2008 House hunt that hit (almost) all of the marks

While house hunting in spring of 2008, I first toured our current house while Coach was at work.  My folks, who live in the same town, met me on the driveway.  My Dad agreed to monitor the 5 older monsters, while my Mom and I lugged Curly in her carrier thru the perspective house.

The realtor walked my mom and I upstairs first.  The bedrooms were spacious.  One of them was 15 x 17 with vaulted ceilings.  Mom nudged me.  Since Curly had joined the family at this point, I knew that each of the three kid bedrooms would need to sleep two kids each.  In the back of my mind, I considered the fact that if need be we could toss three kids in this extra large room. 

Curly's room boasts chachkies galore!

The master bedroom was stupidly big - in my opinion most masters are.  I might be in the minority here, but I feel like I need less bedroom space than my kiddos require.  After all, each kid in (Or there are visionaries like our Reggie, who insists on converting bedroom space into a full court basketball space every chance he gets).  I might sort laundry in my room, but mostly my master bedroom is utilized for sleep.
our family shares a room with a sibling, shoves toys and chachkies in all available corners, and entertains friends in his/her bedroom space. 


A huge closet - I can wrap my brain around that bonus feature!  Fortunately this master came equipped with an awesome, walk-in closet, and a separate albeit smaller closet for Coach.  Even better!

The hall bath, what we refer to as 'the kids' bathroom', was huge.  That night I noted that there was enough room to leave an infant tub on the floor near the regular tub.  I could haul three older kids (relatively speaking 'older': as in older than a 6 month old) out of the real tub without fearing that they would trip over the plastic baby tub or fall over it.  Thus risking a slippery-kid pile-up.  I imagined tots wrapped in towels wandering around the room while an even older kid might be brushing his teeth - without incident.  Bliss.

The living and dining rooms were also large.  A full bath on the first floor - definitely a plus.  The enormous family room opened to the kitchen.

That's when reality sunk in.  The kitchen left much to be desired.  The space for a table WAS very generous, so I decided to cope with the u-shaped work area, lack of island, ugliest granite ever, and refaced by Home Depot (not replaced) kitchen cabinets.  It was definitely a step up from the kitchen I was accustomed to - just not in line with the spacious-type rooms in the rest of the house.  I nodded at the realtor as we turned to descend the basement stairs to check out what that space was like.

My former kitchen really only had this one countertop.  It was wall to wall people in the sitting area.

The basement was fixed up, if you count 'fixed-up' to include work done so long ago that it now appeared gross and dingy.  Coach had just completed a brand-new, handy-man project basement on our current house.  The result of his work was a perfect play room.

As much as 6 kids make me tired, it exhausted me to ponder starting over in a great house WITH  ANOTHER looming basement project.  The addition of an actual study and a three car garage were inevitably the icing on the cake.

Coach had planned to go out after work that night to watch March Madness
basketball.  I called him at work and described my find.  Big bedrooms, spacious kid bath, a real study (not that shoving a computer on an old rickety desk in a closet near the backdoor of our current house wasn't ideal), a first floor full bath, and a three car garage.

I bathed the kids that night in my usual fashion.  I leaned across the pink toilet and reached thru the clumsy glass shower door into the pink tub.  I wedged a few towel clad kids in front of the sink, perched on the toilet while I dried them, and then chased them down the hall to dress in their room.

 

This slightly graphic pic of the bathroom in our first house (a bathroom I don't miss!) showcases the toilet that left me with limited access to the tub in addition to the annoying shower door that made it tough to fish kids out once they were clean, or splashing a sibling too much. 

 

 

 

With kids tucked into bed, I walked down the stairs prepared to plop on the couch.  There at the bottom of the stairs were Coach's shoes.  He had skipped March Madness to discuss this house.  Bingo!