Upstairs

If you start at the bottom of this post, I'll take you on a tour of the upstairs.

This is the North side of the house. So the windows you are seeing are the kitchen, dining, boys' bedroom and guest bedroom.
Here is one of the rooms in the basement. There are two larger rooms in the basement and a foyer, plus a couple rooms that would be great for storage and a great for canned items.
Built in closet. This is the hallway entrance to the Master.
There is a small sitting room off the Master. We would like to turn it into a bathroom. It shares a wall with the existing bathroom.

The doorway you now see is coming from the Toy room/master closet. This is what we would use as the Master Bedroom.
Toy room or Master Closet.
Standing in the corner by the built ins in the boys' room and looking towards the front of the house. The doorway you can see is another room. We would either turn it into a small playroom or a Master closet.

The doorway to the left is the hallway we just came down. More built-ins!

This is as you step into the Boys' room.
This is looking from the guest bedroom into the Master.
This is the "guest bedroom"
Another built in before you get to the boys' bedroom.


Cool shower.
Here is the bathroom.
From here, the doorway to the left is a bedroom that would potentially be a guest bedroom. Straight ahead (where my Mom is standing) would be the boys' shared bedroom, and there is a doorway to the right, straight across from where Jonah is standing, that would be our Master.

Once you reach the top of the stairs, the bathroom is on the right (left side in this photo).

This cool wood paneling stretches around the opening of the stair case. I am standing on the small landing.

From the foyer in the center of the main floor, you come up the stairs, to a small landing and then up a couple more steps.

Main Floor

Start at the Bottom of these photos for a "tour" of the main floor.

Staircase to the upstairs. The doorway to the right is back into the kitchen. We just went full circle ;)

To the left is the dumb waiter and where Kendal is standing is a laundry shoot. The room in the distance is the living room and front entrance.
Downstairs bath. Check out that cool door!
sunroom/boutique. Who knows, maybe it would be a tea room, or library, or workout room. So much potential!

The doorway to the left leads to the foyer, where the bathroom and staircase is.
Built ins in the main floor Master, AKA my office.
This would be my office and I would set up that back room (sunroom) into a boutique where you could come buy my jewelry! ;)
The door to the right enters into what would have previously been the Master Bedroom. I think I would use this for my office.
From the front door, you can hang a left and enter a front room that would easily become a smaller T.V./family room.
Standing in the front of the living room with the dining room to the right. The doorway in the center goes into that foyer area that has the staircase, bathroom and dumbwaiter. The front door is where Lucas is running to.
Living room fireplace.
Built-ins in the dining room.
From the kitchen facing into the dining room, and on into the living room.
Large, super cool, banquette.
Staircase to the basement.
The dining room is through the doorway straight away. The doorway to the right goes into a foyer area and the staircase upstairs.
The kitchen with the banquette behind me. The entrance from the breezeway is to my left. To my right is the staircase to the basement.

This is the back of the house. The garage is to the left. There is alley access. The bay window (set of windows on the left bottom) is the banquette in the kitchen for frame of reference. We start by entering from the breezeway between the house and the garage into the kitchen.

What's Next

What a Whirlwind! We got moved out of Kari Place and into our new abode.

We were under contract on our two lots as of a couple weeks ago and so we pushed forward with plans to build. Yet, we feel we came to our closed door. We received a phone call from our Adair liaison and we just can't make the financing work. To receive 100% financing the home has to appraise for $300,000. That will NEVER happen.

Luckily we didn't have to pay for an official appraisal, or anything else for that matter.

We have basically walked away from our Adair "dream" and have viewed it as a closed door.

After I took the call from Adair, I looked at the MLS online and saw a home that we have been thinking about looking in for quite a while now. I didn't want to pursue it because I didn't care for the location. But, since we have been living on Wheeler St., our viewpoint has changed in regards to location.

Even more importantly, we have visited a lot about how we feel God is changing our focus on ministry as a family. Not that we are leaving church ministry, but we are adding to it by engaging the whole family. We have been working really hard on becoming more open, vulnerable and truth-tellers. We feel like God is steering us in a direction to welcome folks into our home to be open with, be vulnerable with and to speak truth. Hoping that people will feel that they can do the same. Our home will be a "fortress", a place to put their feet up, to relax, to feel safe and be loved. To do life with us.

When I saw the house at 180 S. 2nd street, I called my Realtor to go have a look. I just wanted some encouragement and to start moving on from the Adair house. You could look at it as going through a break-up and then headed out on that first date with the "new guy."

It is such a cool house.

The location puts us in a place of allowing for people to just swing by and be welcomed. Plus, we are right across the street from the Library and a park. Could be pretty great.

We looked through it again today with my Dad, Mom, Sister and Grandma. I could totally see all of us there.

Tonight at dinner, Kendal and I talked about it and it is going to take a bit of a miracle to make it work because of some of the upgrades we will need to do, BUT, we serve a Big God.

Application

We started the financial application process to put an offer on the two lots. I guess Adair has some specific wording that has to go in the offer, so it takes a couple more steps to get started. We are excited, no closed doors yet, so we move forward.

We just looked at the Adair website again and can see that Dave Ramsey endorses Adair. That is a good endorsement to have! Plus they have an A+ rating on the BBB.

This is such an exciting process and I just pray that it all works out how we desire...and quickly too!

Our Choice:2659

We are going to chose the 2659 plan. Here are some photos and the floor plan from the Adair website. Should take anywhere from 6-12 months to build.

Entry: When walking in the front door, there is a nice sized office/Living room space with double doors to the right. On the Left, the laundry room. The door jam you see there on the left of this photo is a powder room.
Looking into the kitchen from the family room
The Master bedroom is the the left of the kitchen and dining room.

Laundry room that connects to the garage.

First Step

We are taking our first step in the Adair Homes building process. We have been praying about going this route for a little over a week now ( I know, not terribly long), but we don't feel like a door is closing, yet, anyway. So, we take our first step.

We are working on the application for Adair's financial "stuff" and we will then go and make an offer on the lot that we want. In our case, it is 2 lots in a subdivision about a 1/4 mile from this home. Our kids would continue in Cascades Elementary (yeah!) and we are familiar with this part of town, so the feel would remain similar. It isn't the acreage we desired, but we are keeping in the scope of our reality. We probably would be wise to stay with something smaller, as my back problems and our time spent doing life require more than what it takes to keep up much property.

Our lot would start at the street and run along that fence line you see in this photo above.

This photo is a little skewed, because the lot looks larger than it actually is. If you make a line from the two arrows, that would be our property line.

This is the view from the back property line.

Again, this is all a little premature, as we haven't even made an offer on the property yet and if a pre-existing house comes on the market that we really like, we will not go this route.

We have chosen the Adair home 2659. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2,659 sq. ft. with a master on the main, an office/living room, family room, kitchen and dining on the main. Upstairs has 3 bedrooms (which we may make 2 beds into one large room for all 4 boys to share), bathroom, we would have a guest bedroom (possibly) and it has a nice bonus room area that is open and feels more "family room-ish."

I will post some more photos in my next post. For some reason, I can't get them to be in a good format here.