our house... in the middle of our street..our house...

Mostly I just wanted to write that I am mere DAYS away from being able to post before/after shots of most of the inside of my house. I'm sure this is not anywhere near as exciting for you as it is for me, but man, does it feel good.
We bought this house in mid-January. It was disgusting, to say the least. It was built in 1974 and had ALL of the original decor. I'm talking harvest gold countertops, flower-power wall paper, shag carpet in every color of the rainbow, even an avocado green shower! Whoa. Sick. Not only was it never updated, it was rarely cleaned. Ew. Sicker. But for some reason, we bought it anyway. (That's a joke, btw).
So maybe you're wondering- just why DID we buy the house? The house had lots of appeal to us, really. We came and looked at it early in our house hunting, which was many months before we bought the house, but there was just way too much work to be done, and it was already outside of our price range. Speaking of which, let me remind you... my husband works full-time for a church, and I'm a stay-at-home-mom, so our price range was not large, to say the least. And let me also add that we live in one of the wealthiest areas of Indiana, so the houses within our price range... few and far between. Unless we wanted to live in tha' hood, anyway. But back to our house.
We ended up putting offers in on two (or was it three?) different houses in this nearby neighborhood. It was less than 10 minutes from the church (which we were wanting) and outside of Marion County (which we preferred- b/c of ridiculous taxes). The homes were all built within the last 7 or so years, so they were in pretty good condition. The houses appraised nearly $30,000 above what we would've paid for them - but this was because they were repo's. Anyway, we got outbid (and we offered asking price!) and didn't get any of them in that neighborhood. Poo. We were looking at probably 5-7 houses once a week, for months. Fast forward a little while, and Jordan has a dream about this house. That morning, he tells me he thinks we should go look at it again. I liked it well enough, it was just too expensive, but I agreed we'd go. Come to find out later that day, the house had dropped $15,000 in price! Whoa Mama! All of a sudden, it was seeming very possible.
Long story short, we come back and quickly decide this is it, this is the one we want. After months (literally) of all kinds of junkola with ESCROW and blah blah blah, it was ours.
Oh yeah- I'm supposed to be writing why we wanted this house...
First of all, it's not in a one-on-top-of-the-other, cookie-cutter neighborhood, which is verrrrry rare around here, and especially within our price range. It also sits on .75 of an acre. This is really small if you're from the country like me, but it's giant compared to the .17 that one of the houses we put in offer on had. It also has cornfields across the street and behind the house, instead of rows of other houses. It's much bigger than most of the other houses we looked at, at just at 2000 sq. ft. It has lots of 'living room' type areas... two sunken living rooms, a was-dining-room converted office, eat-in kitchen. It has three bathrooms. It has a woodburning fire place. The master bedroom is ginormous, and I'm not kidding. It's split level with a biiiig sitting area, a built in vanity, two closets, a balcony off of it, and a full bath. Never mind the fact that the balcony is referred to as the 'death deck' and the shower in the master bath has never even been opened by me.. and the sink is only used to clean paint brushes....and it's avacado green haha. But you can see, there was some potential.
It's wrap around brick on the bottom, and it used to have rotting wood (yes, really) on the top... however, we re-sided it prior to moving in. We ripped out all of the shag carpet and replaced it with a nice tan frieze (sp?). We've painted (and already re-painted!) every inch of this place. And we also began the daunting task of painting all of the stained wood trim to white. I've spent several days this week taping and priming trim, chair rail, etc. and am almost finished. My goal is to be completely done with ALL painting downstairs by Tuesday night. Anyway, we laid ceramic tile in the kitchen, replaced the countertops, sinks, etc. We peel-n-stick tiled the downstairs half-bath, and just this weekend, the upstairs main bath. We also installed a pedastal sink downstairs, along with new light fixture and mirror. Oh yeah, we've replaced all light fixtures every where in the house, and have doorknobs and light switches that have yet to be installed. A few weeks ago, we replaced all of the windows. And friends, we are darn near being finished with the big, main things!
Phew.
I'm tired just thinking about it all. :)
So later this week, when things ARE done down here, I WILL post pictures. But... don't hold your breath, okay?? I do have a 16 month old with a double ear infection, I am nearly 8 months pregnant (!!), my little brother is starting chemo on Monday, family is coming in Tuesday night, and we will be gone Wednesday through Sunday... so there's lots of 'life' happening this week. But feel free to leave me a comment, cheering me on. :) I'd just LOVE to be able to check some things off of my working 'to do' list.