Chancellor Manor: New House - Story and Pictures

So here is the story, as promised a couple months ago, along with pictures of our new house, as promised several weeks ago :D

We bought our first house in July, 2006. We loved it. It was just right for us, and so nice and comfortable.

Through the next four years, we really enjoyed our home. We planted flowers, and had a little garden.

Our first baby came home to that house, and grew, and grew, and suddenly became a little preschooler in that house.

Then our second baby came home to that house, and grew and grew until he could chase his sister all over the house, dragging his tummy all the way.

In the midst of this, we decided to take advantage of the depressed housing market and start looking for our ‘long-term-not-quite-dream-home-but-where-we-want-to-stay-till-the-kids-are-grown” house. We put our house on the market in February, 2011, and absolutely nothing happened. Come to find out, our realtor just wasn’t all that into being a realtor. Go figure. We decided to take a break, let everything get settled in from James’ being born, then try again.

In February we put our house on the market. Obviously, this realtor was in a different league – within the week we had sold our house and bought another. We had her come out on a Friday just to tell us where we stood, then went ahead signed papers with her while she was there. The next day she called: “I know we don’t have a sign out front or pictures online or a lockbox and this is kind of crazy… but – can we show your house tomorrow?” We had at least one showing every day after that, until Thursday, when the offer came in. So, we counteroffered, and went to look at houses to buy. We hadn’t even had a chance to narrow down a list of favorites to look at, so we whipped out the iPod while we were waiting for copies to be made, and wrote a short list of four. Friday night, a week from listing, we found the house we wanted.

It was a good thing I’d been gradually, very slowly, packing for over a year already. Otherwise, the thought of the next month would have terrified me. As it was, it didn’t seem very overwhelming at all. Sure enough, everything got packed up in a timely manner, and things went pretty smoothly.

Thursday April 12^th we rented a U-Haul and packed up what was left in our house. Cadence and James loved the “BIG BIG TRUCK!!!!” for them to play in.

Playing in the moving truck

We had plenty of help, and finished in time to say goodbye to the house and go sit and rest for a few minutes before bed. We stayed the night with Tony’s parents, since obviously our house had nowhere for us to sleep.

Friday morning we went and closed on both houses, then went to our new house. Let the fun begin! The carpet cleaners beat us there, and we got started cleaning.

Cleaning day!

Once again we had lots of help – and I am so grateful! Can I just say, cleaning this house made me feel like an excellent housekeeper? Like the brown tiles, that turned out to be cream? Or the stove, which had an inch of build up under the burners? Don’t get me wrong – most of the house looked really nice and was pretty clean, it was just a few areas that needed some serious work!

Tornadoes! Whoo-hoo! The visiting kiddos did not appreciate the sirens going off while they were here, and the workers had to sit around and wait for a break in the rain. Thankfully there WERE breaks in the rain, and no tornadoes, so we were able to get everything in and return the U-Haul on time. We didn’t get everything in order enough to stay the night Friday night, but by Saturday things were livable.

NOT livable ;)

We’ve been here ever since, and we are loving it! The neighborhood is so quiet and peaceful, the kids are loving the swing set and playing outside. Cadence is addicted to the stairs, and we have all been sleeping well.

Here is the house so far: