After our very long drive to Utah the day before, we were ready on Tuesday to start what we came for. My aunt Leslie, an awesome realtor in Salt Lake, was ready for a house hunting marathon. Bob* and I were excited to see what was out there after all our hard work getting our own house ready to sell. We were also excited to ride in Leslie's gorgeous white Mercedes - house hunting in style! (O: I am so grateful we go to have John and Leslie help us find a house in Utah. It will always be one of my favorite memories of finding our house. We laughed a lot during the four days of driving all around the valley viewing around 50 homes. We got to try out some cool restaurants for lunch, reacquaint Leslie with our kids and make some fun new memories. It was gorgeous weather the whole week, except for one day that we got dumped on with rain for a little bit. During the 4 days Bob's* parents watched the girls quite a bit for us which was a huge help. In between all the house hunting we got to have tastes here and there of how nice it will be to live close to family again.
I'm pretty disappointed in how few pictures I took during this process. Shocking, I know! I was so wrapped up in the whole thing, I guess I didn't think about it. I wish I had more pictures of the other houses we looked at just because it's fun to remember. Leslie had a really great idea to give each house we saw a name. That way, when we were comparing and referring to past houses, we would all be on the same page and know which one we were talking about. It turned out to be very helpful. The picture above was taken in the "Bear House", our very first house we saw. It was decorated so beautifully and had kind of a cabin feel (with lots of bears, thus the name). But alas, the kitchen was much smaller and not in a great room floor plan like I wanted. We looked at several more that first day in the Sandy area. One of our favorites we saw that day I don't have any pictures of (drat!). It stayed on the top of our list the whole week. It was dubbed the "Park House". The backyard of this house led right into a huge open park and a nearby playground. There was no fence and a big beautiful deck that looked over the gorgeous park. We worried about kids wandering off or people we didn't know approaching our kids while playing out there. We thought of ideas like maybe putting up an iron fence that was open (so as not to obstruct the view). But then, the actual yard was smaller than what we were hoping for if we fenced it off. It would have been so neat, but just didn't feel like the right fit in the end.
This house was called the "Theater House". This is not the greatest picture, but you can see the kind of work this family went to to make this room into the most
awesome movie viewing room I've ever seen! And it wasn't just the theater room we loved. This floor plan was our favorite of all the houses we saw. It was so great. Huge and open, 4200 square feet - so plenty of room. Brand new and all updated. AND they had girls with rooms painted exactly how our girls would love their rooms painted. It was PERFECT! Except for one thing. The yard was tiny. )o: Oh how I wanted to just get over that and buy the house. But one of the things I was so excited about moving to Utah for was the bigger yards. This was truly a great house.
This was another house that came VERY close to being 'the one'. It was a very close second to the one we bought. We called it the "Fairy House". Sarah named this one for the room upstairs that had hand painted fairies and flowers on the wall. (The one she claimed would be hers.) This house was in an amazing neighborhood (some homes were $700,000 to a million) - obviously this one wasn't that much, but it was gorgeous. It had a nice layout, a huge
floorplan and a backyard to die for. I only have these pictures of the backyard. I LOVED the backyard and still cry a little to think about almost having it. The waterfall, the in-ground trampoline, the park-like landscape, mature trees, the huge garden, the privacy, the mountain views from the deck. It was an amazing yard. The only problem was that it was at the top of our price range that we wanted to pay and it needed a lot of updates - carpet, lighting fixtures, bathrooms, the front door needed to be replaced, etc. With all those things factored in, it was just out of the price range that we had set for ourselves.
Leslie was so patient with us through this process. She weathered the four stressful and fun days with us. I love this picture - when we pulled up to one of the houses it was raining
sooo hard. Torrential rain - even for us Oregonians - but Leslie hopped right out in it to grab her umbrella in the trunk, getting drenched. Then she escorted us up to the door, the girls squealing in the monsoon. We were so well taken care of in every way and are so grateful to Leslie for being a part of this huge turning point in our lives. I was also happy my girls got a chance to get to know aunt Leslie. They think she is so nice and just love her now! (o:
3 comments:
That sounds like a fun process. It's a good idea to take pictures of all of the houses. I'll keep that in mind. Do you have pictures of "the one"? I was excited to get to the bottom to see what "won".
It sounds like you had a good time while you were here....which house did you end up choosing????
Yeah! Do we get to see a picture of "the one"? I've been quite curious for weeks about it!! Good luck with the move!
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