Final update on house #2

Well... we lost the house. They accepted another offer, so I guess we'll be going for round 3. Hopefully third time's the charm. Please pray for patience and wisdom about when to make another visist down south to look around. I'll be in Nicaragua from April 23 to May 6, so hopefully in the meantime LOTS of new great houses will come on the market. Thanks for your prayers on this house!

Waiting on the Lord,
Jim and Ally

Upate on house #2

We made an offer on the house last Monday (4-6-09) and set our deadline at 6PM on Wednesday, but we didn't hear back from them by then. We knew they were probably waiting to get back with us becuase they were hoping for multiple offers. And lo and behold, when they did finally get back with us Friday afternoon at about 4:30, it was to tell us that there were now multiple offers and they wanted our best and final by Monday at 9AM. BLAH!!! Hmmm... that left us NO business hours to work with our bank on the whole loan thing. (This whole thing has been pretty sketch!) So we prayed about it and talked about it, and Jim and I felt at peace offering the asking price. That was Monday (4-13-09), and we're still waiting for an answer. Please pray for patience for us as well as God's will for our future home, wherever it may be! Thanks!

Blessings,
Jim and Ally

Home front update

We got back last night from a long weekend of looking at houses. It was a lot different having Jim with me down there. We had selected about 12-14 houses to look over the weeekend, and intended to look at 4-5 on Friday, the rest on Saturday and save Sunday afternoon and Monday morning for revisiting our favorites and possibly making an offer. Jim was much more... ummm... sure of what he liked or didn't like. This meant that with most of the houses we walked into Jim was ready to leave very quickly, so we ended up seeing all but two houses the first day. Only one of those seemed promising to Jim and I had a definite "UN-peace" about that one, so we decided not to make an offer.

Thankfully, Kimberly, our friend and wonderful realtor found about 5-6 more houses for us to look at on Saturday, and low and behold, the second one we saw that day seemed like a keeper. It is in a nice neighborhood where most of the houses are out of our price range, but since it's a forclosure, the price is right in our target range! There are some definite updates that could be done (especially in the front and back yards), but the house has been freshly painted and new carpet installed, so it would be move-in ready! It is in the perfect location for Jim's commute (or at least as good as it's gonna get.) and the neighborhood has a pool, tennis courts and a lake! Jim and I did decide to put an offer in, and we should know by tomorrow night at the latest if the bank will accept/reject our offer or counter it.

Check out the pictures (sorry... I didn't do the best job with them this time), and let me know what you think. Please keep us in your prayers as we wait to hear from the bank.

Giving Him the glory in all that we do,

The Garrisons

View from the street.

A closer view of the front.

Here, I'm standing at the front door looking in. To my left is the formal sitting room (below), to the right are the stairs, and straight ahead is the kitchen, breakfast room and den.

Standing in the formal living room. To my right is the front door (above) and to the left is the formal dining room (below).

(You can just barely see into the kitchen to the right of the dining room.)

(Above) This is the view through the formal dining room doorway into the kitchen.

This is the kitchen. The formica counter tops are new, as well as the linolium flooring. And I LOVE the window over the sink... I NEED light in my house!

This is the den.

Here's the half bath, which is basically in the foyer on the left just before you walk into the kitchen.

This is the master bedroom (bad picture!). It's a small master (14'8''x 14'4"), but the master bathroom and closet (both below) are nice.

(Standing outside the master bedroom looking down the hall.)

If I keep walking down the hall, on my left is the first and largest guest room (above) and to my right the laundry closet (below).

Next I pass the hall bath on my right (above) and two more guest rooms on my left and right respectively (below).

Here's the back yard. It is defnitely not large, but it's great for a first house. The property is only about .22 acres total. It is very uneven, so we would do a lot of work to it, which Jim is thrilled about because he has been dying to have a yard that he can work in! (I know... wierd right!)