidding on. Stupid bank countered again at the same price. Jerks. But now the house is considered an "aged property" and our agent thinks they'll reduce the price again and wait a few more days before upping our offer. Ugh. I really REALLY want that house but am losing patience quick. We've gone up 22 grand and they keep countering at the same price.
That's all the house news so far. More houses to look at on Thursday. Hopefull bank accepts our offer on Collbran and we wont have to look any more.

Ideas for the half bath

Here's the half bath. I think it would be a good starting point in the house if we get it (I hope!). Its a small room and we'll get our feet wet with it first.

-Notice the ugly red wall paper. That's coming off first thing.

-Then the vanity/sink is going.

-New neutral paint.

New vanity and sink. I like both of these. The 1st I'd put a basket under it with towels in it.The 2nd one is pretty all by itself ;)

Sconces and lighting. The 1st pic is a sconce. One on either side of the mirror. The 2nd is more vintage-y. The 3rd pic is an over head light.

Faucets for sink. I love a curvy faucet. Curves are good. I know :) The 1st is by Delta the 2nd is Pottery Barn.

I plan on hard wood floors through the whole house. I hate carpet. Nasty stuff. I love this jute rug with blue trim.

I'd go with mirrors vs. a medicine cabinet. It's a half bath. No need for the cabinet.

I love beadboard in a bathroom. With a rail. And molding. Kinda like this pic-

That's all my ideas so far. Can't wait to finally get this house. I know we'll get it. I gotta feeling.

I just wanted to buy a house. Is that so difficult? YES!

This whole house buying business has my head spinning. We put a bid in on Collbran and the bank came back at a higher number. Ok. No big deal. So we bid again. The bank came back again at the same number. Odd...... The agent seems to think there's multiple offers. Awesome. A bidding war. We decided after the last bid we would just move on and make an offer on the sweet little house on Pemberton. So we did. They countered us. They only came down a few grand. Our agent thinks they have a mortgage they need to pay off and their asking price isnt too much over their balance. :( super! So we upped our bid again on Collbran and are hoping the bank is gouging the bidders to drive up the price but I'm pretty sure thats whats happening here. Jerks. Like banks dont have enough money?
We are in MI this weekend visiting the hubby. His kids miss him and I guess I do too :) We'll probably stay the whole week. We need to relax and play by the pool. Lansing is really nice. Oh, and there's a Pottery Barn close by. Score!
Ok, thats all the exciting news happening here.

The waiting is killing me......

I hate waiting! HUD people have til 5 pm to either accept, reject or counter our offer on Collbran. In the mean time I looked at 2 more houses today and revisited the blue Victorian.

The Victorian is def out of the question after looking at the basement. It's rough. And scary. Good for storage at best. I got a closer look at the exterior of the house and it needs siding, windows, gutters, and a roof. Also it looks as though it was once chopped up into 2 apartments. Found the 2nd apartments door way. Its just too much money to sink into it for the price they are asking for it. It wont fit into our budget.
That brings us to the next house. This house was darling. Lots of built-in cabinets in the living room and cute spice cab in kitchen. Part of basement was finished and had a half bath. Also had a funky shaped kids room that made it very small. Oh and it's off a busy road and wow was that loud. I couldn't have a conversation with my agent on the front porch because of traffic noise. So that's a no. Sucha shame!




















The 2nd house was on a beautiful, quiet street. I can picture us taking walks and the kids riding bikes here. I loved the paint colors, the flooring, & the woman of the house's decorating style. I want to stalk her and force her to be my new bestie. Kidding :/ Adorable kitchen, new windows, fenced yard, garage, new bath remodel, awesome arch ways, moldings and a black front door,gas stove- omg I gotta stop cuz I'm having heart palpitations just thinking of it.And the front porch is ca-yute! Just look at it!! Cute huh? And the light fixtures in the bath are so freaking sweet I squealed when I saw them. They are retro-industrial style complete with the cage surrounding the light bulb. ♥♥♥ Here's the listing link to the house. http://fortwayne.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Fortwayne&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&ARGUMENTS=-N959823653,-N281485,-N,-A,-N12693101
I'm sure if Collbran falls through that we'll put an offer in on this beauty. Fingers crossed still for Collbran.

Great news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We looked at a house last week that was 3 blocks from us in our awesome subdivision. We loved it even though its a bit of a mess (HUD repo) and needs work. A lotta work. But its 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath with a 2 car garage and a separate family room. Oh and like 2500 square foot. Woohoo! We gave the agent our earnest money and giddily waited to hear back. Well turns out it had a pending contract on it.. Boooo :(
BUT she called today to tell me that contract fell through and she's submitting our offer. Yay! We should hear something from the HUD folks tomorrow. I hope we get it!
So here's the pics on it. Use your futuristic vision folks, its a bit rough. Been sitting vacant since Oct 2010.
Front and Back of house.

Formal living room and dinning room. Ugly wall paper will be first thing to do then the gaudy brass chandy. I hate brass. Oh and the carpet goes too. I'm seeing beautiful bamboo hard wood floors through out the whole house. Also all the hot water baseboard heaters are coming out. They are leaky. New gas forced air needs installed.

Kitchen, half bath and laundry room. Ick more wall paper. Needs new appliances, cabs, flooring... heck the kitchen needs gutted. I'm seeing smoked glass front cabs, granite or polished concrete counters, stainless steel appliances. oh YES.

Sunk in family room with fireplace and doors leading to back yard. I'm seeing french doors instead of sliding glass. Gross carpet ripped up and wood floors.

2nd pic is master bedroom. Paint and new flooring and it'll be great. Maybe a swanky chandy hanging about bed but I'm sure hubs will object. He thinks he needs a ceiling fan. We'll see ;)

Master bath. Um ya, we aren't fancy enough for a baday. I think they are so gross.

2nd pic is the 2nd bedroom. Ew red. Ick. Paint and flooring. And a closet kit.

3rd and 4th bedrooms. Paint, paint and more paint. New flooring. Closet kits and we're good to go there.

KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED WE GE AN ACCEPTED OFFER!!!!