We're heeeeeeeeeeeeere!

Well we're officially in the rental!  We spent the last two weeks moving in... slowly.  Thanks to all the parents for helping big time on the weekends!  We do still have some things at the old house hanging out in the garage... but not much.  I'll give you a small tour of the new place as we finish unpacking each room.  All the rooms are pretty sparse, as we don't plan on really decorating due to not being here long.  

Here is a shot of the living room.  We're in a split foyer, so it's a pretty open concept upstairs when it comes to the living/dining areas.  The bedrooms are pretty tiny, so that's our armoire and nightstand from our bedroom set.

 Now that chandelier is TOTALLY NOT our style, but seriously... how cute would that look all painted up in a little girl's bedroom?!  Hmmmm... perhaps I can make a deal with the owners. :)

 

 Our room.  Berkley's little bed BARELY fits between our bed and the dresser, but it works.

 This is Berkley's room.  She actually has the biggest room... ironic I know.  To be honest, our furniture and the girls' bunk bed just fit better in the other rooms due to window placement.  I didn't want Reese and Emma Grace falling out of windows... can you imagine?  Oy.  We're also not too worried about window treatments in here yet.  She's not sleeping in here right now, and we're not too excited about spending money on window treatments, when we'll be leaving.  Trying to save the funds for the new house.

 Here is Reese and EG's room.  By far the smallest, but all of their toys are in the basement... which is not photograph-able at this point. :)

 Hopefully we'll get to start taking pictures of the progress at the property soon... should be breaking ground by the end of the month!

What are the odds?

Here is our floor plan... (there is also an unfinished basement that is the same size as the entire main floor... minus the garage.  Originally the basement section under the fourth bedroom is just a crawlspace, but we've asked to have that be part of the full basement for our "panic room/storm shelter."  I know I know... a panic room?  Before last spring/summer, Blacksburg has never had so much as a warning/watch for a tornado.  With all of the crazy weather that's been happening in our country recently, I've ended up under the stairs with the girls TOO MANY times.  We had horrible tornadoes less than 30 minutes from here, and it just wasn't sitting well with us.  We'll use the area, which will be completely underground and storm proof, to store any storm supplies we may need.) i'm in love with it!  There are some little things we'll be changing.  Like on the main floor, we'll be adding french doors to the living room, which will be used for Bryan's office.

 

Here is the top floor.  The bonus room over the garage will be Reese and Emma Grace's bedroom... they've requested to share again. :)  You'll notice there is no closet.  They'll be sharing the closet in bedroom #3 with Berkley.  You'll notice it's broken into three sections naturally, so it should work nicely.  We'll also be closing in the 2 story foyer, so we'll have more square footage.  After a lot of discussion, and realizing I wouldn't be able to convert any of the closets, that open area upstairs will probably be used as my "office."  A place I can scrapbook, sew, blog, BE AWAY FROM THE CHILDREN FOR 5 MINUTES. :)

 

It just so happens that our dear friends JUST bought a house in a neighboring town with the EXACT SAME FLOOR PLAN!  Well, almost. :)  There are 3 models of our home... Patrick Henry A, B, and C.  Our friends have the A.  C (which is ours) has about 2 extra feet in the dining room/living room and a bonus room over the garage, but other than that... just about identical.  We went to visit them the other day to pick up some cardboard boxes and to check the place out.  Laura was nice enough to let me take pictures, but I promised I wouldn't post them because they are still moving in. :)  I did want to share some of the fun things that the house has that I'm super excited about!  

First... the kitchen... check out that fun cabinet!  It holds bread... orrrrrr... I don't know... whatever else you would put in there, but I thought it was awesome. :)

The cabinets even have these cool pull out shelves!

This is the 2 story foyer taken from the upstairs.  We'll have a floor here and no balcony... it'll just be another part of the upstairs just without a door.  I think we've decided this would be a nice place to put the Christmas tree too, so you could see it from the road!  Yes, we're already thinking of tree placement. :)

Here is the closet that will be in Berkley's room.  3 separate sections... PERFECT for our 3 little ladies.

 

This is part of the master bathroom, which is HUGE.  These are the mini french doors (I guess that's what they are.) that go into the master bath.  I love the extra cabinet in the middle on the vanity!  Lots of storage.

The laundry room is on the second floor, which I love and think is so convenient.  All the laundry stays on one floor and will most likely get put away instead of sitting in baskets in the living room for 3 days. :)

Here's a picture from Pinterest of the perfect makeover for this space... I can't wait!  I'd like to add a fold down table/platform on the left hand side where I can fold laundry.

And finally the unfinished basement.  Ours will be converted into the man cave.  The plan is to house Bryan's bar and pool table down there, amongst other things.  It will also have another spare bedroom, the storm shelter, and an extra bathroom.  The plan is for it to have another set of french doors that lead out to the backyard under the deck.

It was exciting to get to see the plans in real life... thank you Lu and Co.! :)

Clearing out

We're slowly clearing out.  My dad and Kate came into town this past weekend, and they were SUCH A GREAT help.  I can't tell you how many loads of stuff we took over to the rental.  The plan is to hopefully get the rest of it moved this coming weekend.  My mom will be in town to help, and then Bryan's parents will be coming with their truck.  We have a few big things left, but all that's left are all the little random things and food.  Here is the progress we've made so far...

 

 Here's where things get humorous.  We haven't had any time to keep up with the weed situation.  If we were still on the market, you better believe we'd MAKE time to keep it looking stellar.  Frankly pulling weeds that belong to someone else is not on my radar.  Mr. and Mrs. Leng will be very busy. :)

 

We're almost done with Operation Move #1!

Less than a month...

 Less than a month until we close.  Thank god we sold before this baby got here because this is how we are currently living...

 FILTHY I tell you.  All because of this little thing...

 We have yet to sign our lease for our rental but are set to begin moving in on the 15th.  I've been packing my little heart out, but Baby Berkley tends to only give me a couple of hours in the morning.  Still a ways to go for sure.

As far as the build... we've made our changes to the blueprints, had the land inspected for the placement of the house, and the septic people did some testing as well.  Bryan has been working on cutting some small trees down.  The plan is to break ground some time in June. 

But before that happens... Operation Move No. 1.