Quick Decisions

I have a spot in my heart for Idaho. It's right next door to the place I keep for California. Even though I was born and raised in California, Idaho feels most like home.  We took a family road trip to Idaho over spring break that turned into a life changing journey. Not long before we left, Jon's company informed him that his department would now be open to work completely from home. We toyed with ideas, we could potentially live anywhere on this planet...Fiji? Japan? Paris? No. We love Idaho. 

While in Idaho we decided to take an afternoon to look at houses. We walked through a few that seemed great online, but didn't feel like home. As we were headed back from our little home search we noticed a new subdivision going up a little outside of town. We decided to take a quick look and found a model home with the back door unlocked. We had so much fun sneaking through that house. It was beautiful, but wasn't home. We drove around a little more and saw another home for sale. We peaked through windows and started to fall in love.  The back yard was huge( between 1/3 and 1/2 acre), the inside was bright and open and there was an office for work from home Jon. I loved it so much I was sure it would be out of our price range. But I called anyway and we walked through it the next day. I was surprised that it was less expensive than the other homes we had seen. 

 It's smaller than what we are used to. My spoiled girls will have to share rooms and I didn't see a place for their beloved rope swing. But dang. It is such a great house and I could see us all living there right away. After we left my brain was brewing plans...we didn't plan on coming to Idaho to buy a house...our house wasn't even on the market and we had a lot of work to do before it would be ready. But we decided to make an offer and see what happened. What happened is, our offer was accepted on the condition of our Lehi home selling within a certain time frame. We left early to get home and start painting brown baseboards white, and tiling carpeted bathrooms...cause what the heck...never carpet a bathroom. 

Our excitement fueled our muscles. I dug up an overgrown berm in the backyard and put down new weed barrier and bark. Doesn't that sound nice? It wasn't. It sucked. My back hurt, I had allergies, snot running down my face, dirt then sticking to my snotty face. Digging and rocks and digging and sweat. But it looks infinitely better now and my daughters were mostly willing helpers when I needed them. We pulled countless weeds, planted flowers and mowed the lawn.  My house was coming together on the outside and it had only been a few days work. 

Jon and I also spent many hours painting. The previous owners loved chocolate brown. So they decided to paint the basement doors and baseboards brown and I have always hated it. So of course, I waited until the week before we wanted to put our house on the market to do something about it. I painted the doors white and spent hours on the floor taping baseboards, all the way up the stairs with the taping. Again. Holy suckiness. But the difference! My dark feeling basement brightened up and looked so clean and fresh. I love it.

Next was my carpeted master bath. Jon ripped out all the carpet and got to work laying tile. He was stressing out with all the work on the house, work work, and the pressure of trying to make our future plans work. He is such a perfectionist he won't ask for help, because control...and he's really good at stuff. But I felt like I could smear mud on the floor. So I took over and grouted the tile. I'll have to make a mental note of the importance of letting my girls take on projects that they've never done and might even imagine is a man's job. I felt so freaking capable. 

P.S Grouting is a job best done sans pants. Jon thought this was awesome.

You are welcome new buyers. Why oh why didn't we do this years ago? 

My parents also came and helped with the many little projects that we just weren't getting to as fast as we wanted. Thank you parents! 

We did it. We pulled our house together in a week. We put the house on the market and had people flooding in. It was crazy.  We had a full price offer in two days and we are now under contract. Things still feel too good to be true, so I'm remaining cautiously optimistic. 

So now we have to pack, and plan and say good bye to friends and family that we love. Moving is exciting and exhausting and I'm worried about my kids and school and making new friends. For the most part they are excited, they will be close to cousins and family but I know there will be some struggles as well. 

Here is a sneak peak of the Idaho home!