Playing at the toy store

More climbing

Ty at Congress Park

Eating an apple while swinging

House Hunting Story

Some of you may already know this story, but I thought I'd fill everyone in. Tim and I made the difficult decision about coming back to Denver. We loved San Francisco, but really missed the more casual Colorado lifestyle. So, we initially targeted "traditional" Denver neighborhoods that had mostly turn of the century homes. They are lovely and have the added benefit of being close to downtown. But, after looking at many of these lovely homes, they didn't seem like a fit for us.

So, I googled...and googled...and googled. We thought about building a new modern home, a la Dwell, but that's pretty pricey and it could take years to find an empty lot. Most new developer modern housing is multi-unit...this means I would share walls with other people. There is no way in hell I will ever do that again!

And then I tripped on a cool local blog - www.denmod.com - It's actually a blog by a mortgage broker who includes blog posts about modern homes and building in Denver. I think he just has the blog as a marketing tool for his brokerage, but he had links to fun stuff. It turns out that Denver has a few neighborhoods of mid-century modern homes...homes built in the 1950's to mid 1960's and they are very cool...a little bit like the Eichler communities in California and 1950's neighborhoods in Palm Springs. After we got a taste of this, we (especially Tim) couldn't go back.

We found an agent who specializes in mid-century modern homes (aka mid-mods) in Denver ...we have had great fun looking at great homes. Most mid mods are on the small side. Houses were built much more modestly in the 1950's...the concepts of walk-in closets and McMansions didn't exist. But, the houses typically have great light and expansive feeling.

So, we put an offer on a very small house in the subdivision of Arapahoe Acres. Arapahoe Acres is one of the few federally designated historical neighborhoods from the 1950's. Here is a link to the history. If you'd like to take a virtual tour of the neighborhood, someone has taken pics and published most of the houses on Flickr at this link.

Here is an old picture of the house we are buying. It is called the Pounds House for the original owners. These are not the current colors, but it's close.


We are under contract, but still have to go through inspections, surveys, blah, blah, blah. Because it is such a tiny house, we are planning to do an addition. We won't change any of the front of the house and are trying to restore the home to most of its original finishes, like natural wood finishes, unfinished concrete block and all natural materials. The last owners did some unfortunate "updating" that we'll be ripping out soon.

I'll be setting up a sister blog to document the "fun" of our remodeling project. So, stay tuned!

Playing in the woods

More swings

Just Waiting

Well, we made an offer on a house last week. The sellers countered. We countered back. They missed the counter-counter deadline. But, the listing agent stalked our agent after ignoring her for a week. Sellers verbally agreed to our final price, but their delay allowed panic and anxiety to sneak into our psyche...so much work to do on this tiny little cool house. But, we submitted the new offer based on the verbally agreed upon price. Now we wait.

Then inspections, surveys, appraisal...fun, joy, laughter. Right.

What's after? Move in, get our stuff from storage in San Francisco, get architectural plans for addition/remodel done, get bids from contractors, select least annoying and trustworthy contractor, move out of house into temporary house/apartment, remodel, try not to stress and then move back into home that is hopefully perfect for us. Why all of this work? Because we are way crazy! But, we are optimistic. :>

And, to document this crazy project, I'll be launching a sister blog...coming soon!

Where is Ty in this picture? Running crazy...I think screaming at me in Russian...growing constantly (35 inches tall now), showing major attitude, but dishing out major hugs and kisses. Ahhh, the balance. He is officially no longer a baby, but a toddler now. So sad and so fun.

Swinging

Trying to climb like the bigger kids

Climbing like crazy

Sitting still for a change

Riding the chipmunk at Congress Park