The Smiths: First Time Home Buyers

I'll pause at this point in the story to share pictures of our house. All but the last of these were taken on our house hunting trip in January. Some day I'll put up pictures of what it looks like with our stuff in it (and without dead cockroaches everywhere), but decoration is still a work in progress....

The house is on a corner lot with an alley in the back, off of which is the garage (pretty standard in this area).

I have to be honest, I don't really like how the house looks from the outside. It always makes me think of sailors and the ocean for some reason. Maybe the two little windows at the top (they're in the attic)?

Here's a shot of the entryway from upstairs. Seriously? A chandelier? Not really us, but ok....

That's the dining room on left of the picture.

When you walk in the door to your actual left is the living room. It's hard to tell, but it's sunken (intentionally) about 5 inches, setting it apart from the family room that's directly behind it.

To your right when you come in the front is the dining room - here's a better picture of it.

This is the family room that's behind the living room. Reminder: the seller's decor, not ours.

This is the view standing with the fireplace on your left - right into the breakfast area and door to the backyard (where you see the rug). The open door straight ahead leads to the laundry room then on to the garage. The closed door is the pantry. The little hall on the far right of the picture is the coat closet and a half bath.

That's me in the center of the picture, moving from the breakfast area into the kitchen.

Here's the kitchen, as you enter from the breakfast area (with the dining room in front of it). And no, it's not a double oven. :( I thought it was at first, but it's a microwave (that doesn't work) on top. But granite countertops!

From the other direction - nice blank space for the fridge we had to buy!

That completes the downstairs, so up we go! This is our master bath and closet. I think our closet might be my favorite part of the house - is that weird? It's a walk-in, but nothing too special. But it's one of the only rooms that I don't think smells funny. And nothing in it is broken.

Here's our master bedroom. The master bath/closet is directly above the living room and our room is above the family room. Our room has a vaulted ceiling and one other kind of strange feature. The wall between the room and the bathroom isn't completely sealed off. The vaulted portion is open between the two. I orginally thought this was pretty cool, but am less of a fan now. When one of us is up early to shower and get ready, it's almost impossible to sleep through, cause it's almost like being in the same room. I'm trying to think of creative ways to seal that area off. Install a window, maybe?

Right next to our room is Eve's room (for now).

Then another good size room next to that (not pictured). Then the upstairs hall bath - don't ask me why they have black LEATHER shower curtains. Not really a selling feature.

Then one more room at the front of the house (over the dining room) and that completes the upstairs. Minus the attic, but it's just a basic attic.

Here's a picture of the backyard when Andrew did our first mowing after moving in. I think the grass must have been over a foot tall. It took him FOREVER to mow it. And it took the mowing of several consecutive weeks to get it down to the level we want. But it looks really great now! And Andrew has (hopefully) found and removed all the weird things that were hiding in it. Most notably - a butcher knife. Glad he found that one before Eve did!