Pictures of the new house, as promised.
We signed our final papers on Tuesday the 16th of September. Escrow closed at 5pm that night. Our escrow was exactly 17 days long, the number our realtor kept telling us was possible if we could ever decide on a house LOL!

Wednesday night, we went over to our house and ate dinner in the back yard. The kids were so excited and weren't eating, but running all over the yard instead. We'd been outside about 15 minutes, when we heard a squeaking noise coming from way up high in the backyard trees. Can anyone guess what was up in our tree?

If you guessed a humming bird you are wrong. There were TWO and a little tiny humming bird nest! Okay, here's where I'll school those of you who might not know the full story. JP's parents passed away, and that's why we had the money to buy this house. We miss them terribly and this whole house thing is very bittersweet. His mom was a humming bird freak, and when I say, freak I mean it in the kindest most endearing way. She had humming bird everything; towels, plates, cups, refrigerator magnets, broaches, EVERYTHING. So imagine my shock and near hysteria when I saw the 2 little birds in my tree, just sitting there. Luckily thru my sobs I had the prescence of mind to snap a picture, because I didn't think anyone would believe me. It was very far up and I had to digitally zoom in on it so it's a bad shot, but I got a picture.
So we closed on Tuesday, and by Thursday we had ordered kitchen cabinets and double paned windows. We are having Home Depot do the installs, but we opted to do the kitchen demo ourselves and save a ton of money. I had wanted to get a bunch of pictures of the house before we touched a single thing on it. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) the friend we hired to work on the house with JP, is very very fast, and in one afternoon had my entire kitchen ripped apart. By day 2, the old funky built in cabinet in the family room was gone and the makings of a hall closet were there, also the doorway between Blake and Marlie's room was almost walled in. Soooo I'm going to have to check the old listing to see if I can swipe some before pictures!! But I'll have plenty of pictures from here on out, LOL. I learned my lesson.

Blake and Marlie's room had an accordian door in between them. It would have been perfect if Blake and Bryce were in these rooms, but that would mean that Marlie or Mason would have to have had the bedroom downstairs and we didn't want to do that. Jim framed up the doorway lightning fast!
Boring picture of the upstairs kid bathroom.
Masons room! I brought over his crib last week, so we'd have a place to put him to bed when we were working. He's in the pack and play at home still, so it worked out perfect. Those wall shelves are coming down.
The view from the top of the stairs looking down to the living room. Don't you love the beautiful light fixture? The picture dosen't do it any justice. It's made of solid wood, and has 10, yes 10 lightbulbs!!! I can't wait to replace it.
Another boring bathroom picture. This one is the downstairs bathroom. That cabinet above the toilet is so ugly. I'm not sure what to replace it with though.
Here's where the built in tv cabinet was. It was a cool cabinet, but it didn't have doors, and I really didn't want a tv in the family room, so out it came! There wasn't a hall closet downstairs, so we opted (actually I begged and pleaded to get this closet!) to turn the space into a closet. The door will be sort of a funky shape, to get around the pipes in the closet, but it will be useable. Also JP cleaned up a space in the far back just below the stairs for a little hideout. He found some old carpet in the attic and is going to carpet the area.
This is where the old door to the back of the built-in cabinet was.

The last of the boring bathrooms. Any ideas for yet another funky cabinet??
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