A house!

We have found a house!

I had to wait to tell you until we'd signed the rental papers and paid our deposit so it was in fact guaranteed to be ours, but OH, we found a home. And let me tell you waiting to blog about it has been killing me. I've been dreaming about this home all week since we saw it!

Actually doing anything other than moving in has been hard, my mind is swimming with this house. I'm captivated by it currently...and by the idea of making it mine and making it beautiful. 

So without further ado, our new home! On Chester Street on the North East side of 41st and Fraser. 

Me in front of the house

We have the entire house; top and bottom levels.

A large L shaped living room/dining room!

And 3 bedrooms upstairs, as well as one and a half bathrooms and the Kitchen.

The kitchen is nice and big. 

It's a bit older decoratively but tons of space, storage and appliances.

There's also a patio off the eating area for BBQ's and outside eating. Love!

The entrance way will be a fun project to work on at a later date.

Downstairs there is a family room, two storage rooms, a laundry room, one bathroom, 3 bedrooms and the garage. That's what you call a rad basement.

I am in love. 

A couple weeks back I wrote a post about what we wanted in a new house.

Here are those wants again:

• 4+ bedrooms - but oh do I long for 5 or more in reality. YUP
• Dishwasher!!!! YUP
• Laundry INSIDE (not outside like we deal with now) YUP
• A whole house and yard (though we would do top half if everything else was ideal) YUP
• More than one living space in the home - we need two separate seating areas so that we can do separate small group times at lifegroup YUP
• A house built to host - we want to throw parties, feed lifegroup, have family dinners and invite the church and the world into our home. YUP
• A kitchen with space, though anything bigger than what I currently have now would be a win, that's for sure. YUP
• A pantry area YUP
• A storage area YUP
• Room for our deep freeze YUP
• Little nook's throughout the house for storage, cozy seating and random awesomeness YUP
• Shed/Garage for projects and storage YUP
• Backyard! Nope but there's an elementary school out back
• Patio! OH! BBQ's and dinners YUP
• Bathroom in Master Bedroom! YUP
• A space for an office for Paul - whether that's a room or a quiet corner or a space in our bedroom - he needs a place that he can leave all his stuff out, be alone and just study/work. And maybe a room laid out such that we could have a little seating nook so we can have privacy. YUP

That's only one "Nope" people! And that was one of the lower priorities for us. We are in awe. 

Because we have 6 bedrooms we'll be able to rent out two through the International Student Homestay Program with Langara, keep two for ourselves (bedroom and office) and use the last two to rent for good prices for students that we know and want to invite into our home for decent room and board. We are ecstatic. 

I've got so many decor ideas for the house but I'll leave those for another post. Because oh man, it's going to be awesome and you need to not be overwhelmed with the rest of this. 

So lets see, what other details must I tell you? Well as of January 1st we hope to have two Langara students move in with us. We will be keeping our eyes open for another student or two who might want to join our family for a while. 

This house's location isn't what we'd been looking for but couldn't be more perfect. It's at Fraser and 41st on Chester Street. My sister lives at Main and 41st, a bunch of our friends and family live around 53rd and Fraser and our church is halfway between Main and Fraser on 41st. There are even more friends and church family located in what we call "The Hood". This is roughly 41st to 57th, Main to Knight and man, a lot of our community is crammed into that area. We will know be living much closer to a huge percentage of our church population. 

Not to mention the DQ at Fraser and 43rd or Bubble tea at Fraser and 41st. Yay!

Also the 41 and the 43 buses both go down 41st Avenue and head straight to UBC, so both Paul and Laura have an easy commute to school. As well you can see Langara College is not too far from us on 49th and will be great for students that want to do Homestay. 

We are renting the house as of January 1st but they are graciously letting us start sooner than that - Paul finishes classes on the 14th so we'll be heading in to paint that week and the weekend of the 22nd (last weekend before Christmas) we will officially move in! 

To say we are pleased would be an understatement. We're freaking stoked. 

So be prepared for more moving and decorating blogs to come, because I am dreaming of our new house!