Home Sweet Home

Our new home brings us so much joy! So naturally we wanted to show it off. =) We moved in on March 30th and have been settling in nicely (sans an unfortunate adventure in our crawl space--ugh!). Today I finally felt like everything was looking good enough to take some photos and do a video tour. Happily I present, as Xander likes to say, "my Colorado house!"

And because I'm me, I also took photos. Joel insisted on being in every single one, because he's silly and awesome like that. 

View from the front entry

"Family room"

"Sitting room"

Dining room

Glorious kitchen

It's so silly, but I just love the pantry door

Kitchen

Kids bathroom

Playroom

Playroom

Office

Master bedroom

Taekwondo shrine in the master bedroom =)

Master bath <3

Holley dojang in the garage

Backyard

We have major plans for the backyard. I will probably end up posting progress updates, but we'll see how it goes!

Backyard

We are seriously in love with our new home. The interior is everything that we really wanted, and we are excited to invest time, money, and effort into the backyard to make it equally nice. It is so wonderful to finally feel like we can put down roots. It's time to make our house into our forever home!

House hunting (and more) in Durham!

This weekend has been SUCH an adventure!

We flew out on Wednesday. The plan had been to explore Duke's campus on Wednesday evening, but the flight was a lot harder on me than expected (as I mentioned on fb, airplanes + pregnancy = swollen everything). So we just had some dinner and crashed at the hotel. Which meant lots of HGTV for me, and computer games for James.

(Side bar: Have I ever mentioned that I absolutely love HGTV? I never ever watch TV, except when I stay in hotels. For some reason, watching stupid TV shows is something that I equate with being on vacation. Like how when James and I went to NYC right after we were married, and our last night there we were tired from everything we'd been doing, so we spent the evening eating New York pizza and watching the Food Network? Yeah...)

Thursday morning starting at 9am we met with our real estate agent, Maggie Considine. Incidentally, we really really like Maggie. She had little booklets printed up for each of us with all the houses we were going to see, and a map showing where they all were located in relation to Duke. We soon got on the road to start looking at houses. As I'll talk about momentarily, we had some other appointments on Thursday, so we had to work around those.

We saw six houses on Thursday morning. James and I were pleasantly surprised to be presented with several pretty solid options. By the time Maggie dropped us off, we had eliminated three of the six, and as we drove over to Chapel Hill, we discussed through the three remaining choices. One had a gorgeous property, but so-so interior, plus was pretty far out from Duke. One had a stunning interior, but a crappy yard, and was pretty far out from conveniences like grocery stores and whatnot. The third was a middle ground--a decent yard, a good interior, and a reasonable location. We decided to go through our appointment, then return to the hotel and pray about the choice before making a decision.

Our other appointments on Thursday were at the two local birth centers. Home birth is essentially illegal in North Carolina, which was pretty heartbreaking to me when I first learned of it. But as I considered our situation--away from all family and support system, with James in school--I came to feel much more at peace with having Baby X at a birth center. So a major to-do item for this trip was to check out the two birth centers convenient to Durham to determine where I'll be giving birth this fall.

Post-birth center tour, we returned briefly to our hotel. After prayer and consideration, James and I decided to make an offer on the middle-ground, "Woodside Park" house. After meeting with our loan officer and then with Maggie, we decided to go back and look at it one more time.

From there, we drove down to Cary for our second birth center tour. I have to tell you, this second birth center was the most impersonal place! You don't really think of birth centers of being sterile and cold--especially the people! Fortunately, I had really liked the first place, so it made the decision easy!!

We waited and waited on Thursday night to hear back on our offer...in vain. Maggie went ahead and set up appointments for us to see more houses on Friday morning, in the event of us needing a backup. We met at her office this morning, and she had news--the Woodside Park seller had countered our offer--he wanted us to pay all the closing costs. We countered back asking him to pay half, and then took off with Maggie to see more houses.

This morning, we looked at five more houses. The first one was small, but a decent prospect. The second and third were immediate rejects. The fourth house was interesting--it was enormous, with huge vaulted ceilings and some other nice features that we liked. But no yard to speak of, and over budget. So that was no.

The last house we looked at today--"Stoney Drive"--was darling. It's in a great neighborhood. It has a .22-acre lot, backed by trees. (Not fenced, unfortunately.) The interior was lovely. The kitchen wasn't super up-to-date, but it's in good shape and looks nice. The bedrooms were all decent, and the master was great. Besides the fence, there really wasn't anything we'd need to do, no painting or anything, which is super nice. We immediately declared it to be our back-up house.

At that point, we returned to Maggie's office and parted ways. James took me to Duke for my tour. PS guys--Duke University has the most gorgeous campus imaginable.

While there, we got a call from Maggie--the seller of the Woodside Park house had accepted another offer. James and I were both remarkably unruffled by this news. We told Maggie right then that we wanted to make an offer on the Stoney Drive house, while remaining a backup offer on Woodside Park. And then the waiting game began again!

We spent more time on campus, then returned to our hotel for awhile (I was pooped!) We couldn't bear it any longer, so texted Maggie, but she still hadn't heard anything. We went out to dinner, and had some quick back-and-forths between us, Maggie, and the seller's agent over little details of the offer. We decided to go to the movies, unable to deal with the pins and needles. But just as we were about to walk into the movie, we got good news--the seller was going to accept our offer! I was a bad movie-goer and left my phone on vibrate. Halfway through Pitch Perfect 2, we got the official signed contract back in our email. HUZZAH!

So tomorrow morning we're going to go walk through OUR HOUSE one more time, then we're headed home! It's been a whirlwind trip. I can't even tell you how relieved I am to have these things settled. Now time to get back to our Smush!

Selling our House, Part 1

We have known that we would be selling our house for several months now. That wasn't always the plan--for many years, James had been planning to attend law school at BYU. That was the plan when we bought our house, thinking we would be here for 5 years or more, for school and then possibly for the beginnings of a local career. Of course, that all changed when James decided to apply at the Top 10 schools, and our entire life plan shifted course.

It was only two and a half weeks ago that James officially declared his intent to attend Duke University. Duke has been our top choice all along, but it really came down to scholarships. Fortunately, Duke offered James a substantial scholarship, the best offer that he received. (Made the choice very easy!) Once we knew for sure where we would be going, we decided to proceed with plans for the house.

We met with our realtor, Amy Laster-Haynes, for the first time on March 24th, two weeks ago yesterday. She came highly recommended by our friend and loan officer, Brother James Sly, and we immediately liked her a great deal. She was professional and upfront with us, which we appreciated.

My greatest concern about the sale of our home was the timing. We don't plan to move until July, so I was worried about listing our home too soon, and being forced to move out early, and probably have to move twice. But on the other hand, we didn't want to still be trying to sell our home after moving to North Carolina, with the hassle and financial strain that would bring.

With all this in mind, Amy recommended listing sooner rather than later. Her reasoning was that we could probably work out a later closing or a rent-back situation with potential buyers, and furthermore, she believes that a lot more houses will be listed in the next several months, and having more competition on the market would make our house harder to sell. After considering the matter, James and I decided to proceed.

We spend the week preparing the house. James actually went to Durham that weekend, so my awesome parents came over and helped me clean and finish a couple of little fixes around the house that needed to be done before listing the house. To our surprise the For Sale sign went up Saturday afternoon--Amy apologized for that later, as it wasn't supposed to have gone up until Monday. We definitely got questioned at church on Sunday!

On Monday, Amy's professional photographer came and took pictures of the house. They turned out AMAZING. You can check them out here. I was so pleased--having spent quite of bit of time looking at houses for sale in Durham, I have come to appreciate what a difference good photos make in the desirability of a home.

Tuesday saw the actual listing of our house. Our house was officially for sale! We had our first showing scheduled that evening, though it later got postponed until Wednesday.

A big surprise came at 9:00am on Wednesday--our first offer! We hadn't even shown the house yet! But it turned out to be a lowball offer--Amy believed they were investors, probably planning to rent out the property. It was a cash offer, but that wasn't nearly enough of an enticement to accept $10,000 below what we had asked for. Amy said to wait to reject it until that evening--we had two showings lined up already, and she hoped to use this offer to put a little pressure on them.

We ended up having FOUR showings that first day. James and I spent the morning cleaning and preparing the house, and then vacated for the afternoon. Amy texted a few times, and she seemed very hopeful about the interest shown, and so we waited with great anticipation.

Amy called us at about 8:00 that evening--with TWO more offers. The first (and lower!) of the two was $5,000 over our asking price, although asked us to pay $7,000 in closing costs. However, the big thing with this offer was that the seller was willing to delay closing for 40 days, and then rent back to us for 60 more days, which gets us to the middle of July--about as good as we could have hoped for!

The second offer was a full $10,000 over our asking price, with the more typical $4,000 in closing costs. However, there were two major issues with this offer--first, they wanted to close and move in as soon as possible. Second, Amy expressed her concerns about our house appraising for anything near this high, a very valid concern.

Amy asked us to sleep on it, and let her know in the morning how we would like to proceed. We talked about it, but it was a pretty clear choice for us. We texted her in the morning with our intent to accept the first offer. Amy was really happy--she said that many sellers only look at the dollar signs, and she was glad that we had listened to her cautions and all. For me, the bigger dealbreaker was the timing. Being able to stay in our house until July makes all the difference in the world for me!

We went back and forth a couple more times with the buyer with some addendums, but later that day, we got a signed acceptance back--we were officially under contract!

Now we are in the midst of a three-week due diligence period, while the buyer has time to get a home inspection, the appraisal, etc. We've got our fingers crossed that all that goes smoothly, and that we get to closing without any major hiccoughs. Still, it's a pretty big relief to have reached this stage with as much ease as we did. Now we're just waiting with eager anticipation until our trip out to Durham in May, to search for our next home!

Saying farewell to our apartment

We close on our house in 10 days. We are immensely excited! However, I wanted to take some pictures of our apartment before we started packing, so we would have some memories to share of the place. It's a bit of a mess right now, seeing as how we got home this morning from Chicago, but it's still home.

Living room

Entryway - you can see the boxes ready to be packed!

Kitchen

Kitchen

Bathroom & laundry

Office (Husband makes a great addition)

Office - my mess of a desk

Bedroom

This was the first Holley House, and will always be remembered with fondness. We have spent the first six months of our marriage here, and what an important time in our life! We have had good times and bad times in this apartment. It has been truly a lovely place to live, perfect for this first period in our marriage.

That said--time to start packing!!

The House: Part 2

Before all this started, I knew that there was a lot that went into buying a house. But I don't think I ever really realized how much it really involves.

Today we had our home inspection. It was fun to get back into the house. The weird part about being under contract is that it feels like our house, but we don't get to go in and feel the place, if you know what I mean. So it was nice today to walk through our house, even if it was with the inspectors. To our relief, there were no major issues found in our home. A few minor things--some missing rain gutters and loose siding probably being the worst of it.

The biggest thing has been all the paperwork. It's hard to believe all the things our loan processor asks us for. Bank statements, tax returns, W-2's, pay stubs, home insurance, college transcripts, our marriage certificate and a letter explaining my maiden name, a letter explaining exactly what James has been doing for the past five years (apparently missionary service does not count as work experience), and more. It's a little overwhelming at times!

There's also the matter of acquiring the things we will be in need of, once we move in. We do have most things, but moving from an apartment into a house does necessitate a few purchases. We will be buying a refrigerator, so we've been researching our options. We'll need a lawn mower. (A yard! So excited to have a yard!) On Monday we bought a couch. We found it on KSL, and we're very pleased; it's leather, reddish-brown, and has only a few minor stains, no tears or anything. It's awesome. And my parents are awesome for letting us stuff it in their garage for the next few weeks.

We cannot wait to get into our home. That's what it already feels like: home. Of course, we have much to keep us occupied over the next few weeks (NATIONALS!!!) but still, July 18th cannot come fast enough for us!

The House: Part 1

So, remember how I said we weren't in a big rush to find a house? Hah!

We started working with our real estate agent, Cole, about a week ago. He started sending us listings right away, so we could pick houses we wanted to take a look at. We found a few that seemed viable, and had Cole set up appointments to tour. This conversation went back-and-forth over several days, and included one of the houses being contracted before we even got to see it.

On Tuesday, I was looking at houses on Zillow. (Really useful site, by the way.) Now, James and I had discussed our price range for our house, and settled on how much we wanted to spend, and how much was our absolute maximum. So, I was looking for house in our range, when I stumbled across a house that I really liked the look of. It met all of our house-hunting criteria (see below), and I loved all the pictures. But it was outside of the want-to-spend range (though still below the absolute-max) so I did nothing with it that day.

Cole had sent us a few more listings, which all seemed okay, but nothing that really said, "Pick me! I'm the one!" On Wednesday, I was on Zillow again looking to see if there was anything new, when again I found this one house. I loved it all over again, and I felt really strongly like we should look at it. So I emailed it to James while he was at school. I acknowledged that it was higher than we had discussed, but told him that I really liked it. He wrote back and said we should definitely take a look. So I sent it to Cole, and he set up an appointment for us the next day.

As we were house-hunting, we had a few hard-and-fast criteria that we were looking for:
-At least 3, no more than 4 bedrooms.
-At least 2 bathrooms.
-Located somewhere between the studio and BYU.
-Price.

In addition, there were a few more ephemeral things we hoped to find:
-A private, fenced yard that was well-cared for, and easy to care for. (James wants to only have to mow the lawn. I think I can care for a few flowers/plants, but any more than that, and I will probably kill them.)
-A separate master bathroom (didn't get this one)
-No wood paneling (that nasty stuff from what, the 70's? I know it's simple enough to remove, but I despite the stuff.)
-No weird colors, inside or outside. (Yellow house? No thank you!)
-Nice neighborhood
-In Orem (we were willing to look at Provo and maybe other places, but I always preferred Orem)
-Not a lot of fixing-up needed. We wanted something ready to live in.

So, Thursday. The other houses that we looked at fell into this last category: lots of fixing-up needed. Actually, one house that we looked at (which was in Provo...) was a pretty nice house, with an updated kitchen and a spacious yard, but I felt overwhelmed by how much work it would need to really be livable. Another house we looked at was in a really cute neighborhood in Orem, but the inside had just been trashed. So sad.

When we arrived at the house I'd found on Zillow, I immediately felt at home. While Cole retrieved the keys, James and I explored the yard--and I fell in love. The property has been well-cared for, and it was the perfect balance: a decent size, with a few trees and flowers, but nothing major that needs to be tended. James told me I wasn't allowed to fall in love until we'd been inside! But that wasn't a problem--we loved the inside too. Though there were a few funny little things, they were little, and easily remedied. The house was clean, spacious, obviously well-cared for, and exactly what we wanted. It was like going check-check-check down our list (except the master bath...alas).

Cole advised us that houses like this were not lasting long on the market, and he expected that it would not last another day. He looked it up, and found that there had already been two other offers. That made me a little anxious, because I felt so strongly, even then, that this was home.

We went to look at another house (blech), and then stopped at my mother's house to use her printer. Cole was hoping to find more properties for us to look at. While he worked on the computer, James and I stepped into the other room to speak privately.

We loved the house. We felt like it was right for us, and if that was the case, we didn't want to miss our opportunity by waiting. So we knelt and prayed, then and there. The confirmation was very clear to us both. We stepped back into the office and announced that we wanted to make an offer on the house.

Cole went through all the paperwork with us (my poor mother, with her computer taken over!) and we submitted our offer that afternoon. Then James and I headed to the studio, and the waiting game began.

Have I ever mentioned how much I despise waiting?

We finally heard back on Friday night--a counter-offer. We had offered the listing price, but asked the seller to pay all the closing costs. Their counter-offer was that they would pay half the closing costs. We agreed, and signed that night.

James and I were absolutely jubilant. We kept looking over at each other, and one of us would say, "House!" and we both would grin. So silly, so excited.

Of course, now the games have truly begun. We have so much paperwork to get done, for our mortgage, getting the appraisals and inspections and everything done. We are set to close on July 18th--we needed that time, with everything we have going on in the next few weeks! This weekend we compete at the Utah Summer Games in Cedar City, next week is testing at the studio, then we're off to Chicago for a week and a half for Nationals, and as soon as we get back, we have Leadership Conference. Crazy busy time--and buying a house on top of it all! But we are incredibly excited, and most importantly, we know that it is the right house and the right time. What a blessing!!!

Our newest adventure

I guess it's official: we're house-hunting!

We've started into the process of getting pre-qualified for a home loan (yikes!) and this weekend took the step of getting in touch with one of our good friends who is a real estate agent. We are soon to start actually looking at houses, which seems like a BIG step to me.

We are not in a huge rush, seeing as how we have our apartment until October. But as I've talked to people about home-buying, the more I keep hearing how long it takes, so I feel good about starting now.

James and I are incredibly excited. I will admit that I am a little nervous, seeing as how it's our first time buying a home, and there's so much that goes into it.

Those of you who have been through this before, what advice do you have to share? What should we know as we embark upon this adventure? Please share!