Home sweet Home Finally!

The house when I first came to see it. We called it the Mcdonald house since it was yellow and red.

 Yes we have lived here for almost a year now but I thought I would show you our place since most of you won't ever get to come see us. We have done a lot of work both inside and out so there are a lot of photos. 

I have to start by telling the background of our home search. When we found it we were moving to San Antonio we knew we wanted to live by Jared's good friends Chad and Molly. So this really narrowed our search. We looked on line for months and Jared came out for a weekend at the beginning of April and didn't really find much so then I came out by myself at the beginning of May and knew that I had to find a house that weekend. We looked at all the ones on our list and none of them just felt right nor did any of them have everything that we were looking for. 

Our wish list was:

•  Open floor plan
• Big Backyard-room for a garden
• On a cul-de-sac
• Master bedroom up-stairs-this apparently is really rare
• 4 bedroom
• Game room/toy room
• Tall ceilings(this was Jared's main request)
• Lots of Light(after our really sunny place in NY this was something we really wanted)
• Walk in pantry-again this was rare
• Lot of closets and good storage space
• Close to Chad and Molly and our friends the Taylor and Kecks

After looking at houses all day Friday and all day Saturday, I was pretty frustrated and just wasn't sure what to do. We decided that we might have to expand our search to the other ward close by so on Sunday I attended both Chad's ward and the other ward. While at Chad's I just really had a strong feeling that that was the ward we were supposed to be in. At church, I talked with a Sister who was selling their house. I had seen it online and new it was a lot bigger than what we were looking for but I was desperate so I thought I would at least go see it. Later that day Molly got a call from a neighbor who was in the ward who had overheard me talking to this other lady. They had been thinking about selling their house and moving on base so she called to see if I wanted to come look at it. Molly was instantly so excited and as soon as I walked in the house I knew it was supposed to be our house. I just had such a strong feeling and as we walked through it, I realized it had pretty much everything we were looking for. The backyard was the biggest I had seen so far, it was an open floor plan. Not on a cul-de-sac but it was on a circle street that was really quiet and just a few houses down from Chad and Molly. The master was up, it had a big game room, 4 bedrooms, lots of light and my favorite thing a big Pantry. They didn't have it listed so we didn't have to use Realtors and everything ended up working out perfectly. The Keck's even found a great house just around the corner. It is so fun to live close to people and actually be in a neighborhood where we can go for walks and ride bikes. We love our new house. We did however do a lot of work to it so here are some before and afters. 

  

We decided to paint the shutters and door black. I like it, especially the door. And we have redone the front flower boxes like 3 times. When we got here last July most of the plants were dead so we had to rip them out and start over. 

Before

The front room as you first walk in the door. It is supposed to be a dining room.

We use it as a office/toy room.

We also repainted it and I think it is my favorite paint job in the whole house. 

Kitchen Before

 The kitchen was nice before but we definitely wanted to remove the flooring since it was linoleum. Once we put in the dark floors we had had to redo the cabinets because they just didn't look good and we wanted to get new counter tops so that we could make the island into a breakfast bar.

I think it turned out pretty great especially considering that we decided to paint and redo the cabinets right after McKean was born. The best thing about this remodel was that we were also able to help others. We donated our counter tops and stove to habitat for humanity which was great. We love having the breakfast bar. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen and now it is much more functional. 

 

 The Pantry, probably my favorite thing. Our grocery bill has gone up a ton because I just want to fill it full of food!! We keep all of our "food storage under the stairs" so this frees up this space for other things.  I never would have thought that I would be so excited over a pantry and food!!

Living room before

 The only thing we changed here was the flooring.

 

We bought a lot of new furniture. This couch took us forever to pick out. We went to all the furniture stores in the area several times. We finally decided on this, it was the most comfortable and we love it. Kai also loves it and thinks it is just a long trampoline.

I love sitting on the couch and looking at these photos. Kean loves it too. He is always staring up at all the photos.

 

Upstairs we didn't do much besides paint all the bedrooms and put in new carpet.

This is the toy/game room. It is really big and nice, now I just need to figure out a way to get Kai to actually play in it.

Kai's Bedroom. It was originally all pink and we painted it purple and antique white. The pink curtains were left here by the previous owners so we just left them up.

Ever since the prophet talked about how each child should have a picture of the temple in their rooms I have been thinking about what I wanted to put up. I originally was just going to get one of the Lai'e temple since that is where she was born but then I thought, she has already been to so many different temples so I decided to do a wall collage of all the temples she has been to. I am going to get a big photo of her in front of the Lai'e temple and then make an 8 x 10 and put it in the middle. This was fun and she seems to  like it. It makes me excited to keep adding to it. The temples from left to right are:Salt Lake, Manhattan, Logan, Oquirrh Mountain, Washington D.C, Palmyra, Nauvoo, Kirtland, Kona Hawaii, and Boston!

 My awesome mother-in-law made this beautiful quilt for McKean so I decorated his room off of it!

After we got mostly settled Jared got all carpentry and made these bookshelves and some step stools for us. Yes, I still need to paint them!

Our room I love because it has much light and two big closets so we each get our own plus it is upstairs which was a must for us!

The backyard before=pretty grass minus the pool spot, Pretty flowers in the back and nice garden growing.

The backyard now=Some not so pretty grass and the pretty flowers all died last year in the crazy summer heat so we planted some new ones and an awesome Pomegranate tree instead. I really hope the tree produces some fruit before we leave. I LOVE Pomegranates. I also planted my first ever garden so we will see what grows!!

 

They left the swing set which was so exciting for Kai.

 She loves to swing and plays on it most days!

Our most recent project was taking out this tiny patio 

and putting in this huge awesome one. The grass here is horrible full of weeds and all sorts of biting bugs so this will be a nice place for the kids to play. Obviously we still need steps. Kai has spent every day since we put it in out there riding her scooter back and forth. The other day she was looking out the window at it and says to me " Mom I love our patio" Ahh she is so cute. I am so glad that she loves it!

We left our mark forever on this house!!

I look forward to the next few years we have in this home. We already have so many great memories here and I am excited to make many more here.

As always we love visitors so if you ever want to for some strange reason visit San Antonio we are here and love company!!