Housing update

Ok, I know you're all on pins and needles about our housing predicament.  [cough]  Hey, seriously.  Several of you have asked me!  So there!  :P

So we talked to Aspen again and got everything straightened out.  (Short story, there was a breech in communication and the floor plan we had on paper with a price was similar to, but not the same as the floor plan we walked through.  Which is why it came with a bigger price tag.)  But we still didn't know what to do.  We played with numbers and realized we could, in fact, afford the higher price tag if we wanted to, but if we were looking at building at that price, maybe we should look at houses for sale at that price first.  So we went back to looking at houses online.  BJ went to California for a week for WWDC (translation for non-nerds: a big nerdy conference for Apple developers), so I decided to take a week off from house hunting.

Except my agent had other plans.  Lori called at 8:30 Thursday morning to say, "I found another builder in Lehi, right by where we've been looking for lower prices and bigger square feet than anyone has offered you.  Do you want to go see them?"  Ummm… yes, please.  3 catches: 1) They're running a promotion to get such great prices, which means they're going fast, which means we have to decide fast. 2) They have lower standard features.  So we'll end up paying more than the base price in upgrades.  3) Smaller lots.  Where with Aspen we were looking at building on a .5 acre lot, these are on .2 acre lots.  Knowing that, I went with her to look through 3 model homes.  And fell in love.

I came home, called BJ and told him that even on .2 acres, if it were up to me, I'd still build this one right now.  So he came home and last night we went and toured them again.  And he agreed with me.  So tonight we're going to go put down our earnest money and start making decisions on stone and stucco colors.  (Yipes!  I'm so bad at decisions like this!)

So we're pretty sure this is for real this time.  It's this house:

And you can find floor plans, etc., here.  Plus some notes on the floorplan:

• We'll turn the formal living room into a study.  
• We'll do the extension in the family room, so those dotted lines up top?  Those will be the real lines for the family and dining rooms.  And those new lines will also affect the second story and basement.
• We're upgrading to the Gourmet Kitchen which will include double ovens (convection and conventional), upgrade our dishwasher, add an island, and put a microwave above the gas range instead of a hood.
• We're upgrading to the Deluxe Master Bath which will change it from one sink to two and change the tub/shower combo to a separate tub/shower.  (Because it makes the master bath bigger, it changes the walk-in closet in Bedroom 4 to a normal closet.  But I'm ok with kids not fighting about who gets the bedroom with the bigger closet.)
• By changing the exterior to Elevation B (which is pictured above) it adds a front porch and also a cold storage in the basement.  It also makes my laundry room about 2-feet bigger.

And now that I'm getting into morning sickness I'm realizing that a smaller yard isn't as bad as I thought. Because over the next 10ish years I'm gonna spend a fair bit of time being sick, tired, nursing, etc. And not wanting to do a bunch of yard work.  So it'll be good to start with a smaller yard to get used to taking care of my own yard, then upgrading with our next house when kids are older.  And just focus more on the garden now instead of on garden and yard work.  Plus, we're getting a deeper lot, so we'll have less side yard, but more backyard.

And there are little grassy areas periodically with walking paths and playgrounds for kids, so we'll still have room to play croquet and such. And a clubhouse for parties and with exercise equipment.  (Yes, there's a $19 HOA fee.  But $19 isn't bad at all.)

Oh, and you can also watch a video tour.

So there it is!  We're excited!  And we should be ready to move in around October-ish.  Oh, and did I mention that they do our front and side landscaping for free?  Because they do.  And that's awesome.

The end.  For now.