It's Official!

We are under contract for our new house. We didn't want to blog this until we were certain, but it's official. We will be closing on 20 July and moving in on 22 July. This is the most beautiful house. It's in perfect condition; we had to really look hard to find anything wrong with it, and all we found were a couple of barely noticable cracks and a broken retaining wall, which we'll fix in the fall when the tree next to it is dormant so we can trim its roots at the same time. The house is currently owned by its original owner, an architect/city planner, who changed the builders' plans to make it original and better-planned. When we walked through with our agent, who is incredible by the way and whose contact information we're happy to pass along should anyone be looking for a realtor in the Atlanta area, he kept remarking that the builders put in a lot of thoughtful details that most don't even consider. He used to work for a builder, so he noticed many thing that we wouldn't have noticed. He gave it an easy 95 out of 100 as far as all of the houses he's seen, taking off for the retaining wall most likely. When the realtor's amazed, you know you're onto something. We were also totally floored from the second we walked into the house, and as soon as we saw the magnolia tree in the front yard, we knew that it was a sign from above. Our dream of our southern house was to have a big porch and a magnolia tree in the yard. We've got both.

Anyway, it has 3 bedrooms and one of the most spacious kitchens we've ever seen. It's on between 3/4 and 1 acre of land, most of which is woods. The guest room is spacious, and the master bathroom is amazing. The jetted tub is in front of wall-to-ceiling windows looking into the woods. The top of the shower is open so that outside light gets in - it's a brilliant design. In fact, the kitchen/breakfast area bay windows and the family room windows are floor-to-ceiling and facing the woods, also. Because the house is on a cul-de-sac, we can't see our neighbors at all from the back deck. The landscaping is gorgeous, and there are many places we will be able to plant gardens and flowers. It's a perfect southern home out in horse country. It's also in Civil War territory, near a significant battlefield of the Atlanta campaign, Kennesaw Mountain. We wonder whether there might be some war artifacts on our property. It will be fun looking!

Gabriel is really going to love this place. He is finally getting his own room [which means that we're finally getting our own room!], and he will have the woods to explore and lots of places nearby where we can go to do fun stuff. Besides the Civil War stuff, there's a Six Flags, a water park owned by Six Flags, a great park (Oregon Park), and lots of fantastic hiking [not to mention that for us, there's some great upscale shopping and a really good farmers' fruit "stand" (little store)]. We can imagine him doing his homework at the kitchen counter while Dad reads the paper and Mom bakes bread. This house is perfect for all three of us.

Here are some more photos; all were taken from the listing realty company's web site:

Living room

Master bedroom

Dining room