It feels almost like forever ago we started looking at houses. We thought it was much too early but in the end it is good we started so soon. We had trouble finding anything that would meet our basic needs and thanks to the input of one of our daughters we decided to branch out. A house that I loved the look of from the beginning seemed so right for us.
A Cape Cod on 6000 South in Roy Utah.
This lovely home was built in 1895 but had been added onto and remodeled keeping some of the old charm. It was all on one level so ideal for a couple who would be aging and hoping to live in their home until they couldn’t take care of themselves any more. Unfortunately, despite our love of this darling home and our feelings of it being our home, it was not to be. Another contract had been accepted prior to ours and had not been closed so when we learned of that we decided to allow the other couple a chance to choose. They chose to keep the home and finally closed and moved in the end of January. Meanwhile, we started looking at more homes, despite our discouragement.
The next home we found was also in Roy.
A cute ranch on 3400 West in Roy.
This house had a full basement and five/six bedrooms (one did not have a closet but had a large built in desk – perfect for an office). It also had a finished family room downstairs. By now we are thinking about the possibility of perhaps having bees on our property. It was possible in the back of the cape and even more possible in this house as it backed up to a large field. However, despite how nice it looked, the inspection showed some serious problems and code violations and the owners were not willing to come down in price or fix them so once again we lost a house, by choice, but a loss none the less. Now we were really discouraged.
We decided perhaps we needed to change our focus and decided to make a trip to Idaho to look at homes there. The prices were such that we could buy a much nicer house for the money we were planning to spend. We planned a trip to Idaho on a Saturday. The Friday morning prior to our trip the Ogden Temple President called and told Carl he had been reactivated as a sealer to start the following week. After the call we said this seemed like as good a sign as any as to where we were to live so we decided against buying a house in Idaho Falls. A storm came in over night and the trip would have been cancelled anyway but we had our answer.
That Saturday we started our search again. This time we broadened our search again and found six homes to look at. Since Monday was a holiday and we had snow we started looking on Tuesday morning. One of the houses, which was so lovely, was now under contract so we actually only looked at five homes. Our focus now included to possibility of putting an apartment in the basement, perhaps with an outside entrance. If he desired, we would invite Daniel to come and make a home base with us.
At the end of the day our minds were swimming with all the details and so we once again (we did it with the others we had seen as well) made a spreadsheet to compare the homes. We had narrowed our search now to two homes. We did pros and cons and the one clearly beat out the other. We decided the next day we would go to the city and see if everything was in order there. Then head to our realtor’s office to make an offer.
As we drove off the next morning we got a call from our realtor saying there was an offer on that house – not again! Okay, regroup and we went to a different city to check out the other house. We also made arrangements to go and see that house again. The upstairs was so lovely, but there is only a half bath for company to use and the three quarter bath in the master bedroom was a little strange. The basement was outdated although in very good condition. It didn’t seem like the right house for us. We were discouraged until we got a call from our realtor. The owners of the other house were not happy with the offer they had and would accept other offers. The other offer had a contingency and was for more than we wanted to pay. We looked at comparable homes and then came in with a low offer thinking they would counter our offer.
The next evening we got a call from our realtor. Unbelievably, the owners had accepted our offer. We were delighted. We set up the inspection and went the next day to see the city and found no issues there.
The inspection was the next week and there were no major issues. The last of our money from the sale of our house in New York is now available so we feel very close to actually having a place to call home.
We are so grateful to our children for putting up with us for so long, especially Matthew and Holly who have allowed us to live in their basement and have stored the things we have there. I know it has been a challenge for them to work around all that is there but we are so grateful.
So here are the pictures of the house we plan to make our new home.
It is difficult to take a picture of the front of this house as it has so many trees. This is taken from the garage side. The three windows are actually in the garage.
Front view from the bedroom side.
Side view of the three car garage.
Kitchen looking into the mirrored wall of the eating area.
Kitchen from the eating area.
Another view of the kitchen
Family Room/Dining Room with fireplace with gas log
Living Room into Family Room
Living Room into Front Entry
Master Bedroom and bath
Second Bedroom
Third Bedroom
Basement Bedroom and Bathroom
Basement Family Room
Basement Storage Room
Main Bathroom. The decorations have been removed and all walls painted white.
Master Bathroom – now painted white
Downstairs bathroom – now painted white
Backyard from top of hill
Side and back yard
The laundry “room” is in a large closet in the upstairs hallway across from a large linen closet. There is also a large cold storage room in the basement. There is a lot of storage, something I missed in New York but learned to work with. I hope we will always have the openness of not much stuff. The little furniture we kept will make it look pretty empty but that is just fine.
Truly we are blessed to have a loving Father in Heaven to guide and direct our paths.
Everything is in place and we hope to close as early as tomorrow.