Life in the Big House No More?


It may have taken me six months to write this post.  But, hey, no time like the present.

So what is the biggest news to hit the Life In the Big House Family this year? 

We’ve moved! 



That’s right, we left our 1908 Folk Victorian and moved….a whopping three miles away!

I know, I know.  You have so many questions!  I will try to cover them all in as brief post as possible.  After all, you have Christmas shopping, decorating…etc to do….

Why?  We loved our old house (original photos here!).  But that is exactly one of the reasons why we moved.  It was old.  I loved the charm, the character, the history (I’ll do a full post on that one of these days), the location was killer and our neighbors were amazing.   So back to why if all that was so good? Because it was old.  And big…not just big, but too big.  It was 3600 square feet of drafty, creaky, leaky, dusty, musty….you get the point.  We had multiple rooms that we never used (library, sunroom, mudroom…)  The layout was a bit odd (as it can be in most old homes).  The back yard was massive, and we want a pool…but our backyard included a driveway that would prohibit us from getting exactly what we wanted.   So with all these reasons, we decided to look for a house.  But, we told ourselves that we wouldn’t move unless we found the perfect house for us. 

How? We’ve been randomly looking at houses for a couple of years now.  But in March, we found an amazing property.  It had a nice large backyard, four bedrooms, a garage and a carriage house, it was about 1000 square feet smaller and it was brand new!  Sadly, it was already under contract….So the hunt continued.

Then one foggy Christmas day…oops, too much Christmas music!  All I remember is that our realtor was in Paris…not Texas….(France) and called us.  I looked at Josh and said “if she is calling us from France, this must be big news” and I was right!  The first offer fell through and thankfully we had submitted a back-up offer.  The seller had accepted our offer and we were under contract! 

So now what?? We hadn’t listed the big house yet.  We had met with listing agents and discussed when and how much we should list for.  We had begun to prep (again, lots to do with an old house…).  And so we were ready to list.  Amazingly, the first weekend it was on the market we got a couple of offers right away.  They didn’t pan out, but we did get a solid offer about a week after it was listed. 

When? We closed on the new house the beginning of May and we sold the big house about a month later.  The timing couldn’t not have been better.  We slowly moved throughout the month of May and officially moved Memorial Day Weekend.  New house photos below!  (spoiler - those are the listing photos...not our stuff...)


Dinning Room, we LOVE the massive door!! It is sooo tall!! And bonus! Our old dining room table we made fits!  See our old dining room here

Guest Room aka Hobby Room!  
Guest Bathroom


Living Room 






Kitchen


Butler's Pantry






Master Bedroom with windows we can see out of!


Master Bathroom




Not a laundry closet anymore!


Girls Bathroom


I see lot's of fall parties here!  Football games anyone??


We finally get to use our garage for cars!


Future Gym Space and JD's office 

 
Selling the big house was not easy.  Not easy mentally or physically.  The big house is where CJ and Soph grew up.  It is where we poured blood, sweat and tears (but mostly blood) into so many projects.  When the new owners had an inspection done, I was dreading the worst.  I mean, the house was over hundred years old.  But I thought she was solid.  The floors didn’t slope or sag.  The walls were lath and plaster.  So much more solid than houses built today….so what’s the worry? Well, according to the inspection, she was almost falling down….we had to have main beams under the house replaced, porch flooring replaced, siding and window seals, soffits too!  It was so much and very overwhelming and we spent over $20k on those issues!  We almost didn’t make it to the closing table.  But our amazing realtor kept it together for us (if you ever, EVER, need a recommendation for Atlanta, let me know!)

And the big question…costs…I know most everyone always wants to know the costs.

We bought the big house in October of 2012 as a short sale, or maybe foreclosure…I can’t remember.  I do remember we were under contract in May of 2012 and didn’t close until the end of October.  It took F-O-R-E-V-E-R…, while we were waiting, we lived in a basement and an apartment.  The basement was fun…I was fat prego and had to walk up a flight of stair every time I had to pee…and pregnant chicks pee a lot….Back to the real story, we purchased the big house for $250,000.  I know, a steal.  Even in 2012, that price was so good.  We sold it for $750,000…now, before you start saying ‘Holy moly”, you should know how much we put into that house to make it worth ¾ of a million dollars.  {don’t forget about that commission either…}.  Here is just the tip of the list:

New roof
New gutters
Refinish hardwood floors
Kitchen renovation (click here for that post)
New HVAC
New plumbing
Replace beams & supports
New fireplace (one of these years I'll do a post on those projects)

And those are just the items that we had professionals do (I did do some of the fireplace projects).  I don’t have a total number (sorry), but if I were to estimate, I’d say we spent close to $150k on all the repairs/changes.  We also spent countless hours ourselves on making the big house the amazing home and hopefully the new homeowners will enjoy it as much as we did.

So back to the why.  We wanted to enjoy our weekends with our kids.  In the big house, we were always working on something.  And family is more important than a house.  So onto new adventures in the new big {little} house.

To enjoy the big house one last time, click here for the last post I wrote {Christmas Tour}.



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