First off, let me say that I LOVE this house. It fits all the criteria we had except for one thing. The one thing is that it's further from Microsoft than we'd like. BUT after having several conversations about it, we realized that being close to Jere's work wasn't going to work in the way we originally thought anyways. We are the first renters for this house. The owners built the house in 2002 and lived in it for 10 years. It's spotless. The landlord is a really friendly guy who also works for Microsoft.
It's been obvious from the beginning that our landlord loves his wife and his family but tonight he told me the story of how he met his wife. He started off the story by telling me he used to be anti-marriage. He is from Taiwan and after he had lived in the U.S for a while, his mom kept calling every weekend begging him to come home and meet a girl she had in mind. He kept saying no until finally he told her that he would come home and if he didn't like the girl, she would stop talking about it forever. So he flew home, met the girl and asked her to marry him the Wednesday after he met her. That was over 16 years ago and they have an 11 year old daughter and an 8 year old son. Ashley and Stanley are their kids names. He's just a really nice guy and has gone above and beyond what is expected of a landlord, so far!
So onto the pictures - As you can tell, this is the front of the house.
The front door on the left and the park that you can see from our front door to the right. The park is right across the street and the perfect size for our babies.
Our children slept in the Jeep while we giddily walked through our new house.
This is the front entry. To the far left is the front door and there is a under stair closet next to it. A coat closet is by the stairs as well as a half bath.
Upon entering the house, you walk into the living room. That's the front door in the photo.
As you walk through the living room to the back of the house, you enter into a big open space. The dining area is first which is connected to the kitchen. From the kitchen, you walk into the family room.
Looking from the kitchen into the family room.
Looking from the family room back into the kitchen and dining area. See the fridge over there? It has an ice maker. Also the stove is gas, which we've always wanted to cook with! If you look all the way across the kitchen, you can see two huge windows. The one on the right is a patio sliding door to a small half covered patio. There is no backyard in this house but enough space for a few toys. I plan to let the kids play in the garage with the door closed on rainy days. Rainy days will happen a lot in the winter and the garage is super clean. We wanted as little yard work as possible and the little yard work there is, we'll probably hire out. That's how much we don't want to think about yard up-keep in this phase of our lives.
This pantry closet is across from the garage entrance. It's in the hallway located next to the fridge in the photo up above. There are so many closets in this house!
So that's it for the first level. If you go back to the front entry area and take the stairs up to the second level, this is the view. You might be able to see that there are two different colors on the walls. This is because the owner just now touched up/repainted the walls and couldn't find an exact color match to the builder's paint. So throughout the house there are touch ups and a paint line about six feet up from the floor with a slightly different white. But it's not really that noticeable and it doesn't bother me.
As you come up the stairs, there is a loft area. In the builder's plans, this was supposed to be a fourth bedroom but the owner opted to make it an open loft. I am so glad he did! It has a closet and will probably be where most all of the toys are stored/played with.
As you walk down the hall from the loft, the master bedroom is on the right side. It's a really nice sized room.
This shot looks out into the hallway from the master bedroom. It has nice big double doors. That door to the left opens into the master bathroom. The huge walk in closet is also to the left in this photo. The baby will sleep in there until we move him into the kids bedroom, down the road.
And here's the bathroom. Ever since I walked in there, I've been dreaming of soaking in that tub!
This mirror shot shows the opposite side of the bathroom. Closet space and toilet room.
There are two good sized bedrooms that are the same size and next to each other on the left side of the hallway.
This is the hall bath. Check out that sky light!
And here is one of the most favorite parts of this house. Laundry on the second floor. This room is located at the very end of the hallway and also has a utility sink in the room. The washer and dryer stay with the house.
The movers bring all of our stuff from storage today. So I will be over at the new house pretty much all day long (hopefully it moves quickly!). My friend Jana is so kindly watching Brighton and Ensley along with her own kids. That alone is such a blessing! It makes checking off boxes and directing movers so much easier without toddlers running amok. Hopefully sometime soon, I can take pictures of each room with our stuff set up. I would love for it to happen pretty soon but realistically it probably won't. ;)
