On the last Saturday of September, we went to a open house in the neighborhood of my first boy’s school. I have been praying for a house in that neighborhood for a long time because of my health issues. Living in that neighborhood will cut the driving time severely and help my pain problem.
The condominium, located on the 2nd floor in a 1881-built Victorian house, was for sale. My husband and I loved it at first visit. “This is it! ” we both said. Next day, we went there with boys again to make a final decision. Even my 3 boys liked the place and we all agreed to make an offer.
The 1515 sq.ft of space is on one floor and has 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, family room with a study, dining room, kitchen, 2 good sized pantries, and laundry. It has 9 feet ceiling with lots of windows which let the sunlight in all day long. All the bedrooms are well sized and finally my boys can bring their friends to their own room. (We are going to use family room as a master bedroom and use dining room as family room with dining area.)
There was only one thing we were not for sure, which was the idea of “living on the 2nd floor of the old house”. We never lived in the old house with someone below and someone above and we don’t know how much of trouble our 3 teenage boys would cause, especially, with their heavier and louder steps. Ummm… So we prayed that God lead us into the best place(stay where we are now, or this old condo) and asked if this place is not a good place for us, just close the door for us, even though we like it.
After prayers, we made an offer, and on Monday afternoon we heard that some Jewish rabbi took the house and we were the back up people.
We were sort of disappointed, but OK. Because we prayed and we thought it was the answer to the prayer.
Time passed away and these happened.
On Friday morning, I had a phone call from an unknown number. It was the seller of the house asking “Anna, do you want to buy my son’s house?” I couldn’t answer, because I was shocked. ‘What is happening?’ I thought. The Jewish rabbi walked away from the deal due to the problem with storing 5,000 books. He thought he could have books in the basement, but he changed his mind. That was what I heard.
On Saturday, our the 17th anniversary, we signed the contract to buy the place. This condo will be ours at the end of November, if we can sell our house in time.
On Monday, we started to pack unneeded items for now.
On Tuesday, we moved several pieces of furniture to the storage with the boxes we packed.
On Wednesday, I took the photos of the house for the marketing flyers in the morning and our house was listed for sale in the afternoon. In the afternoon, I painted window trims in the bathroom, 100 fts of baseboard, a door(previously stained), and stair risers and spindles. Ahhhh… It was a lot of work. In the meantime, we sold a piano, a dining set from the basement and a couch.
On Thursday, we had a broker’s open house and one offer.
On the weekends , we had two open houses for the public and got 5 offers to choose.
On Monday afternoon, we chose the best offer and signed the contract.
It happened so fast. I don’t know how, but I can say that God’s helping hands were with us.
Here are some photos of my house I shoot. Since my house is a small house and I had no time for staging, I kept the least in the rooms and no embellishment was done.
Do you see a swing hung from the maple tree trunk? We had fun with this swing and we are going to miss it.
The fabric wall is a temporary wall we put up to use dining room as a office. Where the fabric wall is we used to have a piano.
In the kitchen, I just replaced the hardware.
My burlap light fixture is still lighting there.
Look at this very high platform bed which my husband built. It usually stored 4 sets of 2 plastic drawers(Sterlite) under it. My agent told us that lots of people surprised at the height of bed and even lifted blanket to see the bed during the open house.
Again, these beds are built by my husband to have storage bins under it.
This is the main bathroom we renovated. Now it has new tiles and paint, new light fixtures, new plumbing fixtures, new toilet, and cabinet.
We have done so much work in this house. It started with removing old wallpapers and painting. We renovated main bathroom, replaced electrical outlets, updated light fixtures, installed new wooden blinds, and more. Ummm… Now it is done and soon it will be somebody’s new house. Good Job!
