In a nutshell, we have been wanting to move into a better school district before Addison goes to kindergarten (which will be in the fall of 2012). Jack has been wanting to get into rental/property management for as long as I can remember and we were about to get the chance to do both. We decided to rent our house in Goshen and buy one in Miami Township/Milford/Loveland. Around Memorial Day weekend in May, we put our ranch in Goshen on Craig's List and got an overwhelming response from renters. We showed it to 5 families/couples and ended up going with a wonderful couple from the Hamilton/Oxford area who were downsizing. They are awesome!!!! And I truely mean that. They invited us over about a month ago to show off what they had done and we were blown away. She mulched the entire yard (which would be about 5 yards of mulch, edged all the beds/weeded, planted 3 trees, cleaned the grout that I didn't get around to cleaning before we moved and switched out the vanity light in Jack's old bathroom. Oh, and put in a new front door!! We pray that they stay for a long time. We think they will considering the money they have put into the house.
The new house is located behind Eastgate Lanes in what is technically Loveland, but we are in the Milford School District. We looked at what seemed like a million houses online, but only actually toured 2 houses. This was a VERY stressful process considering Jack liked one and I like the other. We ended up with the house that I liked because we were in a bidding war with other buyers on the other house. We are happy with the one we chose though. This one is in a great, mature neighborhood and we have wonderful neighbors. We would have liked to have more than a 2 car garage, but we are trying to make do. We had a much garage square footage as we did in the inside of our old house, so you can imagine how much stuff was in our garages. We have plans for a shed and fence, but those will probably wait until the spring. The new house does have a 925 square foot basement, so we are really utilizing that space. Half of it is finished and half is storage and will soon be my hobby room. The finished part is more entertainment/play room.
So anyway, here are the pictures and the upgrades that we have done so far:
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| Front Porch |
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| Front Door (painted, new hardware and wreath) |
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| Fireplace after painting |
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| Fireplace after painting |
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| Fireplace - Before |
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| Jack cut this tree down right after we moved in - looks MUCH better! Below is the 1/2 bath/power room right off of the kitchen. It is VERY small, so the pictures were hard to take. We changed out everything, including new light switches and a GFCI outlet (even got electrocuted since I forgot to turn the breaker off to the GFCI box, duh), took out the 1987 towel bar and toilet paper holder, paint, light, re purposed mirror, granite vanity top with under mount sink, faucet and I painted the vanity. |
So next on the list is Addison's bathroom upstairs. We got a second piece of granite for her vanity top in a light gray. I plan to do new ceramic tile in her bathroom and it also needs new trim (actually the whole house does). She really wants her room painted, so we'll work on that this winter along with her bathroom. The new house has 4 bedrooms, so one is a guest room and the other one is housing our desk and double vanity that will eventually go in the master bath. We got a great deal on Craig's List we couldn't pass up, but we are not ready to tackle the master bath just yet. We have to change the plumbing from single to double and take out the flooring. We have always wanted to do the radiant heat flooring and then ceramic tile will go over it. It is a larger room-maybe 10 x 10. I will also paint that vanity, but haven't decided on a dark or light finish.
The kitchen is also on the list, but that will be a huge undertaking. We have an appointment on Wednesday for a cabinet refacing estimate. I am not sure if I am ready to paint all of the cabinets. I know I want to do white with dark hardware. We have black appliances only because the stove was brand new when we moved in and didn't want to have to buy a new one. I ordered a new over the range microwave the other day because Jack found out the current one was make in 1990! I doesn't work very well!! We will also do granite and a glass backsplash.
We have a load-bearing wall between the living room and family room that we are also removing in the near future. We've gotten some estimates, but Jack will probably do it himself. There is a large amount of HVAC vents in the wall, so that is what is stopping us from knocking it down today.
I could go on and on with the list, but I'll save that for another day. We are having a great time with the new house though!
