An Offer is in...and We're Still Looking

Thursday night we made an offer on this house in Springville.

It is a short sale, so that means it could take 3 months or more before the seller's bank decides whether or not to accept our offer. Our realtor told us that the best thing to do with short sales, is to make the offer if you find one you like, but not to get too attached to it, and to keep looking until the offer actually goes through. So that's our game plan right now. Although, I'm secretly hoping that for some strange reason the bank will just decide to get to our offer quickly and let us know. I hate the waiting. But we can keep looking too, we aren't locked in to anything.

Just for the sake of fun, here are a few details about the house.

Built in 2006
2394 square feet
.18 acres
4 beds
3 baths (2 full, 1 half)

The first floor has a living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, pantry/laundry room, and a half bath. And the 2nd floor has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a large storage closet.

All the carpet needs to be replaced, and most of the walls need to be painted. But I think those things are doable. So I guess we'll just play the waiting game now and see.


Here are a couple more shots of the inside.

What I really like about the house is the layout. I think the floor plan would work out really nicely for us. I also like that the bedrooms are big. I have a hard time when they say not to become attached to a house...in order to want to buy a house enough to make an offer on it, you have to imagine your family living there, and if it will work for you or not. You have to imagine how you want it decorated, and what improvements you'd want to make if you owned it. And once you've done those things in your mind, to decide that yes, you could in fact see yourself buying this house...well, by then you're kind of attached to it. *sigh* And so I've spent the last few days imagining what I'd do with the house, if it were ever to become mine.

(This next part is where I start day dreaming, feel free to stop reading if you are uninterested in my grand house ideas.)

The first thing that must be done with this house is to get rid of the awful bright red/orange/yellow paint in the master. I really like the color scheme of both of these, and they would match the comforter that's already on our bed. Aaron and I both really like the beadboard in the first one, and are thinking about how to replicate it.

In the second picture, I really like how one wall is slightly darker green than the other. And we like the three separate pictures that go together above the bed.

I would love to do something like this tree in Adelia's room. I think it's super cute.

I've always wanted a yellow kitchen, and when I saw this picture with the dark counter tops, like this house we've put an offer in on has, I saw that my dream could still come true and look decent at the same time. :) And at some future point, we could change out the white appliances for stainless steel ones.

I'd like to build a half wall, similar to this one, to separate the entry way from the living room a little bit, because the living room is going to be the school room. And if we're going to be building a half wall anyways, why not add a bookcase into the back half while we're at it?

And I like these fiberglass door quite a bit too. Much better than plain old white ones.

Of course, I can't forget about landscaping. :) I want to plant a few Lindon Trees. Maybe on the boarder of the property, just to give us some privacy.

The American Linden tree, Tilia americana, is a rapid growing tree with fragrant yellow flowers and large, dense foliage that provides excellent shade. Although it will grow in dry heavier soils, it prefers deep moist soils. Its shape is pyramidal in youth, but rounded at maturity. A medium to large tree native east of the Missouri River in North Dakota. American Linden is desirable as a landscape tree for its large stature, shade and aromatic flowers. Fruit with attached pale-green bract, gives tree a two-tone appearance in late summer.

My parents have lots of Lindon trees on their back patio, and they smell A-MAZING in the spring time. And they're really pretty trees too. Good for shade.

Right now, at the house, around the front porch they have a whole bunch of rose bushes. Roses are alright, but I think I'd like to rip them out and plant a whole bunch of Lilac bushes instead. I've always loved Lilacs, and they smell heavenly. 

And maybe some Daffodils along the walk...


And that's just the beginning. I don't have time to list every fruit tree I'd like to grow, or every vegetable I'd like to plant. :)