House #2: Lots of Space, Lots of Wallpaper

I was really excited to see this house, because I'd been stalking it online for weeks. It was a little above the top of our price range, but we were hoping that because it had been on the market for a while, the sellers might be willing to accept less than they were asking. I think I took the virtual tour of this house about fifty times before ever stepping foot in it, so I felt like I knew it before I even walked through the door.

I loved the turned staircase with the oriental rug runner, and I loved the airy two-story entry. I hated the wallpaper... and there's lots of it.





When Greg and I were buying our first home, the one we fell in love with had many rooms of wallpaper. No problem, we both said enthusiastically and smiled at each other, imagining long Saturdays as newlyweds telling jokes and stripping wallpaper. Just like those musical interludes in the romantic movies, we would get that wallpaper down in no time as we laughed and bonded and tossed tiny scraps of paper at one another.

Ummm, after about one hour of scraping horrible granny-flowered wallpaper off the walls of our master bedroom, we were hurling insults at one another and seriously considering putting the house back on the market.



So I hate wallpaper.


But I love this study off the kitchen... Chloe and I have already dreamed of all the hours we could spend in front of the fire during those long Rochester winters, reading great books and sipping our tea. Oh, how I love this study.



The kitchen has its goods and bads. I'm not usually a dark-cherry cabinet kind of girl, but these cabinets are very good quality, and it might actually be nice not to have white cabinets that show every speck of dirt and splash of spaghetti sauce. My children are not the neatest eaters, and I'm not the neatest cook.



The granite looks green to me. I hate green. Greg insists it's black. I think it's green. It also has black appliances, and I hate black appliances. First world problems, people. I can deal.


Yes, that carpet is new. Yes, that carpet is green. Enough said.



The master is really nice. Not huge, just the right size. The best part is that there are two closets! His and Hers. Pretty swanky, huh? Not sure if we really have enough clothes to warrant two closets, but it's a convenient space to lock naughty children store things.



The basement was one of the things we loved about this house. It's fully finished, and it's a walkout. Walkout basements are highly coveted in Pittsburgh, where so many houses are built on hills with integral garages. Because our kids play so much in the basement, both with eachother and with all their friends, I would love to have a big, bright space that didn't feel like a dank dungeon. You can get crazy creative with paint and lighting, but at the end of the day, if a basement doesn't have windows it usually looks and feels kind of cavelike. The basement in this house is awesome. It's not fancy, but it has lots of space and lots of light. It walks out onto a patio in the back yard and would really be a wonderful place for the kids to play and host homeschool gatherings.



There's even an efficiency kitchen!



And last, but certainly not least, the piece de resistance?

Oh yes, that is a pool. A pool, in Rochester? My thoughts exactly - at first. But over the last few weeks I've learned that Rochester really isn't the frozen tundra I thought it was. Its weather is in fact eerily similar to Pittsburgh's. They probably get more snow in an average winter because they're on Lake Ontario, but believe it or not, people, they do have summer! And though I never thought I would want the maintenance of a pool, the idea has grown on me greatly as I've considered the fact that I would no longer have to drag four children, twelve floaties, three pairs of goggles, five beach towels, five sets of dry clothes, three pairs of sunglasses, one giant bag of pool toys, and five lunch bags into my minivan, out of my minivan, back into my minivan, and back out of my minivan, every day - all. summer. long. I could just walk through my yard, open my nice secure fence, sit down on my lawn chair, and watch my kids play. No longer would we have to race to the pool as soon as it opened, stay for two hours, and then drive home like maniacs as we tried to keep Charlie from falling asleep before we got home. I could put him down every afternoon, bring the monitor out to the pool, and watch my kids splash and play all afternoon. 

Suffice it to say, the idea of a pool is growing on me.

So there you have it - House #2. What do you think?

House #1: Move-In Ready, Horrible Yard

Greg and I always love the tag lines they assign to the different houses featured on each episode of House Hunters. Things like, "Small Rooms, Big Potential," and "Bad Location, Nice Yard." Greg has made an art form out of coming up with his own hilarious, often inappropriate tag lines for houses we drive by. They usually involve something very descriptive about the way he imagines they smell inside.

Anyhoo.

I decided to attach my own tag lines to differentiate some of the houses we looked at last week. Without further ado, here is House #1:

It was one of the first homes that I saw when I arrived last week.

The dining room was on the left-hand side when you walked in the front door, and I loved it. The blue was interesting - not necessarily what I would pick, as I tend to be more of a traditionalist when it comes to dining rooms - but cool. I liked it.



The living room is on the right, and is open to the family room. The living and family rooms in our house now are similar, and I really like this layout. It's very conducive to having people over with enough room for everyone to be comfortable, and the furniture we have now would be perfect. I wouldn't even have to paint!



The kitchen was nice. Again, not really what I would pick, and not quite as big as my kitchen now, but lovely and adequate with plenty of room for a family of six.



Down the hallway you see in the picture below is a really pretty laundry room, entrance from the attached garage, and a study that would be perfect for our school room.



The master bedroom and master bath were tucked away at one end of the upstairs hallway, and were very nice.

One of my favorite parts of this house was the finished walk-out basement. It was sunny and bright and would be a perfect playspace for the kids. There was also a bedroom in the basement with big windows looking out into the backyard - a perfect guest room for all of the visitors we are hoping to host :-).

This house was pristine - I felt like I was walking through a Crate and Barrel catalog. The big issue for us was the yard. The house is in one of those new neighborhoods... lovely, custom-built homes, but small yards that all back up to one another. We are not used to this, and don't particularly like it. We by no means have a big, awesome yard in Pittsburgh, but we do have quiet and trees. We can sit on our deck in the afternoon and hear the birds and the wind rustling through the trees and... not much else. We have neighbors on both sides of us, but we're not surrounded by them. My realtor and I were standing at the window in the picture above, looking out at the yard, and she said, reading my mind, "Kinda makes you feel like a goldfish in a bowl, huh?" 

That being said, this house is awesome. We could move right in and not even have to paint! It has all the space we need with the exception of a full bath by the guest room, but it appeared there would be unfinished space where we could add one. No house is perfect, so we're going to have to compromise on something...

Stay tuned for House #2!

House Hunters, Rochester Style

House Hunters is one of my all-time favorite shows. Before we cancelled our cable last year, I had pretty much seen every single episode at least twice. Truth be told, it was sort of pathetic. I could usually describe the house they chose before Suzanne Wong had spit out her opening lines.

The funny thing is, after last week I can tell you with absolute authority that house hunting is no picnic. I thought it was going to be a blast!!! After years and years of living vicariously through Suzanne and the people who traipsed through three houses apiece, I couldn't wait to do it myself.

Last week we sold our house in five hours (God is good, people!) and I headed to Rochester eager to commence my own House Hunters experience. It was equal parts depressing, exhausting, and stressful, with a tiny bit of excitement divinely thrown in so I didn't hop in my Hyundai and head back to Pittsburgh for good.

I thought it would be fun to document some of our experiences last week on the blog for posterity.

So which one did we choose?

Stay tuned to find out!

21 Months Old & A Snow Day

A few weeks ago March came into Pittsburgh like a lion and we woke up to piles of clean white snow.

Our youngest one turned 21 months old that day.

He was entranced...

...and went from window to window

admiring the way the world had changed overnight.

While I sighed and the neighbor shoveled and the local news crew interviewed a slew of winter-weary warriors on the way to their nine-to-fives...

a delighted little boy found the ordinary extraordinary...

...and the teacher became the student.

"This is the day that the Lord has made;
    let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Psalm 118:24

The Age Gap Fallacy

Greg and I prayed a lot before Charlie came along. Our rock 'em, sock 'em twins had thrown us for about a three-year-long loop, and we were tuckered out. We needed time to get them on their feet and to get back on our own. We spent four and a half years as a happy family of five, and there were times during those years that we were sure this was the way our family would always look.

Lots of people had {unsolicited} advice for us:

This is such a nice little family. The three kids are all so close in age.

Just think, in a few years they'll all be out of diapers and into school, and you'll be free!

Just think, in a few years they'll all be out of high school and into college, and you'll be free!

If you have another one now, the baby will be like an only child.

If you have another one now, the baby will feel like an only child.

Do you really want to start all over again? 


The only advice that we actually did seek was from God:

My timing is perfect.

Be still and wait on Me. 

Have faith that if you ask Me with a heart to do My will, I will reveal My plan for your family.

Seek Me above all else, and I will make your paths straight.

 In October of 2010, we rejoiced on a sunny Saturday morning as two clear lines on a stick told us that God wasn't finished building our family.

To say that our beloved Charles Francis has filled our family with joy and delight would be the understatement of the year. He is adored. And as for that fear that, because he was 4 1/2 years younger than the twins, he would be lonely and left out in our family? Whoever said that couldn't have known how his three older siblings would race down the hall to his room after hearing his post-nap chatter over the monitor, or how his sister would read to him for hours, or how he would be the toughest, most sure-footed kid in the nursery because of the all the tussling with his older brothers.

I have lots of friends who have their children in a few years and really enjoy the freedom that that allows, having all of the kids on the same page, so to speak. But if you're one of those people who decides to welcome a new little bundle into your family several years after giving away the exersaucer and the stroller, take heart. You will be blessed and surprised by joy.

 

 

Valentines Day 2013

It seems like it was more like Valentine's Week than Valentine's Day this year. Between little parties and exchanges with friends and clubs and co-op classmates, we were rocking the love every day last week. It was fun. It was exhausting. My kids have eaten more cookies, cupcakes, and stale tootsie rolls than I care to admit. Charlie added several new words to his limited vocabulary last week, and all of them would make a dentist shudder.

On Valentine's morning, the kids woke up to treats at their breakfast places. I love surprising them like this. They're always so sweet and excited.

Last year I hosted a ginormous party at my house, but with everything going on with the impending move, I bailed on that this year and my friends and I came up with an awesome solution. We spent the morning at a fun indoor playground, ate pizza and sweets, and exchanged Valentines in elaborately decorated shoeboxes and plastic buckets. Except for the time Charlie walked up the skeeball ramp and got stuck in the circles  where you throw the balls (and in other news, I have been nominated for Mother of the Year), we all actually got to sit and talk while the kids ran around like lunatics. It was so much fun. I love my girls :-). Man, I'm gonna miss them.

ps... All I have to show for the day is blurry iphone snaps of wild children with their mouths full of pizza. Please add the next four pictures as exhibits A, B, C, and D for by nomination of Mother of the Year.

Milestones

We hit another milestone a few weeks ago. I was in Rochester for the day with my mom checking out houses, and one charming little six year old lost his first tooth on Daddy's watch.

 

The tooth fairy brought him four quarters, a pack of gum, and a bag of "sweet fish" (Swedish fish, his favorite). A few days later, he proudly explained to the dentist exactly how big the bag of sweet fish really was, right before he hopped up in her chair to get a cavity filled. Cause that's just how we roll.