Finding Our New House

This is a fun story for me to share.  Especially since it has a happy ending.  Finding a house in Utah started out as an overwhelming task that ended up being a quick and semi painless decision.

After our house in Idaho went under contract we decided to get serious about looking for a new home in Utah.Utah felt big to us and there are a million homes to choose from.  Neither McKay or I are super familiar with the Davis County area so we didn't know exactly where to look.  We figured it would be a very long process of shopping around and searching through lots of "wrong" houses before we found the "right" one for us.  Although we have been home owners before and have talked a lot throughout the years about the type of home that we like or don't like so I do feel like we had a pretty good idea about what we wanted out of our new house.  The only trick would be finding the right house in our budget.  A few of the items on our new house list were... At least 4 bedrooms with the possibility of adding a 5th or 6th in the future, at least a 1/4 of an acre yard, a non busy street, a neighborhood with other children, an island in the kitchen, a move in ready house (not a fixer upper), and an open concept main floor.  Those were the things that were important to us as we were shopping.

We looked at a lot of houses online.  My aunt Libby was super awesome and searched for us as well since she is familiar with the Davis county area.  After searching for a couple weeks I found one that I really liked.  Really Really liked!  After thinking about it for a day (really about an hour) I decided that I didn't want this house to sell before we could see it.   So I made a special trip to Utah the first weekend in June to look at the house.  I brought Magnolia with me and we made a day of it.  We saw the house I loved Saturday morning..  After looking at it I still really liked it and was considering putting an offer in on it.  But in the back of my mind I was thinking... "This is the first house that you have even looked at?!  What if there is a better one out there?"  With the way the housing market is these days you have to move fast on houses.  There was already talk of another offer coming in on the house and I felt the pressure to make a decision on the house.  But once again... This was the FIRST house that I had even looked at!

After standing in front of the house for a while, we (my sister, my aunt Libby, and I) decided to go to a few open houses for other homes in the area that were on our "like" list online.  We ended up being able to go to 5 other houses and do a walk throughs.  It was so nice to get inside a few other homes, plus have time to think about the first home we walked through and whether or not I wanted to put an offer down.  All of the other homes had a few nice things about them.  A couple of them were even in a very nice area of Davis county which was fun.  But none of the houses were even coming close to being my favorite over the first house.

Later that afternoon I decided to go to one last home.  After that I was planning on putting an offer in on the first house.  Lets call this house "the last house".  The last house was actually on the same street as the first house and also had a very similar layout as the first house.  My parents were able to drive up and come walk through with me.  It was so nice to have their support and help as I thought about such a huge decision (especially since McKay could not be there with me).  When I walked in "the last house" I was immediately impressed.  Not only did it have all of the things that the first house had, BUT it had more.  The layout was exactly what I had envisioned for our family and there were several improvements that the first house didn't have.  Such as a large pantry, a very nice yard, upstairs laundry, extra storage, a shop off of the garage, solar panels, and no sign that animals had lived in the house (McKay and I have allergies).  I had seen this house in pictures online many times and had passed over it.  The pictures were not nearly as impressive as the house in person.  Very quickly I was sold on "the last house".

We did one final walk thru in the first house again, just to be sure.  But in the end we decided to put an offer in on the last house we saw that day.  McKay was completely supportive even though he had not seen the house in person.  By the way, when McKay DID eventually see the house in person he loved it as well and we are both very happy about our choice.  :)  He is an awesome husband to trust his wife so much.  :)

We decided to have our closing day be on July 11th so that it would be after we closed on the house in Idaho and had baby #5.  The whole process went so smoothly.  From the inspection, to financing, to the closing.  We were so grateful and we know that it is a huge blessing in our life to have both houses go so smoothly.  I LOVE this house.  Let me say it again, I love this house!  I never had buyers remorse or worried if we chose too quickly.  Everyday as we prepared to close on the house we knew it was the one for us.  We have now lived here for 2 weeks and are really enjoying it.  We are excited to put our stamp on it and make it our home.

Here are a few specs on the new house...

The house is about 14 years old
It has 3600 sq ft.  (about 700 more then our last house, so PLENTY of space for ALL our kids and future kiddos)
.28 acres
Awesome landscape
4 large bedrooms upstairs and room for 1 more bedroom way down in the basement (currently it is unfinished)
walk in pantry
Laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms
an island in the kitchen (love)
large dining room for a huge table that we need to get soon (We have out grown our current one)
3 car garage and shop (all for McKay to use, I just park there ;)
Large master bedroom
On a cul-da-sac for the kids
covered patio and fire pit for family fun outside
Nice garden area with planter boxes

Here are a few pictures of our new house from the listing.  No this is not our furniture or things.  It felt easier to use their pictures then trying to take new ones right now.  When we get more settled I will take updated pictures with our furniture in it.

       

Saying Good Bye to Idaho

We moved!  We are getting settled in our new house here in Utah and are enjoying it so far.  Here are the details and back story of our moving adventure...

For a few years now McKay and I have thought that moving to Utah was something that we would like to do someday.  We didn't know when or how it would all workout, but we felt like we should try and make it happen.  We would look for jobs off and on throughout the years.  After a while we decided that IF we were going to move we would probably like to have our basement finished when we sell our house.  So we made finishing the basement a priority.  In January of 2017 we began the process.  Since we did the majority of it ourselves we didn't finish the basement until December of 2017.

Once that was mostly finished (we still had the bathroom to finish) we decided to have McKay get his project management certification to help him stand out more on his resume.  After he took the course and passed the test we felt like it was time for him to get serious about looking for jobs in Utah.  This was spring time of 2018.  About that same time we had our friends, the Packs, stop by for a visit at our house on their way home from a trip.  McKay and Josh used to work together in Idaho, but they had moved to Utah a year earlier.  After a quick visit they asked if we ever thought about moving to Utah.  We said yes and told them that if they ever had job openings at his work let us know.

About a week later McKay got a call from Josh's boss asking about what kind of a job he was looking for.  After several phone conversations McKay was offered a job with their company.  The company is nation wide, but McKay works near Hill Air Force Base in Davis County, Utah as a Mechanical Engineer.  They discussed a starting date and settled on July 11th to start at his new job.  That gave us three weeks to have Addie finish up school in Idaho, sell our house, and pack up our stuff to move. 

The next week after the job offer was a very intense week for me and there were a lot of emotions to deal with.  I wanted the house on the market as soon as possible, but McKay was going out of town that week for work and I was 30 something weeks pregnant.  The house was in decent condition, but I still needed to do lots of cleaning, organizing, and yard work.  I was pretty panicked on how I was going to get it all done by myself with 4 little kids underfoot and McKay out of town.  Then Corinne offered to help with anything and she graciously took Magnolia and Declin to her house for several days so that I could focus on cleaning the house.  That saved me SO SO much!!  Jensen and I were buddies all week and we worked hard to get the house to be picture perfect and ready for showings.  I even mowed our lawn for the first time in our married life (something I vowed I would never do! lol)  By Friday the house pictures were done and we were on the market.  The housing market in Idaho was pretty hot at the moment and we knew the house could sell fast.  We ended up having about 8-9 showings on the house that week and by the following Friday we had an offer that we were hoping for.  It was a long couple of weeks, but in the end I am very grateful that it all went so fast!  Such a blessing. 

Here are a few of the professional pictures taken of our old house.  Love that place and all the wonderful memories that we made there. 

We moved out of our house in Idaho on June 9th.  We had a ton of help from neighbors and family as we packed up the week before, loaded the truck, and cleaned the house.  It was amazing to see it all come together.  I was so humbled by everyone's willingness to serve and help our family out.  It meant so much to us!  Then a month later we closed on our Idaho home on July 3rd.  Everything went exactly as planned which was another huge blessing.  It was hard to say goodbye to our first house, but we hope the new family enjoys it as much as we did.