floor plan

I tried posting the floor plan for our house a few days ago but it wasn't working, so incase you can't get these photos bigger, here is a link to the floor plan. That isn't our address or even our housing development, I just googled the name of our floor plan and that was the first link that I got. Don't want to be giving you guys too much personal info on a public blog!

So here is the first floor. It's pretty self explanatory-dining room, kitchen, family room (for now at least that is where our tv will go), master suite, powder room laundry.

The second floor. For now the gameroom will be a big playroom for Emma. Overtime we anticipate that we'll move the tv up there, or atleast put a tv up there. It's large enough that in the future we could put air hockey/ping pong/foosball or something like that up there too. We'll see what we want to do with that area as Emma gets older. For now I'm thinking it will have a little table for Emma to sit at, a play kitchen (I'm hoping to get her one for her birthday!) all her other toys, an easel (when she's a little older probably) and stuff like that. My piano will also go up there, probably along the wall between Bedroom 4 and the Gameroom. 

For the time being this is our plan for the rest of the upstairs: Bedroom 2 = guest bedroom. Chris's little sister is going to come stay with us for a while and help us move/get settled so that will be her room at first. Bedroom 3 will be Chris's office (and if room 2 & 4 aren't enough for guests we can probably fit an air mattress in there too). Bedroom 4 is my craft room and if we have multiple guests at a time it will have room for an air mattress. Bedroom 5 is Emma's room. 

Then you've got the two bathrooms upstairs plus the linen closet. 

This is the exterior color package for the house:

And the interior color package:

The tile goes in the entryway/laundry area, the kitchen and the bathrooms. Carpet goes everywhere else. I hope that in the not too distant future we'll rip the carpet out of the dining room and put tile in there. I hate the idea of a carpeted dining room with kids. I know how much pasta/rice/whatever I sweep and mop off our dining room floor right now and can't imagine how bad it will be to be picking it all up and then vacuuming that room. Yikes.

Once I upload them to my computer I'll post some photos from the model home that show what the house looks like on the inside.

We were just at our house a few days ago and the drywall was all up inside and the walls had been texturized. There is a front door and a backdoor (although they lack doorknobs right now)! I didn't take a single picture while we were there because this time we took Emma with us and I was watching her the whole time to make sure she didn't try to climb up the stairs and get a million splinters and that she didn't find any random nails on the ground. It was the first time we took Emma to the house and she loved walking around and seeing what each room was like. She was a little concerned by how "messy" the tubs were... they had been full of crap from rain before the roof had been put on and she hates messes.

We've chatted with the superintendent that is over our house and he says that the house is still on schedule and that from their end it will be ready for us to close on April 27th. That's only 40 days away! We're ordering a few new appliances that are supposed to be delivered to the house May 2nd, and are looking to move in sometime the week of May 3-9. It's getting way close and there is so much to be done. We're trying to get rid of stuff that we don't use/need and so far have been able to sell a few things on Craigslist, give things away to people in our ward, and donate a bunch!

What we've been up to lately...

My blog was a little quiet during the last half of February. Don't let that silence and lack of posts fool you into thinking that nothing was going on, there was plenty happening, we just weren't publicly talking about it all. Now that it's March we've decided to be a little more open about what has been going on. We're buying a house! We have told our families and one friend who helped us out a ton by watching Emma as we went to fill out paperwork. This month when our Home Teachers come visit us we'll tell them and we assume they'll mention it in their home teaching report. If they don't, I at least know the Relief Society Presidency will hear about it since one of our home teachers is married to one of the RS presidency counselors. We figure we'll tell them first and then let word start getting around that we're leaving the ward. I couldn't wait until they come home teach us to share on my blog. Most of my blog followers (that I know of) aren't local and I have to tell someone our exciting news!

We were planning on buying a house next spring. That was the goal we were working towards. In January we started doing research on different areas of town to see where the better schools were and where there were newer (our current place was built in the 50s and we wanted something with a little more energy efficiency) homes and what neighborhoods met other needs of ours. Chris looked up the addresses of some of his friends from work and we decided to go drive around their neighborhoods because they lived in the part of town where we found better schools. This was just supposed to be a "let's get a feel for what the neighborhoods are like and see if there are obvious reasons to avoid these neighborhoods" drive. 

We didn't expect the promptings we would receive that this was the right neighborhood for us and that we were supposed to move much sooner than we were initially planning. But long story short, we're buying a house! The builder has a new line of homes where they pick everything out and the buyer cannot customize at all. Because there is no customization and because they can then purchase supplies in bulk it can be built more quickly and it costs less than a similar sized home. We found a floor plan we liked, found out that it was one of the first homes they are building, and found a community about 30 minutes away that has a model home of it. We've been to that model home 3 times I think, first to just check it out and then the 2nd and 3rd times we've gone with specific things to measure/figure out.The first time we saw what could be our lot it looked like the first picture. A foundation with some framing supplies.

The second time we saw it (4 days later when we went to sign paperwork to get in contract) it had some framing done:

And exactly one week after the first picture it looks like this (this was just this past Saturday):

It is crazy how it went from a concrete slab to really looking like a house in just one week! I can't wait to share more pictures eventually. I've got a ton of pictures from the model home and at some point I'll find my pdf of the floor plan so you can see what our house will be like!