My Colonial Cottage

So Ann Nicole at oursuburbancottage.blogspot.com is having a party today. What is this party about? Its a  How I Met My House Party!  I thought what the heck I just need to finish a painting project, mow the lawn and make dinner...so I think I will join in.

I met my home about 4 year ago. We lived in a cute suburban town in New England and wanted to stay in that town. However we had out grown our 1850 village colonial and decided it was time to look for a new home.  We knew from the start that we wanted to pay no more then we could afford, so we chose our max price and stuck with it.  We put our old house on the market .   We found our present home after looking at many newer homes which were at the top of our budget and I did not feel like we were getting all that we wanted.  Our wish list included: 4 bedrooms, a fireplace, at least 1/4 acre and an area for a playroom for the kids.

After looking at all the newer homes we finally stepped foot into our present home. It is a colonial and  was built in 1973.  It was love at first sight but definitely not love at first scent.  The realtor who showed it to us made a point to tell us that one of the upstairs bedrooms was the cats favorite room. Now the house was empty at the time and when we went upstairs to take a look the smell of cat urine was overwhelming.  I tried my hardest to look beyond the smell and found that I loved the bones of the home. Yes, the carpet was disgusting,

 and yes the wall paper was dated,

 and yes the yard was a little smaller then we would have liked,

  but it was still 1/4 acre so it fit the bill.   So we put in a bid on it and the owners accepted,  but we did put a contingency in the contract that we needed to sell our other home. Time passed and the contract did too.  However  two days after the offer on our new house expired,  we sold our old one. We talked to our realtor and she suggested we make another offer on the new home and after  a little haggling  we had a new offer accepted which was almost 10,000$ less then our first offer. We were thrilled and relieved at the same time.

We lived in a hotel for 10 days while we had hardwood floors installed in our new home and were so excited to return to a fresh and cleaner smelling home. They actually had to remove the subfloor from my sons bedroom because the cat urine was so bad.  Anyhow it has been four years and we are still in love with our house.

The floors look better,

The wallpaper is gone,

The yard is still a work in progress.

  We are still working on the inside too!

 I am from a family of 8 kids and my home is always full of family and friends.  Family members are always calling and asking  if we have any openings in the spare room.   My sister got married two years ago and we actually had 11 people staying with us plus my family of four, thanks to many aero beds, couches, and the double bed in the spare room.  I hope you all enjoyed the story of how I met my house. I can't wait to read about how you all met yours!

MAURA