Let's just say it moved me...to a bigger house!

I know, I know. It's been months and months since my last blog post. Ryan and I have decided that with two incomes and the small likelihood of social security being around when we would need it, to move into a new home. We have been working to build up our savings the last several months to put in a large down payment. We were looking at an unfinished home in Springville for a while, but with the time frame the sellers wanted and the daunting task of getting contractors and materials, we opted to look at already finished homes. We did our research at utahrealestate.com, put in our price range and square footage, and began viewing homes.

The first one we viewed was on Halloween--it was a large home in Springville. We toured it and were impressed with the first floor. That feeling ended when we went to the second floor, then the basement. The craftsmanship was shoddy at best. Here's an example of a theme throughout the house:



I'm not quite sure why they didn't just shift the switch when building, or select a smaller door frame, but that was the result.

We looked at several others that looked good on paper and in photo, but the actual result was usually disappointing or not as expected. I learned to view the pictures as the highlights, then view the price and ask myself, "What are the real problems we aren't seeing?" And a walk-through usually took that house off the list. Here are a few fails from various homes that were not featured in the photos in the listing:

This was in the front room of a house in Elk Ridge:



The steps to nowhere:



This was in the basement of a house in Lehi: (the tube was coming out of finished dry wall into the middle of the hallway floor)



This was from a huge home in Provo; it had a sauna but it also was half-finished (the bathroom didn't have a ceiling):



This was a note about a porch in Highland:


And then we found our dream home, in Alpine, Utah. It's 6700 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a nice kitchen, half an acre lot, 3 car garage, and it's got 2 fireplaces. Like I said, our dream home. There's nothing unfinished or really strange. The layout is great, and so as styles change, you can update without it seeming dated. Here are some photos:











We plan to close at the end of January, and to rent out the rest of our home in Springville. Hopefully by the time we get both homes paid off, we can retire and enjoy receiving the rental income from our Springville home. :)