The bulk of it happened quickly, but here's the long version. My brother and his family are moving to Colorado from Connecticut, and as part of helping them look for a new place, I met with a realtor to give her their wish list, and mentioned that if she came across any 5- or 6-bedroom houses in the area, we'd be curious to take a look.
Two weeks ago, we took a look at two houses, one of which was very nice, with a great backyard, but had some weird quirks inside, and was just outside of Highlands Ranch. We thought about making an offer, but let it go without doing so.
Last week, when a couple of new 5 bedroom houses popped up on our search, we made an appointment with our realtor to look at both on Thursday. The first was very nice — amusingly, one that our realtor had also shown to Dan and Alex — with a gorgeous space on the main floor for my office and a media room in the basement that Doyce could convert to an office. There were some great finishes as well, but the kitchen was old, and would definitely need an upgrade. We thought about an offer, but wanted to see the other house we had an appointment to see first.
So we did.
The main floor kitchen and family room blew us away. The formal living and dining room were gorgeous. The main floor master suite was like a dream, and the four bedrooms on the top floor were perfect for the kids and a guest room or office. And then we walked into the basement. Almost 2,000 square feet of unfinished space, ready for us to put our mark on it. With a little imagination, we could see an office for KT Literary, a huge playroom, guest bedroom and bathroom, even a craft space.
We made an offer Friday night. Slightly over asking to make a nice round number, sent with a letter to the seller telling him how much we loved the house, the neighborhood, how we hoped our kids would grow up there… All the gushy stuff.
Saturday afternoon we brought the kids over to look at it, have fun looking at the possibilities for their rooms, and to measure the basement. Our realtor met us and laughed while the kids ran around, and told us that there were multiple offers, but that it was looking very good for us, if we could move some of the dates up.
We could. We did. And when we signed off on the new dates, suddenly we were under contract. Under Contract. I feel like that should be capitalized.
Saturday night, we got a letter back from the seller, basically telling us that our letter was what got us the house. After raising three daughters in the house, he was so pleased to be able to sell it to another family, and to see that we were going to appreciate the house and the neighborhood.
Tomorrow, we have the inspection, and walk through with our contractor to talk about some of the work we want to do. If everything continues to fall into place, we close on May 22nd.
And then we have a new house. For our family. Together.
