Good-bye Maple Grove

Today we officially say goodbye to our old house.

Last year, we put our house on the market to sell. Our first viewer made us an offer. It was not the typical offer, so we had to think about it. It was a lease-to-purchase contract.

A lease-to-purchase was unfamiliar to me, so I had to research and see if I was comfortable. Our buyer would start off as our tenant. He would pay monthly rent and a portion of that rent would go towards the equity in the purchase price of the house. Or the portion of rent money could be used towards his closing costs.

In our agreement, the tenant could keep renting for a whole year and at anytime during that year he could decide to go through the purchase. If he did not exercise the option to purchase, he would lose the money he paid in rent. He originally said he'd purchase in November, and his back-up date was March. This was all based on when he gets his bonus from work.

November and March passed and I didn't get worried. I could have, but I knew God had a plan and He would help me figure out what to do.

I look back and realize how smoothly it all went. We had a great tenant that paid on time and kept the house in great condition. Now I don't care what he does with it! Although, I know he has plans to upgrade the kitchen and install a pool!

My mom has an acquaintance that has a lease-to-own contract on their house, and the tenant has stopped paying rent. Currently, they are having a hard time evicting the non-paying renter because of the lease-to-own contract. I feel bad and realize how scary of a risk you are taking.

June 29th is a great day!So excited to move on and only have two houses to take care of. Then we will list my mom's townhouse and get back down to one house! Hallelujah!

Our Old House - Update

It’s fun to look back at old pictures of the house.

With all the packing, it did not look this way and I had quickly forgotten.

The new owner has been in the house for 4 months now, and it doesn’t look like our house anymore.

New Owner's Living Room Setup

 Little JCrew’s room is now an office.

I’ve been in there several times and each time, it becomes more and more his.

It doesn’t give me a sad feeling at all. I am happy to provide a home for someone else. I know that the new owner is meticulous and things are well taken care of.

It is fun to see someone else’s style with the same layout. People see things differently.

We had some issues with our BRAND-NEW Dishwasher at the old house, so I had to go over once a week. That's more than I wanted to be over there. I'm ready to let go of this house and move on. The time is getting closer and closer. In the next few weeks we should be getting a date set for closing!

House News

Things have been CRAZY! So crazy, that my creativity was gone. My creativity to write and to design. But, I’m happy to say, my creativity has returned and I’m ready to write again!

The last update on the house, I was explaining that we switched my gas stove with my mom’s electric. We dropped the price on the house, and we wanted to take the gas stove with us.

That was on March 30^th. I had plans to find an inexpensive dishwasher to swap out with my nice dishwasher, but I had no luck. I was going to pay for a really cheap one, but then that plan came to a halt. We found a buyer for our house! Before I go further into explanation, let’s just say the detailed sheet I gave out with my flyers listed that we had a gas stove and a new fancy dishwasher. This buyer is keen to details and would notice if I took out the nice dishwasher, so it will remain. He noticed the stove was not gas, and he asked where it was, but he was okay with keeping the electric. Whew. What a nice guy.

So, here we were on March 31^st. I get a phone call from someone wanting to see the house. He came over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. He made us an offer and we accepted. I don’t think we could have found us a better owner for our house. He loves the house/yard as much as I do. That’s all I could ask for. I know it sounds silly, but I wanted to find the RIGHT person that would continue to take care of my the house.

The contract is not typical and I spent three days researching it. He offered a Lease-to-Purchase contract. Normally these are done where a tenant rents for 2-5 years with desire to purchase at the end of the lease. This kind of contract would have been perfect for my house in Florida!

My sister-in-law made a similar contract on a house. It was a delayed closing. They are moving to a different city, but didn’t want to uproot the kids during school. They made an offer on a house in January, with a closing in May. I asked how they made the seller confident that they would hold up their end of the deal. She said they put enough money down with their offer, that it would be painful to walk away from.

So, there are non-typical contracts out there that work. Our contract won’t be for 2-5 years (thank goodness!) The buyer will move in late June with the plan to purchase in November/December. He signed a year lease, and has the option to buy any time during the lease.

Another cool fact about our buyer, is he already lives in the neighborhood. He has been renting a house around the corner from us for the last three years! And from what I can tell, he is a good tenant. I’ve never known the yard to look bad, ugly curtains hanging in the windows, loud parties ... nothing. He is your model tenant! It’s great to know we don’t have to sell him on our great neighborhood. He knows it and loves it. How awesome!

We are excited for our next adventure. In the meantime, we will crash at my mom’s house until her house sells. When that happens, my in-laws have opened their home to us to crash. That would be a lot of people, but it would be temporary. We won’t break ground on our next house until the deed is transferred over to the new homeowner. It’s the safe way to do it. Luckily, we don’t have to wait forever. If I go ahead and get done with the design and negotiating with the builder, November will be here before I lift my head to breathe!

Are you ready?

Staging the House for Selling

Alright... we are on Operation: Sell This House. If you just happen to be at my house while I'm cleaning, I just might give you something. Trying to de-clutter the house is no joke. Last weekend, I sent all the kids' big toy items to live over at Mimi and Poppa's house. Mom says it feels like Chuck-E-Cheese at her place now.

Play Kitchen in our Dining Room

But I am SO thankful that she is allowing me to keep their big toys over there. They still get to play with them while I don't have them taking space in the house.

The dining room looks totally different without the play kitchen in there.

Dining Room Now

And if you're the observant type, you'll notice more things missing from the dining room. The chandelier shade was taken down. I didn't want viewers to think it was permanent. I used it to cover the chandelier I didn't like. Maybe someone else likes the chandelier and not the shade.

Dining Room - July 2013

The red chairs that I had in the dining room got moved to the Bonus Room upstairs.

Red Chairs back in 2012

Not bad and don't take up much room.

Red Chairs 2014

The red chairs have had many homes. They were chairs that went with the table I have currently in the kitchen, and were from my childhood. I made cushions out of pillows for them back in 2009. They've always lived behind the couch, but when I moved the sofa table to the foyer, they were re-homed to the dining room.

This little nook looks different, too.

There use to be a table behind it that I kept the boys' toys on. Even though it was skinny, it took away the feeling of space. It feels bigger now.

And that table was moved to the upstairs bathroom!

That bathroom is bigger than you expect. It's big enough to put a table in there!

The table use to be my foyer table. When I moved the sofa table to the foyer after its makeover, I moved the foyer table to the living room.

Foyer Table 2010

I was originally taking the chairs and table upstairs to put in the attic, but while I was there, I wondered if I could place them somewhere functional.

While I was up there, I de-cluttered the toy shelves.

To me, it's not functional, but magazines do it all the time.

And if I've caught you off guard... we're moving! I made a tab on here for how we are selling our house. Last year we bought a lot in our current neighborhood. The deal was too good to pass up. How everything lined up and worked out was definitely through God's hands. Even if we didn't build on it, we could turn around and sell it.

We are in the process of selling our house and then we will begin building our new one. The new house will be for both my family and my parents. Once we have moved them in, we will work on selling their house (also, in the same neighborhood.) Currently, we are in the very beginning phase of design. We have a budget to stick with and that is currently guiding us. I'm very excited. I will definitely be keeping you up to date on each process. May 2014 be a great year!