Movin' On Up

After 5 years in our Bonney Lake house, we decided that it was time to sell and move into a nicer house with a bigger yard. Plus, after watching the real estate market during the past few years, we knew that we were at a point where it made financial sense to sell. We were interested in a house on the High Cedars Golf Course in Orting, but the seller was a pain in the ass and wasn't happy enough with our full-price offer, so it fell through. We weren't really serious about moving at that point; if it had worked out, great, but we weren't heartbroken that it fell through.

A couple months later Chris heard about a new development in Graham called Grand Firs. We drove out there one weekend in April and walked through the models. We found one floorplan in particular that we really liked. A huge bonus: the builder was willing to let us do some of the work ourselves to offset the cost of the upgrades we were interested in. This is pretty much what sealed the deal, so we went ahead and picked a lot, and they broke ground in June. The house is bigger than what we were planning on (almost 3100 sq ft) but it's a great floorplan. Our lot is just shy of 1/3 acre and we will have a view of Mt. Rainier. As of now, we have walls and a roof. The windows were installed recently, and the siding is being put up as I write this. The electrician has finished the wiring and the fire sprinklers have been installed. The sprinklers are one of the upgrades Chris was insistant about, because his biggest fear is fire. The builder allowed Chris to do all the media wiring, so a couple weeks ago he wired every room for phone, cable, internet, and speakers. Insulation and drywall will be installed this week, and then we will be painting the interior ourselves. That's going to be a huge job! Two other big projects that we're taking on is installation of the downstairs flooring, and installation of the yard and outdoor sprinkler system. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it because of the money we're saving...it's being put toward some big upgrades. Like Chris' extended garage (aka his Man Room).

So of course this meant that it was time to get the Bonney Lake house ready to sell. I've watched the shows on TLC about staging houses to sell, so I was interested in seeing if it really worked. We cleared a lot of stuff out of the house and stored it at Chris' parents. I took a lot of things off shelves and the walls. Our house has never been dirty but we scrubbed it from floor to ceiling anyway. It was a lot of work but by mid-June we were ready to put it on the market. We did the for-sale-by-owner thing, which many people are skeptical of. But we've got enough experience buying/selling houses that we figured we could handle it. After being on the market for 20 days, we received and accepted a full price offer. We just closed the deal last week and should have our money in a couple days. The process was smooth and easy, and we are ecstatic with the amount of money we saved by not using an agent.

Of course, since the house sold so quickly, this means that we're homeless until the new house is complete, so we're staying with my mom. So far so good...The new place should be ready mid-late October.