She's All Ours

{Or will be...in 30 years}

 Now, don't go judging a book by it's cover!

Give her a chance.

She has a lot of love left in her :)

Kitchen, dining room, living room, family room, five bedroom, three bath, storage room, dry storage, patio, and a yard.
That's a lot more room then I'm use to!
Let me give you the grand tour:

View from the front door: Living room

Front entry & living room:

 Stairs up to bedrooms and down to family room/bedrooms...

Living room...

Kitchen...

Kitchen...

Stairs up to bedrooms/bathrooms...

Children's bath upstairs...

Girls room upstairs...

 

Boys room upstairs...

Master bedroom (fuzzy wall paper and all!  I've already pulled most of it down...not my taste)

Stairs back down to the living room/entry...

Looking down into the family room...

The soon-to-be office just off the family room...

(Yes, that bar is legit! It even came with bottles of beer.)

To the left is the laundry/bathroom and stairs leading to the basement...

Laundry room/bathroom...

Stairs leading down to the basement bedrooms, storage, and cold storage...

View from my kitchen window...

(I think I'll keep the curtains)

JP and Sport's treasure in the back yard!

The shed with the friendly indian...

The big tree where plans are already being made by the children for a tree-house (we shall see)...

And the pole is a basketball hoop just off of the court covered in leaves...

 The backyard with lots of fruit vines and pretty trees (or will be, I hope, come spring)...

 

Just a few of the 80 or so statues that fill our yard (Not including the gnomes.  I'm not even kidding when I say we've counted over 50 of them!)

The lions that guard the gate to "the secret garden" as the girls say...

(I can't wait to trim those rose vines this spring!)

How she came to be ours:

Back in May of 2012, the Mr. and I decided it was time to settle down and take advantage of the "great time to buy".

We've been keeping our eyes open for something to come along for years... but as time would pass, we would eventually tucker out with the whole house hunting thing.

Frankly, it's exhausting...and I hate it!

Anyway, last May we were on the hunt again, determined not to quit this time. 

We LOVE our neighbors, friends, ward, and school.

It was breaking my heart to even think about moving away (change isn't easy for me).

But, we branched out and were open to anything as long as it felt right.

In July, my dear friend Aubrey suggested we check out this house about two blocks from where we live now.

She didn't know all the details at the time, but knew it was up for grabs, it just had not been listed yet.

So, JP and I did a little drive by and thought better of it right away.

We knew this house.

It had been in litigation for years (the children were fighting over who would inherit the property), and JP had cleaned the yard many times with the Young Men of our church to keep the place up.

It just wasn't a good idea. 

We didn't even know how long it would take for the court to make a decision to sell the place. 

So, we moved on.

We came across so many cute homes, but nothing felt right to us. 

It was getting frustrating!

Finally, we decided to build. 

We found ourselves a nice piece of land out in Saratoga Springs.

A beautiful, newly developed town away from the city.

I had always wanted to get away from the noise, and this community had everything...IE:

A REALLY good school that my children had to get in on the lottery and DID, a brand new park, cute little neighborhood, and shopping centers just five miles away.

We were all about it!

After meeting with the builder, picking our lot, and signing the agreement, we went to work choosing our colors and woodwork.

Let me tell you right now, building is HARD.  And STRESSFUL!

At least, it was for me.

There are just way too many things to think about and work through, and there's never enough money to do what you really want to do!

At least, not for me. 

I was losing so much sleep. 

Stress was taking over my life. 

I spent so much time on my knees praying for inspiration and help, pleading with the Lord to stop us if this was the wrong decision, but to please help us if it was the right one. 

After a week of no sleep and hitting all kinds of walls, red flags started popping up everywhere. 

The builder wouldn't sign a paper saying he would renegotiate the price if the appraisal value was lower then what we were going to purchase the home for, which was just odd...given no other builder had that stipulation. 

So, we decided to take a drive around the neighborhood and talk to the neighbors.

Sure enough, the first person we talked to said that the appraisal of their home came in under what they purchased it for.

And then we met our next door neighbors who just happened to have the last name of PAYNE.  

What are the chances?  They didn't like that...and it may seem petty, but I was a little creeped out by them.  

I'm sure they are great people.

Then suddenly the price changed due to some building changes, which meant our mortgage payment would be slightly more then we had planned.

But, we just kept telling ourselves that we would regret it if we walked away from this.

This was what we had always wanted.

We were doing this! 

But, even our realtor was feeling a little uneasy about the whole thing and kept telling us to "just be aware" of this and that. 

After a very sleepless, exhausting, stressful two weeks, the Mr. and I whispered to each other one night that something just wasn't right about this.  

It just shouldn't be this hard or look this great, but feel this terrible.

We realized that we had slowly talked ourselves out of all the things we wanted in a home.

Such as, a big yard with big trees and mature fruit, an older home with character, a place where our kids could grow up with good memories, because we weren't mortgage poor and could put more into our children and their lives.  

This wasn't suppose to be about us.  

This was suppose to be about them.

We called our realtor and walked away.

That night, I finally had a peaceful nights sleep.

We hoped we wouldn't regret losing that perfect lot, but we didn't feel like we would.

A month later, Aubrey mentioned that house two blocks away from us...saying that there had been some new developments in the litigation battle.

I didn't really want to go look at it, but our bishop stopped by with the keys and suggested we do.

He told us that he felt it could be a good fit for our family and would love to have us for neighbors (he lives across the street from the house).

So, on a Sunday afternoon we walked the two blocks and took a look around. 

It smelled of old carpet and dusty curtains.

The children headed for the backyard and started climbing the big tree, while JP and I toured the inside. 

I was just shaking my head at all the work that needed to be done.

JP, on the other hand, was getting excited about all the "fun" projects he could do to fix the place up!

I let him dream and walked up the stairs to check out the master bedroom and bath.

When I reached the bedroom with the bright red carpet and fuzzy red wall paper, I laughed out loud! 

This place was a charmer in its day.

Then I looked out the master bedroom window and saw the gorgeous mountains, already turning bright colors for autumn, and a feeling came over me that I will never forget. 

It's that feeling that keeps me going as we run into renovation problems, a shortage of funds, and lack of time to get it all done. 

It was a feeling of peace, comfort, and a reassurance that this was home.

When JP walked in the room and stood next to me with that big grin on his face, I knew he had felt it too. 

I just looked at him and said, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is it!" 

He nodded his head and said, "I know. I feel the same way."

Just then the children came barging in asking which bedroom was theirs!

We called the lawyers right away and put in an offer. 

The son battling for the rights to sell the place contacted us and wanted to practically give us the house once it was out of litigation.

We couldn't believe the steal of a deal! 

Months passed...and still we waited to hear that the battle over the house had ended between the siblings.

We weren't even sure if we could buy the place in the next year!

But, the spirit kept whispering to be patient and that we would be in our home by spring time.

So, we got to work.

Everyone thought we were crazy, but we had a key and permission from the family to start working on getting the place ready for appraisal.

The son had assured us that we were the only ones he wanted the home to go to. 

Of course, we got something in writing saying that he wouldn't sell the house to anyone else, just to be on the safe side.

After five months of waiting, the litigation finally ended!

We could get to work with our broker to get the house. 

Although we ran into all kinds of things during closing, it was as if the Lord was handing us the home. 

We would hit a wall and somehow come out on top.

Then, JP got the news that he was losing his job.

The company he was working for was closing it's doors.

We were beside ourselves.  

How could this happen? 

After all this time, should we walk away from the home, just before we sign the papers? 

We prayed for an answer and kept feeling we should keep moving forward.

So we did.

By all accounts, it didn't make sense!

JP's former boss is a GOOD man and dear friend. 

He kept JP employed long enough for him to put his application out there and close on the house. 

We went a few weeks without a paycheck, but it didn't take long for JP to land a new job.

Which is a huge blessing.
We have friends that are still looking, and I worry and pray for them.

We closed on our first house the end of January, the weekend before JP started his new job.

Our broker said he had only seen a handful of clients successfully close on a deal like this, where the owner walks away having willingly made little to nothing on the home, leaving the new owner with money to put into the home.

Since then, we have been busy, busy!

There's a lot to do, and we have to be moved out of this dear little hole in the ground apartment that we've called home for six years, by the end of the month.

We've made a lot of fond memories here! 

I'm so grateful to stay near the people we love so much. 

Our home may be old and in need of a lot of work, but every time I see her, I remember the miracles that led her to be ours, and I can't deny that I'm where the Lord wants us to be.

That's a great feeling and all that matters!

Everything else will work itself out.