You best keep up.

The Show Low House.  After.

We have exciting news to share about the Show Low house.  Click here.

The Heber House.  Before.  Me.  Before I gave birth to Mikael.

Other house projects are coming.....the Heber house has been waiting very patiently.  I vote we transform her next.

So, just so you aren't lost......Exciting news about the Show Low house posted here.  The Heber house is still very ugly.  We are dusting off our tools and ripping magazine pages out for inspiration.  And we still live here, in the Snowflake house.  Everyone with me?  Good.

You blink and you'll miss something.  If you haven't been clicking here, then you are missing stuff.  Good stuff.

You best keep up.

The Show Low Project - Before and .....

Jace showed me this beauty on the internet weeks before we bought it.  And as usual I thought to myself and said to him, "No thanks."  But as we pulled up to the house one sunny late summer day - it came to me.  Yes!  I remember now.  I remember this place.  This neighborhood.  This house.  My childhood.

My sunny childhood took place just down the street from this house.  I rode my bike down this dirt road.  I hid in it's dark places during summertime capture the flag marathons.  I later would speed by this house in my Toyota truck - late for 1st hour english or work at Dairy Queen.  This house very quickly became near and dear and FULL of potential.

You may remember Jace leaving my side and closing the deal on this day.  My newborn baby is now 5 months old.  Mikael and the house have grown and changed so much.

Well, the after picture you ask?

Follow me here. 

My new blog will feature all the before and after pictures of the Show Low house, future houses, and maybe a few oldies.  We will talk houses, paint colors, Jace's good ideas, Lindsay's better ideas, and it will not require an invitation...so spread the good word. 

You now have a front row seat to the tears, the sweat, the swear words, and the work that we call our life day job.

What I learned in Realtor school

Back when Jace and I were very first married I took a job at a little place called Homestore. I worked as technical support in a department called Realtor.com. Here I took calls from realtors all over the U.S. They would call to complain about how slow their computer was. Or call to tell me that their listing on 5th Street was actually a 3 bedroom home and not a rental in the trailer park down the street. I would kindly explain to them that all the information was information they submitted - if your listing is wrong on Realtor.com, then go fix it in the MLS.

Then I would go throw up in the toilet.

Not because I thought Realtors were very unsmart because I did but because I was pregnant with a little miss Macy. But ya....It was here that I started developing ideas about Realtors.

I thought that there must be a place somewhere where they hand out real estate licenses, for any taker to take.

So, when Jace suggested last spring during the sale of our Chandler barn-home that I should save us some future $ and go to Realtor school, I thought sure, why not? I signed my 5 month pregnant self up for the 2 week course.

And? Did I meet unsmart Realtors and future unsmart Realtors there? Yep. Sure did.

But as I walked the streets of downtown Scottdale on my breaks I had to admit that Realtor school was tough. Really tough. 90 hours of law school/language trickery/boredom. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't done any schooling for 9 years. Or maybe all the blood that should have been going to my brain was instead nourishing my unborn fetus but regardless I was nervous and quickly changing my mind about Realtors. That was a TON of information to memorize in a two week period.

My exam was scheduled on the same day as our closing date. That is the day you have to pack up your house and drive away (for all you who did not attend Realtor school). Nothing like a little pressure for little Lindz. I was cussing Jace and all his great ideas.

But I passed! On the first try. Jace patted my back and told me he wasn't nervous for a minute. And if my embarrassed memory serves me right, I think I texted my scores to everyone in my phone. I was ready to sell some real estate people.

So what did I learn in Realtor school, you ask?

Not a clue. Don't remember.

p.s. The home for sale in the above photo? You are going to la la love it. I want to move into it. But Jace wishes someone else would. Come back for some amazing before and afters. She's a beauty.

By the way....

We live in Heber these days. Jace sold my house in Chandler. We had talked about it for months and in the end he won. Again.


But the hotter it gets and the more pregnant I get, the smarter I think that man is and his decision to take the check and run. Home. To the cooler mountain air.


Life has slowed down. Most days we are bored to tears in Heber. Ezra wants nothing more than to "go home" on most days and "see his Imran" (our 35 year old Chandler neighbor). And the older children attempt to give each other wedgies all day. Long.



But life is good. I loved my barn house. My neighborhood in Chandler. My neighbors. My ward. My children's school. But I have had zero sadness (except for you, Addie). My children now swim in their underwear on our weekend fishing trips.


And one of the main topics of conversation these days is...

HER.

We are getting a "sister" baby. We can't wait to meet her and as Ezra says see her "tinsy toes."

Oh, what to name her?

This summer's forecast doesn't predict very many more bored days. Jace and I have purchased some fixer uppers. Oh, how we love a challenge. Before pictures coming soon. After pictures following soon after.

If I could've taken out a full page ad.....

It would have said this:

My sister's house is for rent.

I currently reside in it and man am I lucky.

I fell in love on day 1. Remember?

I don't want to go. I want to stay.

Notice the sidewalks. The grass. The big blue door.

Does your current back porch boast of a bed swing?













And a dog named Girl? We would have to leave her. It just wouldn't be right to take her from her like 5th or 6th home she's had the Baums. Besides it's not her fault we are in a ressesion. There will be No extra cost for the dog.


I love the light in the morning.





Doesn't every child dream of a playroom with the words chicken and cacciatore painted on the wall?

Adorable painted walls in every room.






With the built in entertainment center in the master bed room, Jace and I have found other things to do at night when the kids are asleep.

Instead my ad in the newspaper reads something like this:

4bdrm/2bth, 2car garage, landscaped yds, quiet cul-de-sac,

steps away from Snflk Temple & golf course. no smoking.

no inside pets. $1000/mo. call Kirsten or Lindsay.

But you can leave a comment.

You can spread the word.

You can reunite a family and help a girl far away in Wisconsin.

You can rent the house.

Better yet, you can buy the dang thing then You would never have to leave it, like I do.

Kirsten, I'm falling in love with your house.

Ezra, meet grass. Grass, meet Ezra's thankful/sticker free feet.

Bikes have been dusted off and have carried children away to strange places known as "neighbor's homes".

We experience bedroom wars almost nightly but this is what it looks like when it's all over.

And of course, living in the shadow of this.

One could really convert to this paved road, landscaped yards, livestock free, in town way of life.

I'm half tempted to buy the dang thing.

Jace, what do you say?