Well, we moved! That's right, we sold our house, packed up, and moved to Utah. It was stressful but we are so glad we made the decision. Joel is working for a Solar Energy company in Salt Lake City and we love being near family. Joel and I have spent nearly our entire married life away from family, so it is nice to live close again.
We decided to sell our house without a realtor. This was also stressful, but it ended up being a great, money-saving decision, and it only took a couple of weeks to find a golden buyer.
This home was our second home and one we bought so we'd have room to grow. Charlie was born in this house. We filled it with kids and laughter (and tantrums). We had fantastic neighbors who let us play in their pool and whose kids walked to school with Everett and Ashley. Ashley's best friend lived right next door and Everett's best friend lived only a few houses down the street. They all enjoyed having the luxury of not waiting for a mother to drive them to see their best friend.
We went through a lot of popsicles in the summer. With so many of our own Johnson kids, it was an instant party at our house with any guest. Our sweet little neighbor kids were over often and it was well worth the extra dollars to have an outside-only treat. I'd send all the kids out, shut the sliding back door, and just. . .sit, and let the quiet wash over me. Only lasting ten, fifteen minutes, tops, it was a luxury.
Here are some house pictures I took to put it on the market. I thought it showed pretty well. I wish I had pictures from when we first moved in--I don't think there is a single room we didn't change during the two years we lived there.
(This one was actually taken by the tax assessor, but our picture was wintery and dour and I thought a sunny picture would be better.)
See? Gloom.
Our front door and stairs. Do you spy the 40's era piano I got for free?
First change: Wall color from purple to gray.
Second Change: New white baseboards and door headers (the trim was a medium oak).
Third Change: We had a minor flooding incident and needed to refinish our wood floor. It is a red oak hardwood floor and it had a natural finish but we chose to go a little darker. It turned out much darker than we thought but still looked pretty good.
Our living room/ library. I have always wanted a library and this barely counts, but I ran with it.
Downstairs bathroom. We painted and switched out the mirror.
Kitchen
The kitchen wasn't fancy but it was roomy and comfortable. We didn't change much besides the paint color (it was cream; we went gray) and darker floor. My favorite change was the lighting. For only a small amount of money, we took out the big ugly fluorescent light and replaced it with a simple track light. You'll just have to trust that it made a BIG DIFFERENCE.
I bought this kitchen table, which I love, for this house.
Family room off the kitchen. There was a big purple wall in this room. For simplicity's sake, we painted everything gray.
My favorite change in this room was the fireplace surround (which we completed shortly before moving). It was a honey oak color so we stained the top darker and painted the rest to match the trim. I loved the result so much I couldn't help kicking myself for not getting to it sooner.
We had a comfortable, bright master bedroom. The walls were cream-ish. Well, they were really a pale blue but the color was so light you couldn't tell. At that point, I figure, why bother? So we went dark. It took some getting used to but I liked it.
All new trim up here, just like on the first floor.
The cabinets were the same medium oak color as the kitchen. It just looked like too much going on to me, with the new double mirrors and wall color. I wanted a relaxing, calm feel so I painted them gray one day while Joel was at work to "surprise" him. I was very happy I did.
See? Soothing and mellow. Just how I need my bathroom to be. My house has a surplus of noise, so I think I feel the need to balance that brightness with something else.
Ashley's room was the biggest change. The wall by the door was not there when we moved in. A banister was there, leaving an open office space looking over the stairs. We needed the bedroom so we finished it off. It added value to our house, so why not? Then we painted it a fun color and got decorating. Ashley loved having a girly-ish room but did not love sharing it with James.
Ashley bought the gold butterflies you see on her wall with her own money at a garage sale. She was very proud of them.
Everett's room did not really change much. We didn't paint or change the trim but I liked how it looked.
Everett loved having the top bunk but he constantly tried to convince us that he is old enough to have his own room. No such luck.
Charlie did have his own room, though. We painted this room with blue paint we had sitting around, and it turned into a pretty cute little space.
The kids' bathroom was an awful dark reddish clay-brown color. It was like being in a cave, a bad thing when there is no natural light coming in. Painting it the same gray that is downstairs made a huge difference.
The laundry room, aside from painting the trim white, didn't change. But our buyers did negotiate for the washer and dryer, which I loved for their simplicity and extra large capacity. I was sad about that but Joel was happy we didn't have to move them.
We bought this house for the yard. It was great. The lot is over a third of an acre, but the way the home is situated meant almost all of that land was in the back. We played many games of kickball, freeze tag, and red rover in this yard. The only thing it wasn't good for was hide and seek.
I wish I had a picture of the yard in the spring. It was pretty and green and flowery, but it did snow quite a bit this past winter so this picture is at least true to life.
It didn't take us long to get our first offer. A very nice family came through and loved the house. They gave us a decent offer and even asked for Ashley's toy ride-on horse as part of the deal. But it was not to be--the high property taxes in our city drove them away. Joel and I were disappointed. We had more interest in our house but it slowed a little. A few days before we moved, we contacted the first family, gave them our very bottom number, and asked if they wanted to reconsider to give us the convenience of not thinking about our house after we moved. They asked for 24 hours to think about it, but again said no.
At this point, Joel and I seriously considered hiring a realtor to handle things after we were gone. But a kind friend of ours stepped up and agreed to show the house for us. The day after we arrived in Utah, we got a very excited call from the couple who turned out to be our buyers. Apparently they were in the process of putting an offer on another house but the husband happened to drive by one of our for sale signs and asked to see the house right away. Thanks to our friend, we made that happen, and they called about an hour after seeing the house. For almost thirty minutes they raved about the house, said everything was perfect, and begged that we not show it to anyone else.
Then they asked what we were willing to sell it for. After hearing their undisguised excitement, what motivation did we have to give them a deal? We asked that they submit their best offer in writing. They did, and we ended up only two thousand below asking.
It was the happy ending we were hoping for, and almost everything else went well, with the exception of the home inspection.
All the building stuff came back fine, but the inspector left the upstairs tub on during his visit. Since no one was in the house, it was on for almost a week before our friend discovered it. 25,000 gallons of water later, I called him up and stayed on the phone with him long enough to get him to commit to paying half our water bill. I should have pushed for more but I didn't actually have proof that he was the one who left the water on, other than the fact that the house was vacant and had not been entered without our knowledge.
We loved that house, and the neighbors, and the schools, and the area, but we are onto new adventures and we are thrilled!
