Good-bye Marion, Hello Cedar Rapids!

We sold our house and got a new one!
After listing our house in July, we had decided to take it off of the market Nov 1 so that we could use our garage during the winter (right now it's full of boxes/furniture). On Oct 23 we sold the house! We immediately started our search for a new home, seeing a few new construction houses the next day. That was followed by seeing 35-40 more houses, offering on two other houses, and much emotional stress. Finally, we were guided toward a house on Ashford Dr NE in Cedar Rapids. Tanner, Grayson and I didn't even have to say a word and we knew we wanted this house the second we stepped in the door. We spent Wednesday-Saturday offering/counter-offering directly with the sellers, as it is listed by the owner on IA Homes For Sale. I can't begin to explain the relief and excitement we had on Saturday when they excepted our counter offer!!

This house will not come easy. We close Nov 30 on our house and have to be out by Dec 4 at noon. But we don't close or get possession of our new house until Dec 17 at noon. This means we will be living with Autumn, Reed and Noelle for 13 days. Max and Marley will be staying with Trilby, Mike and the boys during that time. We are very thankful to have family nearby that have room for us and are willing to help us out! This also means we'll have to put EVERYTHING in storage for a couple of weeks. It will fee like we are moving twice! But it's all worth it for this amazing home!!

So here is a tour of the house (pictures taken by seller).
Front of the house. Deck off the side of the house leading to the back yard.

Back yard, view from house. We keep the shed, they take the swing.
Back of the house. Windows to Master bed and Bedroom #2. Small patio area at bottom of deck. Yard completely fenced.

Enter the house onto a "landing" area. Go up 2 steps to this room, Living room. New hardwood floors. (From the landing, you can also go up 2 steps the other direction to get to the hallway- not pictured, or you can get to the basement from there).

Dinning area leading to kitchen with breakfast bar, as viewed from Living room. We aren't sure how well a table will fit in the space where a table would typically go. But clearly there is room for the table to be moved toward the living room.

Kitchen as viewed from the hallway.

Turn around and head down the hall. This is the bedroom on the left. Set up as a boy's room now, but we'll probably have it as a play room until baby 2 comes along one day, then it will be Grayson's room.

Next is another bedroom, but I don't have a pic of that. Then it's the main bathroom.

Next to the master bedroom, which looks out to the back yard.

Finally we get walk in closets! It also has it's own bathroom! Yay!

Let's head down to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, to the right, you'll find a large room, currently a playroom. We'll probably keep this as a play room, or maybe an office, or exercise room. Oh the possibilities!! One day (before we sell the house) we'll throw in a closet and doors to make it an official 5th bedroom.

Standing from the play room at the bottom of the stairs, this is the view of the wide open space in the basement living room. There is so much space, I'm not sure what we'll do with it! Eventually we'll use this as our main living space. The door you see is the laundry/utility room, which is nice and big, but unfinished.

The view of the basement from the back. The basement has TALL ceilings so it hardly feels like a basement.

Then you'll find a 4th bedroom in the back corner. This is our guest bedroom. Next to the guest bedroom is a full 3rd bathroom.

Well that is the grand tour. I'll post more pictures after I visit this week for the inspection. I'll be sure to get a picture of the entry way as several people have asked about that.

Tanner and I couldn't be any happier right now. We had/have a goal in mind of taking advantage of the 4.0% interest rate we are going to get by getting a house we can raise our kids in. It's going to take a lot of work, an extremely tight budget for a while and some self control to make it happen, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the tunnel isn't that dark to start with.