Househunting: We Waste NO Time

Yesterday rejuvenated us, laying by the pool and visiting with the Pattons. *Sigh* It's wonderful to finally be here in Austin. But today was all business and we wasted no time.
Last night Brian and I narrowed down our online home search to two main neighborhoods in Georgetown: Churchill Farms and Stonehedge. Finding at least 10 homes within our price range and parameters we thought today would be filled up looking in these neighborhoods.

Brian randomly found a realtor through an online search -Doug Hogan with Century 21- in Georgetown and we gave him a call. He made himself completely available and met us at the office in an hour. With 11 properties printed out (which I actually thought wasn't enough to spend much time looking at -boy, was I wrong) we headed for the neighborhoods. Since Churchill Farms and Stonehedge are basically conjoined we simply meandered through an area of 1 square mile.

The first house was a foreclosure and it showed. On our grading system we gave it a D+ and quickly moved on. Even for a low grade, the outside and surrounding houses were twice as nice as anything we could get for the same price in Anchorage.

The second house ended up to be our absolute favorite. Instead of boring you with a breakdown of every home we saw I'll just give you the juicy details of the one we fell in love with.

The backyard is skinny in the middle but very spacious on both sides with plenty of land to landscape , add a deck or playset -maybe all three! The length is perfect for throwing frisbee for Savannah and Smoke will love running in circles on the side yards. It's completely fenced with some beautiful flowering plants spilling over from the neighbor's behind us.The oak cabinets are in fabulous shape -kiddy locks installed on the bottom ones! New Corian counter tops, nice appliances, wonderfully shelved and spacious pantry and a window over the sink that overlooks the right side of the backyard.
This picture doesn't do the entry justice -well, neither do the other photos. The entry is spacious, has a great built in alcove perfect for some artsy-fartsy display or a place to pile the mail, and a deep closet (where I'll store the Christmas decorations!)
The living room's double stacked windows fill the whole house with light. It's absolutely gorgeous! Lots of space and a built in entertainment area for our TV and music system. Plus it's wired for surround sound. All we have to do is mount our speakers and plug them into the existing system!
This is the formal dining room, just off the entry at the front of the house. We'll actually use it as a Donavan Covey room -or just my little sitting room. I may someday (soon, I hope) teach my own etiquette classes and this is the perfect set up. No one has to traipse through the house and it's close to the kitchen for easy access to tea and coffee for visitors.

Another HUGE plus is there is a mother-in-law suite downstairs off the living room. Now we can have guests stay without bothering them or visa versa. No walking through the house in bath towels creating embarrassing situations.

Upstairs is a huge master bedroom with a lovely walk in closet -that even has a window! We'll finally be able to see our clothes. The bathrooms are wonderful -simple but clean and quality. Wilder's room is right across from a good size laundry room and an open area that is PERFECT for a playroom. Wilder and his friends will be able to play upstairs while we have grown up talk with the adults in the living room below. We'll be able to keep tabs on everyone and still have some separation.

The home is in a small cul de sac where Wilder can safely ride his tricycle around without me worrying. We are two blocks from the neighborhood playground, sand volleyball and beautiful private pool. It's fabulous!

A home like this would cost 3xs the price in Alaska and 30xs the price in L.A. -the two other places we were considering. I never dreamed our first home would be something like this.

We're putting an offer on it tomorrow morning. We'll keep you posted...hopefully we'll be spending the rest of the day celebrating and perusing home style magazines.