HUGE NEWS

I have so much to write about and I am SO behind on my updates and photo blogs.
I still haven’t written about our weekender to the gorgeous red rocks (2 months ago!!) or our recent adventures in Salt Lake’s sudden fit of sunshine.

But I will let you all know that there is a pretty valid reason for this. . .
We may have gotten a house.

Finally.

I say MAY because I don’t want to jinx anything.

Let me tell you the story…

We found an adorable blue Victorian house online that was a sweet old thing in the perfect area between downtown Salt Lake and Sugarhouse,right by Liberty Park.  We had an appointment to see it the next day because the renters required 24 hour notice(I hate that—do you want to sell your house or don’t you??!), but we decided to drive by the night before because the outside and area tell you a lot about a house.

And this was a doozy. Online it appeared in great condition. Well, those pictures must have been taken years ago, because it was a dump. And not the kind of dump a fresh coat of paint and few weed-pulls will fix. They had trashed this sweet little Victorian.  And that sort of thing—neglected houses—hurts my heart.  The roof would need immediate replacing, the outside was falling apart, the tree in the yard was coming down with it, and the backyard…was more of a lump of potholes and gopher holes and strange mounds (all dirt and rock) than the large grassy area they had indicated in the listing.
It wasn’t even fenced in, so we went down the creepy back alleyway behind the house and there she was in all of her dilapidated glory.

We were depressed.  And decided to cruise through the area while we were down there to see all of the cute houses that had been taken care of.
We went down a nice side street and saw a corner lot that was undeveloped, with the original trees of the area (they must be a hundred years old!).  The house down the adjoining street had bought 2 lots and turned the corner lot to the left of their house into their forest yard. Brilliant.
We exclaimed “what a wonderful idea! Those people are really neat!” and proceeded to drive past the woodsy corner and BOOM.  The house next to the woods, kitty-corner from the awesome people’s house, was for sale. I know that is confusing—here is my
terrible illustration:

And this cute house next door was cute. White with an ivy green trim (and ivy climbing up the frontporch rails!!), a little peaked roof poking out on top (the attic) and….
A WHITE. PICKET. FENCE.   Seriously.

This cottage was the epitome of the American dream.
It even had a gnome in the front garden.
Eli and I died a bit from the adorableness. There were not fliers provided with the FOR SALE sign and we gazed on it for a bit, said “well, it’s obviously out of our price range…” and let it go.  We drove on.

But you know how things that are meant to happen do? And everyone says to have patience with house hunting because the right house will come along at the right time and everything happens for a reason?
A few days later, Saturday morning, Eli and I were soaking up the sun on our porch and he was cruising through the new house listings and he found Cute House and although it was a bit pricey, it was still in our range. He called the realtor while I took a quick shower, and a few hours later we were opening up the white picket gate and walking up the steps to tour the house.

And we loved it.  It is quirky and full of personality.  It has a fireplace and an attic we could refurbish and French doors leading onto a gorgeous deck and luscious backyard full of matured, leafy, tall trees.
We wanted it. After seeing more than 30 houses, our realtor could see we were serious about this one, so for 3 days he went back and forth with their realtor and never stopped working for us until we put in an offer at $12,000 less than their asking price. They accepted and it went under contract.
Holy shit.
We’ve made several offers on houses, none of which we loved this much, and thiswas the first one we got.  What joy!

So we are having the inspection on Tuesday and hopefully everything comes up alright so we can bust out the paperwork and get in there as soon as possible! We are dying with anticipation!
Unfortunately part of the paperwork is a lot of old stuff (like 2011’s W2s) so we’re on the hunt trying to collect the necessary documents as soon as possible.  Which is stressful of course.
Not to mention the burden of moving itself. But…. This will be our last big move for years and years and years.

But it is a house. Our house.  Granted something-unexpected doesn’t come up during the Inspection, like a massive termite infestation, bodies in the crawl space, explosive wiring, you know.

 Are you ready for a photo??! Me too.

I can see us living here.  With our (future) puppy.  Sipping margaritas on the shady porch.