Home for Sale!

Last January we started to play with the idea of moving (again). Liam's nursery was on the main floor of the house, while Avery's room and the Master Bedroom were on the second level. This bugged me reaaly bad!

We had an architect come and listen to our ideas of adding a Master Suite to the second level, making all three rooms on the same level. What he came back with was amazing! We got three different bids from three different contractors. Each bid came in at or over $250,000! AND that did NOT include electrical or HVAC! Atronomical! People buy homes for that amount of money. How could adding 800 square feet be that much? Well, take a home built in the 1920's and add structural change...THEN BAM!!!

After our hearts sunk, we started playing on the MLS. Just curiously looking. Fast forward to the summer. We decided to hire a realtor and look at different parts of the Salt Lake valley. We wanted to get a feel for all of Salt Lake and see what each area had to offer. Our biggest thing we wanted was excellent schooling. The area we lived in had started busing students in from the west side of the valley to make it more diverse. (And to make the sports more competitive. If that's how you want to say it politely.) I do not want to sound snobbish, but I was concerned that Avery would fall behind while other students were being taught english. (Please do not hate me for saying this!)

We started looking into private schools and were sold on the McGillis school. But then we started adding up the costs of schooling for two children, plus after school activities, nannies, etc.

So began our search.

We looked in Holladay (which I really really LOVED!), Olympus Cove, Emigration Canyon, Jeremy Ranch and the area we were already in.

I fell in love with Holladay because of the maturity of the lots and how big the lots were. I wanted land for the kids to play on! Nick wasn't sold. And we never found THE house. Olympus Cove was quickly crossed off the list. It felt confusing to me. Too many new houses mixed in with outdated houses. There really wasn't a true identity out there. Emigration Canyon was nixed quickly too. For the amount of time it took to get from the freeway to "home", it wasn't worth it. Plus, there are no stores nearby.

So that left us with Jeremy Ranch and Harvard/Yale area. I was 110% against JR due to the fact of Nick commuting. Nick was 200% against Harvard/Yale because of the same schooling conflict.

We decided to take a break from looking over Thanksgiving to reevaluate what we were trying to do. We decided we were going to put an offer on a home in Jeremy Ranch when we got home from Coronado. It waqs a little out of our price range, but we were going to see what they would take. (The buyers were in despair.)

On Cyber Monday, I was flustered that I could not find ANY Christmas deals for our family. I tend to knock out a bunch of shopping on that day, and I simply was not accomplishing anything. So I decided to glance at the MLS. I looked at Jeremy Ranch just to see what popped up since we got home. I found this new listing and called our realtor to set up a showing. We were actually going to Park City the next day to look at another home and possibly put in a low ball offer. I decided "What the Heck". Since we were going up there anyways, why not look at this new listing.

The next day we headed up. Once we walked into the new house, we were in love. It was 1500 sq feet larger than our other house, but did not feel overwhelming. It had an acre lot overlooking the back nine of the golf course. It was open and airy. It was perfect!

We made an offer the next day and it was accepted with a little nudging. We got the keys two weeks later, and quickly moved in (half way) a couple of days before Christmas. It was pure madness! Our other house in Salt Lake is still for sale, but we are convinced it will sell in the next couple of months. It's not fun having to take care of two home, bills for two homes, etc...but it'll be worth it.

Avery started a new preschool January 2nd. She also just started dance and karate. We are adjusting smoothly, we are enjoying the view and not being in the inversion, we love our neighbors, we just LOVE being Park City locals!

Goodbye Old House!