One step Forward

On December 26 we finally heard back from Bank of America.  They made us a counteroffer!  This was great since we put in the offer in October and hadn't heard a peep from them.  We were ready to accept the offer when Dane, our real estate agent told us that the sellers had already rejected the counteroffer.  It seems that B of A wanted the sellers to pay the difference between what they owed on the house and our offer.  The sellers didn't want to do that, that's why they did a short sale.  So Dane told us that we might as well make a counteroffer since it would be going back to B of A whether or not we accepted the offer.  Hopefully they will accept sometime this week.  In the meantime Dane told us that we could go ahead and get the inspection and we can start calling contractors to get estimates for the work that we want done one the house.

The house passed the inspection with just a few minor issues to be taken care of but when we met the inspector at the house, we realized that there was a small problem.  No one had shoveled the driveway all winter.  And the county had plowed in the driveway while they were plowing the road (at least the county maintains our road, we weren't sure about that).  So because we will be having people at the house this week to give us estimates AND we are really aching to get into the house, we decided to shovel the driveway.  Now this week it has been cold (in the 20s) and this winter is has snowed a few times and the snow has melted a bit and refrozen, so basically the driveway is an icy mess.  On the first day Jason and I spent 2 hours using snow shovels and realized that they weren't strong enough for this job.  But in those 2 hours we got Jason's car into the driveway.

Can you believe it took us 2 hours to just shovel that little bit?

Trying to shovel the snow.  Those shovels were woefully inadequate for the task at hand.

Next we decided to get more heavy duty shovels to be able to hack through the ice and do better.  The next day we made it to the concrete slab which made shoveling a little bit easier.  Now there was room for my car and Jason's truck.  We took the day off from shoveling on New Year's Eve, my arms and back were killing me.  And yesterday spent another two hours shoveling.  The concrete slab was easier to shovel than the gravel so we got that almost uncovered.  I think that this week we should be able to finish shoveling the driveway.  Jason is working but I have time to go. 

Making progress slowly but surely!

 Maybe we need to buy a snowblower!

Remodeling Ideas for the Homestead

While we are waiting for Bank of America to accept our offer on our house, Jason and I have spent a ton of time dreaming, imagining, talking, and planning the remodeling we will do to make the house OUR HOME.  One perk of renting a fully furnished apartment is that we have a TV with cable (something neither of us has had for YEARS) and we have become HGTV addicts.  (What can we do to get crashed?!)  Yet when we watch those shows, the remodels seem much more drastic than what we want to do.  We're not going to knock out any walls or anything like that.  Our changes are mostly cosmetic. We are always looking for inspiration.

Jason and I spent Christmas in Las Vegas with his family.   Jason's family has a lot of experience with real estate and decorating houses and they had a great way for Jason and me to get ideas for Happy Bear Farms.  We spent two days going to model homes and open houses.  Walking through those houses we got a ton of ideas for things we want to do once we finally get the house.  I used my iPhone to record things that we might want to incorporate in some way into the house.

By putting the tile in this way, it makes the bathroom look larger than it is.

I really like these hanging lights.  I might want them a little darker in color so that the color shows through a little more.

We're going to tear out the island that is currently in that apartment and put in a new one that is something like this. We like the butcher board top and shelving on the bottom for all of our pots.  We also want stools for an informal eating area.

We want an oven like this-gas stove, electric oven, with a griddle burner in the middle.

I LOVE the granite that they used for this sink, but I wish they hadn't broken it into tiles.  GREAT COLORS!

Well we are still waiting to hear from Bank of America, but in the meantime we're dreaming about the house!  If you have any design ideas, let us know!