Monday, April 30, 2018

4-30-18  Hanging out:

At this point, we decided we wanted to put an offer on the blue house, but had no idea how to do that with a "for sale by owner" home.  The realtor across the street from Angie and Josh did go to Grand Reserve with us and sent me a bunch of listings, but couldn't help us with the blue house.  But her husband is an attorney so I asked if he did real-estate law.  He did, so we made an appointment to see him the next day.  Ken spent about 7 or 8 hours tonight trying to write up an offer on his own.  Turned out not to be necessary since the attorney had 7 pages of legal jargon which he added the New Hope info to.
We didn't know that Josh was leaving on a business trip, so we were happy we were sticking around to help Angie with unpacking and watching Layla.
 She's growing so fast!
 We even went to Lane's Farms for dinner.  Love this place!!!  Great food, cheap, lots of farm fresh stuff.  Can't wait 'til they have peaches!  This will be a regular dining place or us! 
 Part of Lane's Farm by the restaurant/gift shop.
 So fun watching Layla's curiosity.
 I never would have thought I'd be this intrigued with being a Grandma!  I keep trying to remember Tim and Angie and this age.  All I can remember is Tim cried all the time and Angie slept all the time.  But neither of them were preemies.  Layla has had a lot to overcome already.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

4-29-18  touring more houses:

Today we're touring the New Hope house.  Not that fancy neighborhood that some people are looking for.  But it sure looks better than Gray Brooke Lane!
 The neighborhood even has a name---Avington Glenn.
 a Samsung stove/oven? 
 Love the ceiling.  Even like the gray walls.
 LOVE the oversized windows.  The one we toured yesterday for $30,000 more had 2 separate smaller windows.
 I think I'm going to like the rain head shower.  It'll be so nice having a "new" master bath!
 Love the furniture, too.  I've been thinking I'd never do recliners again since they break down so fast, but these look nice!  Especially since we've not had a couch in our apartment for about a year now.
 Love the gas fireplace and big ceiling fan.
 nice extra bedrooms.  Big enough for a queen size bed.
 Nice storage.  Love the little landing between the 2 bedrooms and bathroom instead of a hallway.
another of the 3 bedrooms.
 Only sort of weird thing is the master bedroom doorway right there in the living room.
 This was another major selling point for me---the woods behind the yard and no building to go on back there.
 hard to tell here, but the land drops off back there.
 Love that there is so much old growth here.
 Love the white cabinets and granite counters.  I wanted to paint our 50 year old cabinets in St. Louis, but Ken frowned upon that.  I also like the decorative stove hood.  And that all the appliances match!  In our St. Louis house we have the original brown oven, cream colored stove top and fridge, and stainless dishwasher and microwave.  I did notice that there is one less set of cabinets in the island compared to the house we saw yesterday and that this kitchen has drawers next to the fridge where the other one had doors.
 This one also had more interesting lights.  Don't think I would have picked them out, but they do look good here.
 This kitchen also had what I think are nicer cabinet pulls.  After having none in St. Louis, any would be great, but I really like these ones.  Little details, but really nice ones.
 The owner/builder even built the mantle from a big chunk of wood.  Not sure I like having the TV above the fireplace, but I figure we could always put it on the wall to the left if we want.  Being a builder's house, he even insulated the inside walls to reduce noise. 
 Not hardwoods, but high end laminate.  I love the light color and that they look so much like wood.
 From there we went over to tour a house in the Grand Reserve subdivision of Kathleen.  When I first started looking for rentals, there were 2 available there for $1500/month@ and I loved them.  Haven't seen any there since.  I liked the location being close to Houston lake, too.  So when I saw this house for $229,000 in that subdivision, I wanted to check it out, too.  Definitely pretty from the outside, although it doesn't have a porch like the New Hope one does.
 Inside was nice, but I didn't get the Wow factor.
 Lower level master---weird green color.
 Jacuzzi tub---not something I want.
 Big kitchen, but dark
 Nice stairway, but the neat area to the right is totally blocked off. 
 lofted living room.
 If we needed a place for a growing family, maybe I'd have been more impressed, but it had too much upstairs space.  Ken probably would have never gone upstairs.
But I do like the ride back to Perry.
 Heading to Avington Glen again to give it one more look.
 Yep, it's still there.
 The owner/builder told us that the front part of Avington Glen was built about 10 years ago, then the housing market bombed.  The back part just started building up within the last year.  The blue house was finished in about Oct. of 2017.   This is heading north on New Hope Dr. 
 There's even a little playground on New Hope Dr.
The rest of the day was spent with the kids. 

 The guys even cleaned the gutters and Angie swept up the leaves on the pool deck.
 The King watching from his perch.
 We even managed to get some Mexican Train dominoes in the last couple of nights.  Layla even seemed to like it.
Now to decide what we're going to do.

and it's another month anniversary for Layla!
Angie has this to say about her:

Layla is Five Months old as of yesterday!

This past month has been full of excitement. Josh was promoted to Market Sales Manager for Cintas with a territory that spans from Vidalia to Macon and down to Albany. So we said au revoir to Atlanta and bought a house down in the country!

We're still living out of boxes -- moving with a baby is no joke -- but Layla actually has her own room now! Our little boo-boo is just under 14 pounds and now measures 25" long.

She's discovered her feet and we've discovered she's ticklish. Her giggle is intoxicating and we can't get enough of it. She also took her first road trip this past month -- with the dogs -- and traveled like a champ!

Saturday, April 28, 2018

4-28-18 touring houses!

Also while we were there, the fence builders were still working on the kids' new back yard privacy fence.  It was suppose to be done before they got back from St. Louis, but weather prevented that.  Since the dogs couldn't go outside on their own, I took them for a walk down Chinaberry.  Wow, what a street!  Every house is so unique and the yards are spectacular. 
 walking back up the street.
 Originally the privacy fence just encompassed the pool area.  Now the dogs have about a quarter of an acre to run around in.
 I had found a couple open houses.  One happened to be the same layout as the one we wanted to look at in Perry.  This one was in Kathleen, about 15 minutes from the kids' house.  So we went to check it out.  It was about 150sq ft. larger, but same layout.  Loved the all brick exterior.
 the floors were a little darker than I like and there was no refrigerator.  Apparently new houses here don't include fridges. 
 outside is even wired for tv.
 the back yard wasn't even bad.  There is a pretty busy street behind the trees, but that should mean the trees aren't being removed.
 Love the fancy ceiling in the master bedroom. 
 Love the huge shower and double vanity, too.
 From pictures, I was a little confused as to where the other rooms were.  But after seeing it first hand, I like the way they did it.
 even like the mud room/ laundry room.
 and the automatic garage doors and that the garage even had a storage room.
 On to the 2 bedroom side of the house.  Lots of linen/junk storage.
 not large, but for extra space, the 2 smaller bedrooms should be adequate.
 I even like the white beams on the ceiling.  I told Ken I would like ours to be white in St. Louis.
 Only thing I really didn't like about this one compared to the one in Perry is it's $30,000 more! 
 Love the ride back to the kids' house. 
 reminds me a lot of the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
 I had seen another open house listed in Kathleen that I wanted to go see, but it wasn't open for a couple more hours.  We didn't make it back there.
Ken probably wouldn't have liked it anyway---it had some 2nd floor rooms.