house hunting

Mr Tripp and I have started looking at houses. YEH! I'm worried that we are going to wake up one day and our house will be filled with Teenaged boys and pre-teen girls and littler kids(if God chooses to bless us again) and that all the kids and toy and laundry and crap will eat us alive. Mr. Tripp agreed to start looking just so we could see what's out there and get a feel for prices and neighborhoods. Really I didn't even know what I wanted in a house but after seeing about 5 home I'm starting to get an idea. Mr. Tripp told me to make a list of my top 10 things I want in a home.

1. A BIG newer kitchen with eating area.

cooking for 7 or more 3 times a day calls for some work space.

2. Mud room or extra room in the garage to set up a mud room.

coats, backpack, shoes, boots, hat, glove and other crap for all the kids take up a tone of space.

3. 4-5 bedrooms. 4 would work, 5 would work better.

4. A neighborhood that the kids could ride bike and we can go for family walks in with out fear of heavy traffic OR land that we could make walking and bike paths on.

5. 3 bathroom and they need to have double sinks in them. We have lots of teeth to brush.

6. closets and storage. I think good storage space is just as important as good living space.

7. 1st floor laundry. need I say more.

8. A big family room/ living room/ grand room. What ever you want to call it. I want it to hold all of us. We like to be together and I hate the thought of us scattering to all different rooms of the house just so we have space to function.

9. open floor plan. I like to see or at least hear were my kids are and what they are doing.

and the cherry on top of all of these things would be

10. a sewing room for me and a man cave for Mr. Tripp to hang is dead heads in.

Last night we looked at a house that had all of my top 10 plus SO MUCH MORE! With the finished basement it over 4000 sq. feet of living space. It would take us years and years and years to fill that puppy up.

4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, with double sinks in two of them. 3 car garage, work shop, HUGE laundry room, big eat in kitchen plus a dinning room. I could go on and on. I really like this house. The down side of it all is it on the wrong side of town. The north side to be precise. Don't get me wrong the north side of Jackson is nice, we just really wanted to stay in the southern past of the county. All of our family live on the south side plus our church, doctors, the YMCA are down here too and the kids would have to do a school change or I would have to drive 15 min one way to get them to school. I know 15 min isn't bad but we live 3 min from there school right now. Also we already have a house so we would need to sell or rent out our house. We could do both house payments but I wouldn't want to do it for long.

It's a foreclosed home, sad. It needs a new roof ($8000), new appliances ($5000), new paint and doors ($2000), and lots of little work that could done here and there. it's listed for $167,900. Since its bank owned the bank will be taking multiple offers so it could be a price war. It's safe to say that with repairs and a down payment this house would eat all of our savings plus some and I don't like that at all.

Mr. Tripp and I have a lot to talk about this week end. I'm not getting my hopes up about the house, however I am praying that God shows me his will in all of this. I know that new home or old home, North side or south side, Vandercook or North West, no matter what the decision is, it need to be one that glorifies My Maker and furthers his kingdom, not mine.

xxoo