We have been searching for a home in Atlanta and after a marathon weekend of home searching we found one! We drove around Atlanta for three days looking and walking through house after house after house. I was getting so discouraged thinking that we would just go back to Tennessee and Emma (my mom babysat for us) and try again another time. This was one of the last neighborhoods we drove through and saw this house that was for sale by owner. We walked through the house, typed up and delivered an offer, and the home owners accepted it within an hour and a half. We close at the end of January and I spent all day there yesterday having all the inspections done. While I was there I took some pictures of the home.
This is the front of the house. The lot is 9/10 of an acre and has been beautifully landscaped. The trees are huge hardwood trees!
This is the back of the house. The home owner said that in the summer when all the leaves are on the trees, the house is completely shaded and their electric bill is minimal. They are leaving the little turtle sandbox for Emma.
This is the kitchen. It was remodeled in 2005 and had custom cabinets installed and the counter tops are granite. I fell in love with this kitchen the second I walked in the door. Oh and they are leaving the chairs for me!
Here are more of the cabinets and the built in china cabinet. The appliances stay as well! (Notice the solid surface cook top at this end of the counter.)
This is the living room. I don't know if it is obvious or not, but the kitchen and living room are all one big open room. We are excited about that so I won't feel like I am trapped in the kitchen, away from all the action. Plus, we spend most of our time as a family in the kitchen and living room.
Here is another view of the living room. The homeowners are leaving all the window treatments, matching throw pillows, and the lamps (they kind of match the design on the drawer hardware in the kitchen). Ironically enough, the homeowners couches are the same color as mine, so I could easily picture my own furniture in the home!
And we have the hall bath. I am not crazy about the pink tile in there, but the way the lady has decorated it makes it so cute! She is also leaving the custom shower curtain and window curtain for me. I don't think that I could have ever found anything to match as well and even if I did, it wouldn't look this good!
This is the master bedroom. There is a small bath off this room with a shower (no tub). The picture that I have isn't great so I am not posting it.
This will be Emma's room. All the upstairs rooms have hardwood under the carpet, but this is the only room that doesn't have carpet. Emma was at the house with me yesterday and she was so excited about her room! My mom bought her a really cute bedding set for her new big girl bed. (She will get our full size bed and Aaron and I will move up to a queen size. Yay bigger bed!)
This will be the boys' room. (Or baby brudders room as Emma calls it.) I want to pull the carpet up in here as soon as I can and have hardwood in here, too. Any ideas for paint colors in here?
There is also a partial basement under the house which has a laundry room, work bench for Aaron and a bonus room that I have designated as my craft room. It has a long built in bench/counter type thing. I am having visions of setting my sewing machine up in there, laying out multiple scrapbook pages at a time, and becoming craftier just because I will have a place to be crafty. The craft night girls will understand.
We are so excited about this house. It is making me crazy that we have to wait almost a month to move in and make it our own, but I guess that is part of buying a home (waiting to close, etc.). I feel so lucky to have stumbled on such a home. The home owners had just put the sign in their yard a few days before, so I really feel like this is a blessing.
The home owners have been so kind to us through all of this as well. They were there yesterday during all the inspections, had a little gingerbread house making kit for Emma, and the husband walked all around the yard with me talking to me about the trees, things they had done in the yard, etc. They are only the second owners of the home and have lived there for twenty years. It feels good to be purchasing a home from someone who has lived there and loved it and put so much of their time and effort into making it beautiful and keeping it that way. I am so excited!
These start at Christmas, I guess. I have gotten a little behind. This is Emma and her cousin Julie Rae eating the centerpiece at our family Christmas party. I think they pretty much destroyed this thing before the party was over!
This is Emma with her Aunt Kat-Kat at one of our family's favorite local Mexican restaurants.
A few weekends ago, Aaron and I took Emma to a neighboring farm to see their baby calves. The calves are still bottle fed (the one in this picture is only about 2 weeks old). Emma thought it was really neat to watch them drink their bottle, but she wouldn't really touch it. She also got to see chickens and brought home 2 brown eggs that the chickens laid that day.
We also took Emma to the Georgia Aquarium. It is a newer aquarium (it was built a couple years ago). It is a really neat place, so we went ahead and got year passes for Aaron and I (Emma can go for free until she is 3!). It is cheaper to buy year passes than it is to go twice, so we figured that was a pretty good deal.
My sister wanted to go swimming and one of the nearby towns has a nice indoor pool. Emma loved getting to play in the water with her Uncle Russell. Aaron was in Atlanta on this swimming trip, and I think that he was a little sad to have missed out. I did not swim. There is not a swimsuit that I would even think of putting on at this point. I was happy to watch and take pictures from the side of the pool!
This is Emma trying to push the water back into the water fountain in the kiddie pool. My pictures aren't very clear from the pool because it was too dark in there to get any good ones.
