Sara's Hoose

There was a show on HGTV a few years ago about a Canadian woman who was fixing up an old farmhouse. But she pronounced it 'hoose.' In honor of Sara, who proved that with just a few million dollars and 24/7 access to master builders, you too can renovate a shell of a barn into an incredible dream home, this post is about our new hoose.

Kitcheny area

The backstory to the house is only really interesting to us, but mainly it comes down to finding exactly what we wanted in the exact right neighborhood and then getting a killer deal on said hoose. We found a highly rated realtor who wound up being an attorney who did real estate on the side, and she helped us get a great deal on the house and get the right things ordered in the property inspection.

The house was brand new, never lived in before. It was built by someone who wound up not getting their visa to move to the US and had to back out of the house (the area we moved to is right by the Goodyear and BMW and Nissan Leaf headquarters - there is a sizable Asian population). Though there a few really minor things we would have done differently (I would have put an automatic garage door opener in rather than wire the fireplace mantle for a flat screen TV which I never in a million years am going to use), it's almost exactly what we wanted.

And now, some pix. You can click on these to launch a viewer that will show them all bigger, but for some reason that will leave off the captions. These will skip around a bit randomly...

Living room. The fireplace is gas and is operated by a light switch, which is neat.

This is the front room ceiling. This, like 100% of the homes in South, this home has a formal dining room. We are going to switch out the chandelier for a ceiling fan and just make it a front room. We'll eventually get a piano and it will go in here.

'Nother view of the front room.

This is Madeleine's ceiling. Hers is my favorites room in the house.

Different perspective of Maddie's celing.

Part of Maddie's room. The girls have a connecting Jack and Jill bathroom, so they both have these vanities built in in their rooms and then you go through that door and you're in the bathroom/shower area.

The kitchen. Double ovens + gas cook top = good.

The eat-in dining area that we have turned into the full-time dining area.

The foyer with the front door and the front room.

Another view of the front room. The door on the left there is a good-sized under-the-stairs closet.

This is the room I was the most 'iffy' about. Officially, it's just some goofy loft space. We've turned it into a library, though, and will eventually get bean bag chairs or a nice small couch. We are a little worried about Emme having anything to climb on to hop over the banister, though, because it's like a 12-foot drop to the foyer below.

The dark area at the top there is the banister area of the previous picture.

The staircase + loft area.

This is the 3rd bedroom. It has a bathroom in it, so it's kind of a 2nd master.

Maddie's room - it's above the garage and has a potential storage area. That framed area on the wall is a spot where you can pop through and put a door if you want to access some additional room space. We'll see. Not a priority now but may look into that later.

Emme's ceiling.

Emme's room, with her crazy animal toys.

Another view of the family room. We got a rug so we could have a little cushioning. 

The ceiling in the family room.

Master bedroom - I even made the bed, just for this picture. 

Ceiling in master bedroom. I really like that ceiling.

Different view of master bedroom. 

Master bath. The closet is through that door at the far wall. There is a garden tub in between the vanities there under the bright window on the left.

The tub.

Looking back at the bedroom. The shower is on the left.

Laundry room.

2 extremely small cars-garage. I'm electing to park outside so we can make use of the 2nd bay. It's very tough to park in here - if we'd built the house we would have gone with one garage door rather than 2.

View of the pantry and fridge and stuff. It didn't come with a fridge! We had to buy one, and it was just 'counter depth,' which is lame, but that's all that fit the space. That means it's like not deep.

This is a view in the kitchen. You can see there that is has a desk area for when you want to do office stuff in the, uh, kitchen, and it has another space that's on the family room side of things. 

Back yard, in shadow.

Ceiling of the porch in the back yard.

Other view of the back yard. 

View of the stairs.

Cook top area.

That's it! We're super extremely massively blessed to have this house and these kids! Now we need people to come visit!