Well, I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus (although I still read all of my favorite ones daily) so I've got LOTS to fill you in on. Ready?
Back in September, we sold our house and moved to Birmingham! You see, we didn't actually have our house in Tuscaloosa on the market yet and hadn't really thought too much about moving. We had only met with a realtor once to see if/when we might want to think about selling. Well, a couple of weeks later she had 2 prospective buyers who were very interested. After a few delays and setbacks, we closed on both houses the first weekend of September. Yikes! Enter a frantic weekend of moving before football season starts! (Note to self: next time we hire movers)
The hubby and I, along with our realtor in Birmingham, spent several days looking for a new house. Such an exhausting process and it rained every single time we went! I think the location (and of course price) were the most important factors because I needed to be on the right side of town to be able to commute to Tuscaloosa for my job. Turns out the one we bought had only been on the market for 1 day when we made our offer. Talk about good timing because our realtor said it would sell very quickly! In the end, I think we got the right house for us right now, even though I wish it was about 10 minutes closer. Is it our forever home? Nope. We will outgrow it but I think it's just right for us right now. :)
So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to our new abode. It's in Bluff Park, an older area of Hoover, which I love. Our neighborhood is full of big, old trees with beautiful foliage in the fall. We're actually on top of Shades Mountain, which still makes my ears pop, and we can walk to the elementary school. Below are all of the pictures from the previous owners so stay tuned to see how it looks with our stuff in it. Here is the view from the road. It's a 3/2 built in the 60s (I think) with a basement and laundry room! I'm so super excited about having an actual laundry room now!
When you walk through the front, you enter into the living room and the dining room is to the left (the previous owners used it as a sitting room). Oh, and if you had been to our old house, this is basically the same exact floor plan, minus the screened-in porch in the front, and we now have a sitting room in the kitchen. :)
From the dining room, you walk into the kitchen:
I do love the seating area in the kitchen! It's the perfect place for sipping my morning coffee and looking into the back yard. :) Those doors lead to the back deck, which I will show you a little bit later. (Btw, the outdoor space is what really sold me on this house)
So if you leave the sitting area, you can take a right to go back into the living room or a left to go down the hallway. Down the hallway, first up is the guest bathroom on the left, which I painted about 2 weeks after we moved in. Just couldn't take the dark brown walls with that amazing blue tile:
Across from the hall bath is the guest room:
Down the hall on the right is Reynolds' room. It's the larger of the two so that's why we chose this one:
Right across from her room is the master bedroom with our private bath. The bathroom is small but that's really what we're familiar with. This
one has been updated very nicely with new ceramic tile, double shower
heads, and I love the beadboard walls. :)
So that's pretty much the entire living space upstairs. Now we'll head to the basement. I have plans to turn this space into a great family room since there is a lot of room for Reynolds' to play and dogs to roam. The door leading to the basement is in the kitchen, just fyi. It's got kind of a lofty feel to it with the exposed duct work. :)
Behind the plaid curtains in the photo below are the glass doors leading out to the patio, and the white door leads into the laundry room:
What I love most about this space is the storage! There is a lot of
floor space but it also has several closets, including 2 under the staircase.
Below is the laundry room, with more storage, and they left the washer, dryer and pedestals for us! Oh, and that door leads into the 2-car garage.
So that's all for the interior of our new house! Now, let's move on to my favorite - the outdoor space! First here is the deck off the kitchen:
There is plenty of space out here for sitting/ relaxing, grilling, dining, etc... My big plans for this area is to screen in the top level. There is a small drop down you can see in the first picture and I think that would be perfect for the grill if we did screen in the top part.
Here is the view of the back yard from the deck:
There is just enough grassy area for us to maintain and Reynolds to play and I'm hoping the dogs use that back area since it's all fenced in. (Jax tends to be pretty rough on grass when playing fetch)
Here are a few more shots of the back yard:
And finally, an up-close shot of the rock work, which is really what sold me. I love it!
So there you have it - a glimpse at our new house. I can't wait to show you how it looks with our stuff moved in. Now that it's been 3 months, I'm happy to say we've painted 3 rooms so it's starting to feel a little more like home. I really want to paint our master bedroom over the holiday break so we'll see if I can get that done! It's much harder to do that sort of stuff with a 16 month old running around! :)
I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season! It really is the most wonderful time of the year! :)
-xoxo-
Katie
