House for Sale in Salem Connecticut

We are ready for the market.  As I took pictures of our house - I realized that I am really going to miss this place.

So - anyone out there looking for a great house we have one for you!!

We have a great family room with wood floors and wood blinds.

We have put up beautiful ceiling fans and love the recess lighting.

It has 6 windows just in the family room alone!  So much light.

We have a great kitchen that opens to the family room.  We have stainless steel appliances (among them a brand new dishwasher....grrrr) with maple cabinets.  It has a window that looks out into the backyard so I can keep an eye on the kids.

We have a large dining room that leads out onto our large patio.  The whole downstairs has wood floors and tile.

 We have a living room, but we use it as an office in our house.  It is a huge room and our office furniture fits perfectly in there.

Our second floor has 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms (the half bathroom and laundry are on the first floor).

Our master bedroom is perfect size with a great master bathroom.  We have a walk in closet, and attic space.  We put in a new ceiling fan and wood blinds.  Love this room.

Cainan's room is a great size and has a really nice closet and wood blinds.

My two girls share the other bedroom which is huge!  It has two large closets and three windows.  It is definitely a room built for two people or a REALLY lucky teenager.  :)

Our finished basement is our favorite room in the house.  We just laid the pergo floors and painted the walls.  It is cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and a perfect space for a playroom, a game room, or even another bedroom.  The mudroom and more storage is down there as well.  Love that mud room.

Our house is 2400 SF with a 600 SF basement. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms.  An amazing farmers porch and 20x20 back patio.  We have 2 acres of cleared land, and 7 acres of land that we leave to your imagination.  It is NOT protected land - you can mow over the whole 9 acres if you want, which I love.  It is yours to do with as you please.  Our property is part of a neighborhood, but is also very private.  We are on a cul-de-sac.  Our neighborhood is full of families and kids and is just such a great place to live.  9 ACRES!!  Totally amazing.  You can always add more houses - you can't make more land.  Land is a HUGE commodity.

I should have been a realtor!  Ha.  I took pictures of the outside of the house a few days ago, so if you miss those, just go back a few post!

Salem is a beautiful place to live.  It is a small town where everyone cares about everyone else.  We are 15 minutes to EVERYTHING.  It is in the perfect spot.  Where schools are top notch.  The people are amazing.  We are so sad we are leaving.  We are close to New York City, Boston, Hartford.  We are just as close to the ocean as we are the mountains.  You can't find a better place to live.

Lovely long weekend

The pictures in this post are from a neat little place we found near one of the towns we are looking to live in in Boston.  (what a run on sentence that was).  It is called Kimball Farms, and we were so excited because it has awesome ice cream just like the place near our current house.

I love three day weekends.

For us, lately, 3 day weekends mean just another day to work around the house. Getting our house ready for the market and for summer all at once.

This weekend has been busy from beginning to end. Saturday was full of activities for the kids, and then spending the entire day outdoors. The kids loved it - they played until the sun went down. Mat and I worked our butts off. We sanded the whole front porch to get it ready for staining. And we got the rest of the mulching done and general cleanup.

Sunday, Mat and I left bright and early for a repeat trip to Boston. We have three houses on our short list that we wanted to take another look at, and really talk about what we thought of these homes. We had our uber-fabulous babysitter, Carly, come and spend the day with the kids, and then our friend Susan Thomas after her to just watch the kids for the last hour before we got home. We cannot thank them enough for helping us out yesterday.

Mat and I were gone for about 9 1/2 hours yesterday. The trip up and back is 1 1/2 hours each way, but the rest of the time we were there with the houses and then driving from the neighborhoods to Mat's work. It is a huge decision, so we want to make sure it is just right.

We have found our favorite house. So - we will probably be making a bid soon, and see what happens. Not holding our breath, but hopeful none the same. We will share when we can!

Last night, when we returned from our long day, Mat and I spent a few hours putting the first coat of stain on the front porch. It was a big job, but it looks so great. It was really worth it. We are excited to add a little more "curb appeal" to our house before it goes on the market.

We went to bed last night sore, tired, but happy. We saw great houses. We got a lot of projects done on the house and we knew we STILL had a whole day to devote to the house before returning to work.

This morning, we woke up to rain. But, most of our projects we had are indoor projects anyway, so that was okay. And the kids have been doing well entertaining themselves today so we could get some work done.

I spent the day putting everything back into our attic space because during the house inspection everything had to be away from the walls. That was a 2 hour project putting it back! And aggravating knowing it will be coming back out again soon when we move.

And we cleaned. And Mat put the baseboards on in the basement playroom (yay). And we started a second coat on the porch between rain storms, but had to stop. We put the screens into the windows so we could get fresh air into the house. We cleaned all the windows. You name it - we did it inside today.

I am really proud of us. We are tired. And hot. But we are very nearly DONE. And from now on, it will just be regular cleaning to keep the house ready for showing. The last two projects we want to do are simple ones - power wash the back patio and clean out the gutters. It feels good to be almost done. This was a rough winter, and our spring has been so wet, that it seems late to be getting these things done. But they are going to be done in time for the house to be officially listed, and that is a huge plus.

Tomorrow, we drag ourselves back to work. But a four day work week isn't so bad.

Blogging hiatus

Just for two days.  I need to get the house in shape for the market!  I will be back on Monday.  Hopefully with some news from our Sunday house hunt and a picture of our newly stained front porch!!

When a House is a Home

Today, our real estate agent that is going to sell our property came by to look over the property and take pictures.

This is the real estate agent who actually was our buyer's agent when we moved to Connecticut.  We absolutely love her, and were excited that we could use her again on the sale of our home.

Today, as I walked her around the house - talking about what we have done to make the house ours, it reminded me about how more bitter than sweet this move is.  For the first time in the 8 places we have lived, I am most attached to this house.

I won't deny that I love this house.  I love what we have done to it to make it our home.  The people before us might not have loved it, but we do.  And we had so many more projects planned for it over the next few years.

But now, it will be someone else's house.  Someone else's project.  And that is a little sad.  For the first time I care if they change the paint.  Or don't like what we have done with the landscaping and the yard.  That they don't appreciate the finished basement we worked so hard on.  Or they don't love that the master bedroom is the perfect size.  That the area is quiet, and when I look out any of my 20 plus windows, I see nothing but green.  That the trees we have not cut down have meaning to us, and that is why we left them alone.  How proud we are of our stone walls on both sides of our property.  That Mat worked for a week straight on the firepit in the backyard and it is perfect.  That the back porch is big enough for the kids to ride bikes on.  That the farmers porch is a perfect size for rocking chairs on a cool summer evening. 

So - it is going to be hard to leave.  Hard to know that our hard work, especially outside, will be someone else's gain this time.  We will be leaving behind a little bit of our hearts in this house.

The previous 7 residences were just houses.  This was truly our first home.

So - if you are looking for a great house in a great neighborhood in Salem Connecticut, this property is for you.  9 acres of quiet, green, beautiful land and house.

Wordless Wednesday

Ouch

Around 1:30pm today, I got a call from Arlington's school nurse saying she had a minor accident on the playground.  Arlington, being super dramatic, was crying so hard that the nurse said she had a "good set of lungs".  Yeah.  That's our girl!

Anyway - she had tripped over herself on the blacktop near the playground and hurt her finger.  And when I said hurt it - she tore off most of the skin on the top including the nail.

I will pause while you cringe.

I am sure it hurt very, very badly.  And she does not like the sight of blood.  At all.  How she is related to me, I have no idea.  So she kind of freaked out and refused to let anyone touch it at first.  It was bleeding a lot, before the nurse got to her, and I don't think the teachers helped by telling Arlington her finger was "gushing blood".  I am sure that is when she lost it.

They called the nurse out of her meeting and calmed Arlington down.  Then they called me, and then I talked with Arlington.  She was calm, but not wanting to stay at school because it was hurting.  And she was traumatized.  So - Mat went and got her. 

If Arlington goes into the medical field, I will be surprised.  When I went to take the bandaid off tonight, she wouldn't look at it and started to cry immediately.  She wanted it covered right back up.  But hey - I have been a nurse for 14 years - blood and guts is my life.  I had to stare at it and really check it out.  It was kind of fascinating how she managed to do this by just falling down.  And I wanted to make sure it was clean.  She wouldn't let me touch it, but I did manage to put new antibiotic ointment on it, make sure it wasn't bleeding any more, and re-bandage before she became hysterical.

Oh, and I took a picture.

First - here is a picture of Arlington being dramatic - I had her turn on the full effect for the camera because otherwise, you wouldn't believe that she actually looked like this when I was just looking at her bandaid.

And - if you are squeamish - don't look at the next picture.  But this is our history, and that is what mom's do.  So just skip over it if you want.

Yeah.  I don't think she will be playing softball tomorrow.

Never.dull.