Our house buying adventure- part 2
After we looked at the house on Tuesday, we thought it might be a great house. The only problem I had with it, was that the living room and dining area seemed small.
The pluses are:
.25 acre lot. (that’s big for a new house in Colorado)
3,000 sq. ft. 1,500 on the top and 1,500 in the unfinished basement.
Brand new built just for us. I’ve never had a brand new house and it would be very nice to not have to worry about anything major breaking down for the first 5-10 years.
We got a 3 car garage so in case we do need to sell it again it will be easier to sell.
The middle and elementary school are 2 and 3 blocks away.
The post office for shipping orders is 4 blocks away.
It’s in a very quiet small town.
It has paved roads and sidewalks. I’ve never had a paved driveway and haven’t had a road or sidewalks for more than 11 years! Having a clean car again will be fun!
The laundry room, office, master bedroom and the baby’s room can all be on the top main floor so I’m don’t have to hike up and down stairs all day long, which is horrid for someone with fibromyalgia.
The kids can all have rooms of their own in the basement and there’s room down there for a large family type room.
The kids will have lots of kids in the neighborhood to play with. They don’t have any now.
It’s bright and open.
There’s no tile, wood floors or granite in the house. (I think all those thing are from Satan! I hate cleaning that stuff and with 4 kids, the noise is really magnified! :-)
It’s centrally located to all our family on both sides that live from Broomfield to Loveland to Estes Park and we can get to anyone in about 25 minutes or less!
All the street names in the neighborhood are named after plants!! I’m sure it’s a "sign"! hehehe
After looking at it for 1 1/2 hours on Monday, we decided to come back on Tuesday and take the entire family with us. My uncle works in construction so he came along to give us an opinion about whether it would be built well.
Everyone loved it and, after going back, the living room looked bigger than I remembered. My uncle said it’s some of the best construction that he’s seen on a new house. So we decided to go ahead and buy it. It’s funny because after we told the family we would buy it, we found out that the electrical company our brother-in-law works for will be wiring the electrical system.
We sent Mike’s mom back to the hospital so that she and his dad could start looking over the HOA requirements and contract sample while Mike and I got the contract filled out with the builder. The best part is, even though Mike’s dad didn’t show it to us, they still gave him his commission, which he plans to give us and the company is paying up to $5,000 in closing costs on top. It’s $20,000 less than we were expecting to spend which is the exact amount we lost on this house!! That’s proof for me that we shouldn’t worry because God will work it out. (Ok, so I still worried about losing that much but I’m trying not to! :-)
We got the papers filled out and took them to the hospital to have Mike’s dad look it over and sign it. (The poor guy was in a huge amount of pain so I’m not sure how he did it, but he did.) We were almost done reading over the HOA stuff when on the last page it said "you can’t plant flowers closer than four feet from the house".
That is a HUGE problem for someone like me who lives to garden, So we left and decided to think about it. Sitting in the hospital lounge talking it over, I just burst into tears. We were SOOOO tired after going fast and furious non-stop for three days. We thought we had a house and one thing made it seem like it was gone.
We decided to hold off on the new house a bit and look some more. We were going to leave the next day to go back to Kansas but before leaving we drove around Loveland to look at more houses and neighborhoods. Mike’s dad couldn’t show us any houses until May 15 but we decided to at least narrow down some neighborhoods and surrounding towns.
We were further discouraged as there wasn’t anything that we liked in our price range so we decided to drive back one more time to the new housing area and look at other people’s yards and see what they did for gardens. Well, there were a lot of houses that had gardens, so we knocked on some doors, asked some people on the street and they all said they loved the houses and they plant all kinds of gardens and it’s the best neighborhood to live in.
We called the HOA and the builder and did a lot of praying. They both said it was fine, no problem. We went home and both Mike and I felt like we should go ahead and do it, so the next morning at 7a.m. he met the builders rep. at a convenience store on I-25 to give him the contract because the selling agent was off that day.
So….we HAVE A HOUSE!!!! I won’t be able to put in the wonderful cast iron farm sink that I bought last fall or my white picket fence but I think the trade off is worth it to get a brand new house.
So…needless to say I still don’t think we’ve recovered from the trip but it was worth it! Mom, Elly and I are going back this Friday and get to pick out the counter top colors and carpet and vinyl so that will be fun.
BTW, yes, mom is going to try and move back there, too, but it will probably be six months to a year before she can.
Tawra
The model house looks beautiful! Congrats Tawra and family! Hope you three have fun picking out colors. Hope the rest of the process goes very smoothly!
ditto what angie m said .. its a pretty house and i hope all goes well too ..
and hopefully it wont be super long b4 jill (your mom) is near u .. ;D
Tawra,
I am thrilled for you! Your excitement just bursts through my computer!!! You and Mike so deserve this, and I pray your family will be blessed in your new home. Please PACE yourself so you don’t get sick as you go forward with all that has to be done! Silly as this sounds, when you and your mom move to Colorado you won’t be just 3 hrs. south of me, and I will miss the feeling that you’re close. You all have become like family to me. But, I am so happy because you’re happy and it’s what you want. BTW-I love olorado, too!!:)
Sounds like it was a high stress decision. Try to take some time for yourself so you don’t have a flare-up. Congrats on the new home.
Wow, thanks for sharing all of your exciting news. It seems God is all over this move! I love that you give Him the praise. I am excited for you.
Tawra, does this move actually reduce your housing debt, or will it be about the same? I think of moving if we would be closer to debt free, but in our area we would pretty much have to move to a shack. So we are just kind of staying put. Also, you said that the living room looked kind of small. Mine is too. It’s fine for just the three of us, but when we have a holiday get together it is awful! I have played with the idea of putting french doors between our dining room and our son’s room, making that into a den of sorts. He could move to the guest room. Then my living room could be more of a formal space. I hope that living room is larger than you first thought. And I hope this move is the best one for your family.
No, we had to buy a more expensive house because prices are higher there but we will have a large down payment so that will help. We hope to have this house paid off in 5 yrs. or less. Yes, we want to be debt free but we thought the move would be wise since prices a lower there now.
Tawra, Congratulations and welcome to Colorado…. The reason the HOA probably has that rule is because Colorado has so much bentonite in the soil here, and it expands when it gets water logged. It can cause concrete to lift/crack, and foundation problems. So the HOAs try to discourage you from planting anything too close to your foundation. The hard part is that you could have the expansive soil, and your next door neighbor might not…it is a fickle thing…. Good Luck!
Congratulations and be sure to show us pictures and keep us updated as this is going on, I am pretty sure you have had a lot of prayers sent your way from your readers, and it would be nice to see the progress of this adventure sincerely, Kim
Yes, and we sure appreciated them! This was not an easy few last days or last year for the matter! After a year on the market I’m ready to get it sold and get settled! :-)
That is such a pretty house. God bless you and your family.
Hi Bea. I feel like I haven’t reallytalked to anyone for awhile. I do read everyones posts but my folks were here for a week visiting and then the morning they were leaving Tawra called and I had to run out to her place to babysit while they were gone to colorado barely caught my breath and now Tawra and I will be leaving in a couple of days to go back to colorado to pick out colors for her house.
I have a feeling the next couple of weeks (months) will be like that. I am so grateful things are going smoothly so far and am so glad for them.
Hi Jill. Your life is busy but exciting! Prayers answered and that is nice. It will all be worth it in the end. A new journey! I’m really happy for you all! A new start in the Easter Season. That is a good omen. Easter goes to Pentecost!
HELLO Tawra,Praise The Lord ! I am so happy for you and your family about your new home.I have been praying for you, as I know many others have.The way God has worked this out for you will inspire many people. I pray also for the same help on your mother’s move when she is ready. Sincerely,Joyce
I got tickled at your choice of words Joyce. “When you mom is ready” I thinking I may need awhile to recover from Tawra’s move so it may be a bit before I am ready HA!HA! (1,2,3 years???) Just joking. Where my grandkids are there I must go (my poor son in law he can’t get away from me) HA!HA!
This really sound great! Congratulations again! It will be a very busy time but it will be worth it. This was a very big wish and now you even have a completely new house.
How can they say you are not allowed to plant plants and flowers…They make the neighbourhood!!!
Good luck with your decisions about carpets etc… To be continued…???
big hug, Trees
Dear Family K.
I am relieved and happy for you, you all have worked hard and sacrificed to be able to do this and it is a wonderful blessing that it has finally come to pass. Enjoy your new home!
Congrats on the new house!
Regarding income tax refunds: If you get one it is because you lent your hard earned money to the government for 18 months. Instead pay the same amont toward your bills or have tit deposited in a savings account across town that earns interest. that way you can’t spend it easily.
Congrats on your new home…I’m sure your garden will be lovely!!!
Tawra…The house looks BEAUTIFUL!!! God’s richest blessings to ALL of you as you embark on this new journey….God does give us the desires of our heart!!!
Did you contact the Fire Marshall’s office in Colorado to find out what size window you need in a basement bedroom?? We had to put 3ft x 4 ft windows in a walk out basement. If the smoke detectors are to be wired in make sure they put them over the basement bedroom doors as well.
Yes, the windows are made for bedrooms. We wouldn’t put them down there without it!
If you buy a new house, make sure you ask for a 2 year builders warranty. Standard is only 12 months, and A LOT can go wrong in that 2nd year. For example, our central heat/air unit just went out, we’ve been here 22 months now. If we didn’t have the builder’s warranty, it would have cost about $1500 to fix/replace. We’ve also had problems with the plumbing (most of this was fixed in the first week we lived here). Good luck house hunting!
Hum, they gave us a 1 year warranty. I didn’t know you could ask for 2 years.
Congrats on the new house — from a sister Coloradoan.
How much was your new house? Just curious.
Aw Tawra! I have been missing all this good info of what’s been going on in your life since my little break from facebook. Glad I still check out the newsletters from time to time.
Wish you could have come up to Springfield last month, but I see you have been more than busy. Keep us all updated!
Amelia, I was just wondering about you today, thinking the same thing! What’s funny is we sold our house and ran out there the week after you were there. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be this time. Maybe next time! :-)
Hi Amelia glad to see you on the blog. I can’t use facebook yet. Hope you guys had a good reunion. A. Jill
I wish “you guys” the best of luck. I lived in Colorado for 3 years as a child and “you guys” was the informal way to address folks out there. I was born in Mississippi and here I reside today I’ll stick with “ya’ll”! :) I LOVE the pic of the house you posted and can only imagine how much fun it is to live a brand spankin’ new home! I’ve always believed that “good things” happen to “good people”….ya’ll are livin’ proof! ENJOY!
Hi Tawra, Congrats on the new home adventure. We are in our 3rd home in 36 years. First was a rental, 2nd was a re-sale and 3rd was new. Enjoyed them all. Now I am a Realtor and get to see others experience home ownership. You can usually get extended warranties on the home but it does have a cost. All of our local builders have the 1 year warranty but an agent can connect you with other extended warranties. It also would not hurt to ask about the contractor doing a 2nd year.