Moving at a Break Neck Speed!

Finding a new home would likely be harder than selling our previous home. Due to the location of both of our jobs we knew what side of town we wanted to live on. Also we wanted an area that had a lot of kiddos. My biggest complaint with the home we were selling had always been there were not tons of kids around. Looking at those factors we settled on moving to Germantown. The problem with that plan is Chris had no desire to pay the prices of the homes in Germantown. We looked at several homes and had given the okay for a project house, but nothing seemed to be falling into place. Then on a Saturday I was scrolling through Facebook. I noticed on a page for real estate in the area someone had posted looking for a home that fit the description of exactly what we were looking for. So, of course, I read the comments. One particular comment stood out to me. A home owner who had been renting his house out said the house was now vacant, but he hadn’t had time to get it ready to list. He was willing to show it to people the next day if they were okay with buying it as it was. I excitedly tagged my agent in the post. She reached out to her team leads and it turns out they knew him and we were able to go see the house that afternoon before anyone else was able to since the owner trusted the agents to show it to us instead of him having to. The home was definitely a nice home. The bones were great! It got bonus points for being on the same street as Christina’s home. However, it was built in the 1970s and the kitchen was still from that era. Also there wasn’t a fantastic place for Chris to have an office and we NEEDED him to have an office. We knew kitchens can be remodeled and came up with an idea for that. For the office, our agent helped us think of a great plan to move a few walls and create one. So the 2 biggest negatives with the home were both fixable. We made an offer that day and we soon had a contract on it.

Everything happened pretty quickly. We closed on our previous house on a Tuesday. We closed on our new house on that Wednesday. The demolition crew came to start removing our kitchen and moving walls for us on that Thursday. And by that Friday afternoon we had to be completely out of our previous home. We did not want to live in a home with no kitchen and tons of construction dust so we moved our furniture and whatnot into our new home as far away from the construction as possible and we went and stayed with my in-laws. The previous owner of our home was amazing. He had let us come in before closing and get measurements and whatnot. So we had everything ready on go. In 2.5 weeks we were sleeping in our new home. Our cooktop had been delayed in shipping so we didn’t have one of those at the time, but we were so excited to be in our new home that we moved in anyway.

Before view from dining room into kitchen

Chris and I often wish we had done more of the work for the kitchen remodel. Our biggest push at the time was we wanted it done quickly so we could get moved in. In hindsight, that was not the best way to plan a kitchen remodel. There are things we would have done differently and things we would have done ourselves had we not been in such a rush. Chris and I did paint and put the backsplash in since those were not crucial for us moving in. Also we replaced the light fixtures. Overall I am happy with the finished project, but have learned things to do differently in the future. The pictures with this post will show from beginning to end of the 2.5 weeks where we had a crew working on our kitchen. Starting this blog almost 4 years after buying this home has really allowed me to look a little like HGTV. It may appear that things are done quickly, but let me guarantee you that nothing in the world of remodel is ever quick. Even the 2.5 week kitchen remodel was not really 2.5 weeks. There was a month before that that was planning and getting prepared and then there was time after we moved in where we were still working on projects in the kitchen. To be perfectly honest I am not sure we are done with the kitchen still. I mean we are basically done since almost every surface has been touched, but there are still small things we need to do. Like curtains and décor. And I dream of replacing all the windows in our home at some point, but who knows if that will ever happen. Overall, I am happy with our kitchen. It isn’t the world’s largest kitchen by any means, but it is completely functional and I like the colors we used in there; which is a good thing, since the colors we used in there have dictated the colors in the rest of our downstairs and somewhat our upstairs as well.