Then, things changed. Through the summer I spent hour upon hour cleaning our house and purging unneeded things. I finally got around to moving some items that came home with me from Armenia, over a year ago! Several of those hours were spent in the attic, purging, sorting and moving various totes and boxes around. After spending so much time up there, in the sweltering conditions, I think something got to my head! I began thinking that we should finish half of the attic for more living space.
To be honest, having 5 people in a 3 bedroom house was getting rather suffocating, especially with all the kids "stuff!" Despite the purging I'd done already I could not bring myself to get rid of enough. After several discussions, creating a Pinterest board of finished attics and even sketching out some renderings of the possibilities I was excited that we could have more space soon! Jason, being the more practical of the two of us (I mean he IS the Engineer after all) began looking into the preparations we would have to do and what it would actually take to finish part of the attic. After some research we learned that in New York State if you finish the 3rd story, (aka an attic) of a wooden structure, you must put in a sprinkler system. I know we've probably all seen finished attics where the home didn't have sprinklers in the ceilings, but we wanted to do this by the code. After discovering this news, I became disheartened. I was really looking forward to having breathing room but this option was no longer cost effective for us!
After having my dreams of enlarging our home crushed, I went onto the MLS to search for houses that could fit our needs. I honestly did this somewhat as a joke to blow of steam. I came across a lovely house (with a lot of space!) and it had an open house later that day! So at 1:30am I sent Jason an email saying that we were going to buy that house, jokingly of course. Because I work nights I was asleep for most of the day, I woke up around 2pm, got dressed and told Jason I was going to the open house. He was fine with that, after all it was only a few streets from where we live. So off I went. I liked what I saw although the house was in desperate need of updating (the master bedroom was an ugly green with gold carpets!) but what really caught my attention was the storage space, the size of the rooms, the huge yard and quiet street. I went back home and asked Jason to go look at it and he did. Jason came home stating "It's in rougher shape than I thought!" He listed some of the issues, mainly the updating it needed and then to my surprise asked me if I wanted to put an offer in on it! What went from a joke at 1:30am turned into "let's make an offer" by 3:30pm. Jason and I troll the MLS frequntly so we know the market and know a good deal, so this was not (completely) a spur of the moment decision, it was an educated one. That night we had an offer sent to the homeowners. The next day we went back and forth with the homeowners once or twice and just like that we had an accepted offer! It took about 37 hours from the time I half-jokingly told Jason I wanted that house until the time we had an accepted offer! Sometimes things really work out.
Well, there goes our 5 year plan! BUT we were comfortable with disturbing our plan in this way. It was a good compromise. The house we bought will keep us comfortable for several years, so for now I'll call it our 10 year plan!
We're putting the finishing touches on our new house now and should be all moved in soon. We're excited to have breathing room and a place for the kids to safely play. The house will bring us much needed space and an additional bedroom!
With the bigger house, bugger yard and just overall more space it'll be much easier for our family to grow! Many of you already know that Jason and I have begun the adoption journey yet again, and for those of you that didn't know, well now you do. Our journey to "Alexis" will be saved for another post!
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