PHANEROO \fan-er-o-oo\Greek: to manifest in word or deed.


Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Construction Zone Ahead

Looks like our family will soon be the proud owners of a cedar shake cottage in the woods! Yesterday we signed a contract with the sellers. Now we will begin a series of steps before we can complete the deal and move in:

1. Home inspection.


2. Collect detailed quotes from contractors for the renovation project.


3. Close the sale on Nov. 20.


4. Begin work on renovations.


5. Move in and list our current home on the market (not sure what order those 2 things will occur but we'd like a majority of the renovations to be complete before moving our family out of here).


It all began when BJ and I had prayed about purchasing a new home ~ something a bit smaller and less expensive that will get us closer to our dream of being 100% debt free in the next few years. It's exciting just being able to express that into written word! Initially we were going to wait until after the holiday season before searching for a property. But then one day as we were driving through one of our favorite neighborhoods we spotted this fixer-upper. The size of this house is perfect for our family - it's a 1-1/2 story, somewhere between 2200 and 2800 square feet, with the children's bedrooms upstairs, master suite downstairs, a large eat-in kitchen, living room, family room, office, mudroom/breezeway, 3 full bathrooms, hardwood floors, pretty fireplace, tons of storage, huge windows in the front, large wooded lot filled with hickory, shag barks, and dogwood trees, and its on one of the dogwood trails in celebration of Knoxville's annual Dogwood Arts Festival which means in the spring the street will come alive with blooming color. We are very excited about all the potential this holds for our family! And at the same time we are a little nervous about the huge renovation project we are about to undertake, and a bit nastalgic about our current home. BJ pointed out yesterday that our current home is the only one Schaeffer and Griffin have ever known and Lily was not even 1-year-old when we moved where are now. But there's no time to look back and be sad - full speed ahead!


(I'll share more photos as soon as I get them downloaded and edited.)

6 comments:

Staci said...

Congrats! Where in town is it! Can't wait to see the pictures....be sure to do a lot of before and after shots!

Kristy said...

I know that house! I've always thought it was adorable. Congratulations!

Jesse and Leslie said...

WOO HOO! We are going to be neighbors!!!! I am so excited for you guys!

Anonymous said...

Nice! I know I've seen it but can't place it. The flowers and grass under trees and trees for that matter take alot of work. One of my memories growing up is raking hickory leaves and nuts while listening to the Vols. Orange leaves-orange team.

Pamela said...

Congrats! I really like that you are trying to be debt free. That is our goal also, but we have a loooonnng way to go. When we got transferred to the d.c area we where really unprepared for the cost of living and racked up quite a bit of debt. Thanks for inspiring me to stay on track!

Emily said...

The house is in S. Knox - we're moving back to the motherland. Ha ha! I will post lots of before and after photos. I'm hoping most rooms you won't even recognize when we get done. But the house has a great structure and is very family friendly. We are very excited!