A house! With chickens!!

Ok, so I know I haven't posted about this before, but NOW IS THE TIME!  I didn't want to jinx it, or whatever.

So, we have a lot going on over here in casa della Karen.  School, kids, kids' schools, wedding, etc.  Well, we also want to move.  Yes.  Move.  While planning a wedding, taking care of two young kids and going to school and work full time.

We want a bigger house.  We're all on top of one another here, and I have no space of my own, which is a definite problem for me.  Sometimes, girlfriend needs a time out.  Also, the kids share a room here, and they drive one another bananacakes.  It's all the time with the fighting.  We wake up around 7:15 EVERY morning to "NOOO!!! GIVE IT BAAAAAACK!!!" *shrriiiiiiieeeeeeeeeek*  Plus, they have a hard time sleeping at night.  Their little room with their brother plus a buttload of toys is just too tempting for them.  They HAVE to get up and play or tease one another.  We need a place where they each have their own room, plus a playroom for all of their toys.  A playroom in the basement or at the opposite end of the house from my "quiet zone".  Plus, Eric needs a home office, and we need a basement for food storage.  We want to be mostly self-sustainable, which means we need land for gardening and space for canning/storage, etc.  Plus, I require a large bathtub or a bathroom that can be remodeled to fit a large bathtub.  And we need a garage.

So, it's a tall order.  A large house, at least 4 BRs plus den/office/bonus room plus basement, with at least a 2-car garage, a large master bath that can fit a garden tub if'n it doesn't have one already, and acreage to farm enough for a family of four, partly wooded lot pretty necessary, and in seclusion for the most part.  Good schools a plus, though I am willing to supplement education at home if need be.

We've been searching for a while, but with no real urgency.  We want to make sure we buy exactly what we want.  We plan on this new place being our permanent residence.  Where we live now is a starter home bought by Eric and his first wife, and we are past the "starter" stage.  As it is, a few weeks ago something happened that upped our urgency a bit.  I have a hard time feeling secure here.  I just plain don't like our neighborhood.  There are always droves of teens wandering around at night, plus my car got broken into in the driveway a few months after Eric and I met.  I don't like taking the kids to the playground because there's always nasty trash all over or awful graffiti that I don't want them reading.  Anyway, we got a note in our mailbox from a neighbor saying that he'd been beaten in his own home as a gang initiation.  Two young kids (he said between 13 and 15) rang his doorbell.  He thought they were selling candy or something for charity.  He answered the door, and they beat him senseless in his entry way while a gang of teenagers waited in a getaway car.  They didn't rob him, just beat him and took off.  This was in the court behind our house.  I now feel very afraid in my own home and haven't slept well since.  I check windows and doors over and over, and I keep getting up in the middle of the night and going out in the living room and just watching outside.  The kids are on the opposite sides of the house than we are right now, and I have a recurring nightmare that we can't get to them in time if something happens, an intruder or a fire, etc.  I want a house where their bedrooms are near ours.

We got our preapproval taken care of and have basically just been visiting homes online.  The last two weeks, we actually got in touch with our realtor (Molly Hadley with FC Tucker, awesomesauce, highly recommend, etc. etc. ad nauseum).  She's been very patient, seeing as we are on the far east side, and we are looking at homes on the far west/northwest sides of town.  Driving us all over western Indiana to search for our dream home.  I think we found it on Saturday.  The place is on 2.8 acres and already has its own fenced-in garden and CHICKEN COOP!  We get to have chickens!  Fresh eggs!!!  There's enough land that maybe I can get a goat, too.  Fresh milk!!  The land has loads of trees and is back off of the main road.  There's 4 bedrooms, the master and Little Man's bedrooms are right next to one another, and the Big Man's is in a loft nearby, close enough to get to an intruder before an intruder gets to him.  The fourth bedroom would be the playroom and is on the opposite end of the house than the master, for shrieky daytime activities, and it is big enough to put our older sectional sofa, plus a little table, plus their TV stand and DVD player/Nintendo, etc. and all of their toys, and the playroom has it's own attached bathroom.  There's a gorgeous sunroom that would be our office with an amazing view of the trees and large back yard from behind our desks.  The kitchen and laundry rooms are both enormous with TONS of storage and the exact appliances come with the house that we would have purchased.  There's also a little courtyard in the middle of the house where Milo would be safe to go outside without getting lost or attacked since he is the clawless wonder (as an aside, he has his head in the toilet right now taking a nice thirst-quenching drink.  Gross.)  The place has a 2-car garage with a loft above it for storage, and the garage has a large workshop for our "projects" haha.  It's heated and has air conditioning, too.  Now, the really, really cool part, is the basement.  These folks are ON IT.  They are into food storage, too, and they have already done a ton of the basement leg work for us.  They have built in shelves EVERYWHERE down there, AND there's a honest-to-goodness storm shelter.

So...PICTURES!

 The back deck and back yard.

 Front of the house.  Those amazing windows are amazing. 

 Garage/workshop, garden, CHICKENS!!

 The Little Man's room.  Right next to ours in this pretty gray color.

 Do I even need to say how amazing this kitchen is?  Windows! Light!!

 The Big Man's room!  He'll be getting my queen-sized bed.  Such a grown-up!

Sunroom/office.  My desk would be where that table is, and Eric's in front of the other window so we can look at the beautiousness while working.  Plus the wireless would reach onto the deck if we wanna work outside in the summer/spring.  Behind the wall from which the photo is taken are French doors that lead to the master.

 Playroom of awesomeness.

 Great room with stairs to Big Man's room and huge fireplace, exposed beam ceiling.

Master bedroom retreat.  Gooorgeous!  Check out that view!

We're gonna go look at it one more time with kids in tow to see if they feel comfortable and to measure some walls, etc. to make sure our furniture will fit, and if it all works out, we'll make an offer!  I'm so excited!!!!