Real Estate 101

Over the past 6 months I have learned my fair share about the process of buying and selling houses in the real estate market. We have bought and built a new house and almost sold a house, twice! Here the top 10 things I have learned from our experiences these past 6 months. (in no particular order)

1. You have to sign a lot of documents,
2. You have to provide a lot of documents, sometimes multiple times
3. Always except and plan for delays
4. Home values can change quickly up or down
5. Selling a home is not for the weak at heart
6. Don't count your money until the money is in your hands
7. If you want to keep your house clean, list it!
8. There are some people who should take a class on commitment and integrity
9. You can't change a floor plan so make sure you bought a good one.
10. Communication skills are all but non existent

When we purchased our new house, we weren't planning on selling our current one, just renting out it. As number 4 states,  the market changes quickly and we were now able to sell our current home, thus beginning our home selling journey. It has been a roller coaster and not a fun one at that. I will spare you the gory details but I will say we have had the house sold twice and both times the buyers backed out. ANNOYING. Since the last buyer backed out we have been stagnant, no showings no offers...getting a bit frustrated to say the least. God is in control, that is our prayer that we would rest in that truth. "But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

So at this moment we are waiting for our new house to be done, hopefully we close on September 19th. And we are patiently praying and waiting for God to bring the right buyer for our current house. It might work for some people but at this point in our lives we don't want to be landlords, so hopefully it will sell sooner rather then later.

On to more exciting real estate adventures...Our new home is coming along nicely...here are some recent pictures.

 LOVE...my new kitchen. I have wanted dark cabinets forever. Although now if we had the money I would have done white cabinets, they are timeless and of course a couple thousand more. .

Thankfully when we went to choose our granite slab we were able to pick out a different one cause the one we choose in the 4 hours we had at the design center was HORRIBLE, seriously I mean horrible and ugly. So our granite will be a version of St.Cecilia, a light granite with dark lines and such. It is safe and will look good, not my first choice but it was the best we could do given what we could choose from.

 

 Family room..Love all the windows and light the downstairs has. It is such a difference compared to our current house.

 Master bathroom...so excited for the space and my own sink! If you saw our current bathroom you would understand why. We choose to get double sinks in master bath but not in kids bathroom, they need to learn the art of sharing (and it was a ridiculous amount...for a sink!)

 Master Bedroom. I can't wait to decorate this room...so many fun ideas and thanks to my wonderful husband I already have the perfect white tuffed fabric headboard to go in between those windows. More of my decorating ideas to come in other posts.

 Shane in "his" space. This is the loft, man cave, or our tribute to the Seattle seahawks. ( I have to give him at least one area, he does help pay the mortgage)

There you have it, my lessons learned in Real Estate 101, I am sure before all this is over there will be more. Nothing is as I imagined it would be not the buying a new build or the selling. I am still excited for our house to be completed, I have enjoying watching the process of a new home happen, just wish is had of been faster!

Till next time,

Sarah

Life Update

Wow, I really wanted to do this whole blog thing but I have failed miserably...it has been almost 2 months since I posted (and that was only my 2nd post). There is a good chance that if I never posted again no one would miss my random thoughts and ideas, but I would. So here goes again, lets try this one more time.

Our new house is almost complete, so excited. Pretty much I just can't wait for the month of August to be over because so much goodness and fun is happening after that. Here is the run down for life after the looong month of August.

1. We get our new vacation days from work (I haven't had any since before Savannah was born, they pay you out for them when you go on maternity leave)

2. Seattle Vacation, this will be our second time to take Savan and I am so excited to see her reaction to new places and TREES! Plus it gives mommy a break cause Grandma takes over baby duty.

3. Moving day!!!!  We should close on our house on September 19th.

4. September 16th- God is going to do GREAT things with ONE Community Church!!!

5. Actually get to start decorating my house not just dreaming and waiting.

6. Best friend Jodi's Baby shower...yay we get to celebrate her sweet baby boy.

7. Football season, well this is good and bad (for those of you with football fanatic husbands you understand) I am on 3 fantasy football leagues though, so hoping to kick butt!

8. Finish my last 4 week class for my masters...finally!!!!

There is lots more good stuff headed our way but that is the immediate future after the wretched month of August ends. LOL, it is just because I am soo ready to move into new house and leave the horrible heat of the AZ summer behind.

Here is updated Picture of Savannah, she is getting so big and just the cutest most smiley thing ever! I am so enjoying being her mom and love to watch her grow and develop. She is almost crawling, so close and she has 4 teeth already! Absolute best blessing I have received from Jesus. I thank him every day for entrusting her to us, she is so loved!

My next post will be sooner then 2 months, I promise!

Till next time,

Sarah

House update and Wednesday Picks

We were anticipating our house to be done around the middle of August. After waiting anxiously for the foundation to be poured- which took forever, we learned there is most likely a 2 week delay for completion. Now living in the desert this is not a bad thing because it puts us moving in September versus the dead heat of the summer. It is also is nice for the budget and saving areas of our lives too. BUT as for me and all the design ideas floating in my head and being pinned- it is proving to be not so good.

I am obsessed, yes I will say it, obsessed with pinterest! (also exclamation points as you will notice) I love the idea of having a place to store all my thoughts and ideas so I don't forget them in this looong wait. I love having an entire world of ideas, crafts, and smart tips available at my fingers. I know the world was there before but it is so much easier to find and navigate now.

Although when there is good there is also bad, the bad is it is sucking up a lot of my time that should be used for cleaning or homework. What happens when I really  get focused on pinterest..well I will tell you. I pin an idea, then I go to the source, usually an awesome blog, which then takes me to another blog, and another blog, and another. You get the idea tons of hours spent having fun, wasted.

So with all my hours logged pinning I thought I would share some of my favoritee pinterest ideas. These are some recent pins....
(I will share a few each week)

I love the idea of 2 shower curtains...who would have thought!  It makes the bathroom look so grand and luxurious. I also really like the height that the long shower curtains add to the room. and of course, its YELLOW! I love yellow so much right now, such a bright, fun, happy color...I think it is the color of this season of  my life.
http://my.hgtvremodels.com/rate-my-remodel/Bathrooms/Mid-Century-Yellow-and-Gray-Bathroom/detail.esi?oid=506688




Marriage is not easy, it is something that you have to work at daily. I believe it is so important to always say and show that you love your spouse. So I LOVE this cute little craft, its a great way to show love to each other. My husband loved it, he is very much a words person, so I will be making it for us to use in the near future.






https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyH4ub8qTlehaO9ypoHVrnUo8vbZaIu6-2v3kO8svGxL2SV_2NWvGbZpoxC8EZrayC6Ty38TOx5zHTdfNTTIS_FKUf5q00ZoZGCb6VUa6Di5Hhoi7iirorFa7sX_zS1mObX_oc9Zj4Qhw/s1600-h/full%252520shot%2525202%25255B20%25255D.jpg

Have a wonderful day!
Sarah

First try at this blogging thing

Who I am, Why I want to blog, and What I will share

So I have decided that I want to start blogging, its not like I have nothing else going on, its just that I have so many thoughts in my head! Disclaimer, I am by no means a great writer or an English major, so please no judgement or critique.  I am just a simple girl who wants to allow you into my head and be apart of my design journey. I enjoy pinterest and reading decor/diy blogs, I have a dream to be like them, so this my wanna be attempt. :) I will share my thoughts and opinions on design, family, faith and just life. I invite you to join me as I navigate my way through the avenues of this thing called life.


My husband, Shane, and I just recently purchased a new house. It is currently being built and will not be done for 3 months yet all I can do is dream about decorating it. Shane does not understand my obsession (and gets tired of hearing about it) so I decided to share it with the blog world. I want to share with you my journey of decorating an entire 2250 sq foot blank canvas. I am so excited to begin, I cannot control my thoughts as they run wild with ideas of paint, crafts and furniture. I plan to design the house with items we currently have, along with some DIY projects and maybe a few new things. This house will be done with a budget in mind so I will be getting creative in the all areas. We are excited to be moving to a new house, this is a great move for this season of our life. I don't know if this will be our fovever home but for now this is the home of our season!



I am also a new mom and will share my adventures of taking care of baby in the middle of all the other craziness of life. Our sweet daughter, S is almost 6 months old. She has been such a joy to watch grow and develop. I never knew I could love a child so much, it is amazing how I am consumed with all the "mom" feelings towards her. I always dreamed about the day I would become a mom, I had been thinking about baby names since I was 13. It happened a lot later then I excpeted, I wanted to have all my children by 30 (not going to happen since I had my first at 28!)  but God knew what he was doing. S is perfect and has truley made me a better and more fulfilled person.



Aside from being a wife and a mommy (which are my favorite jobs), I work a full time job. I like my job but really I just think of it as something that pays the bills and provides great health insurance. Who I am and what I am passionate about is being a mom to sweet S, a wife, and a follower of Jesus. I know in the blog world you are supposed to keep it short but as this is my first post I went a little crazy!