A tour of our new place...

Okay, so A LOT of people have been asking me to post pictures of our new place and I've not done so because I wanted to finish decorating it. We still need to put up a few shelves, place our books that are in baskets for now back up on their bookshelves, hang pictures and organize our office before our place will feel completely like home to us... I realized today that this may take us some time to do, thus prolonging any posts about our new house, so, I decided done or not, I'll give you a show of our place. Hope you like it just as much as we do!

Outside front
(don't mind the white barrel next to our trash, it's our water for food storage- we keep forgetting to move it). Our place is a twin home, so we have neighbors on the left (I cut their home out of this picture).
Their home looks just like ours.
They're a nice young couple. They have a 3 year old little boy who is only 5 days older than Noah. They've played once briefly and seemed to get along pretty well. The boy is the father's from a previous relationship so he's only here every other week. Bummer. The wife's expecting another baby sometime in Spring.
We were worried since the place is a twin home that we would hear noise from our neighbors,
but we NEVER have!
Our little community is really nice. The grass behind our home is a common area all the neighbors in our development share. We each have our own HUGE patio that leads out onto the grass.
Our boys have a great time riding their bikes, scooters, and skateboards around the walking path.
Noah calls our new home "the house with the park".
Speaking of parks, the American Fork skate park is just around the corner from our house, along with two other city parks. We LOVE the location of our place-
everything we need is near by.
Some homes are still being built in our development, so I have yet to have met ALL of our neighbors because every week a new family moves in! The neighbors I have met around us are very nice, a few are from Fiji.
Funny story about our place: the company we leased it from didn't come to take their property sign down for the first month, so every day during that first month, any time I walked past a window I'd see couples driving up to our place because they saw the sign and would want to tour the house. Fortunately none came to the door but I had one or two couples try to get a peak into the house by peering through the back sliding doors. Imagine their shock when they saw me inside!
Fed up and sick of having strangers think that no one was living in our place, after one month I made Spencer and a friend knock down the post that held the property sign. The funny thing is, the following day, the management company finally came and got their sign. It sure took them long enough!

Front door
Quick story about the topiaries at my front door:
The day after we moved in was stormy with LOTS of wind and rain.
I'd gone somewhere and when I returned home I saw that one of my topiaries was on the grass off to the side our house. Immediately I thought it was some punk kids in the neighborhood who came by and threw it on the grass. I was FURIOUS! I got out my car after pulling into the garage and went over to the fallen tree and put it back in place. I swore that if I EVER caught the kid who tossed my tree across the yard I would give him a good scolding! Moving on, later that evening, I heard something fall over outside. I hurried outside to see what it was and found that it was the same topiary! It finally struck my that the fierce wind had knocked it over! I felt so retarded for jumping to conclusions earlier when I couldn't have been more wrong!
The front of our house is a wind alley!
Another night, Spencer had some of his friends over till midnight. I had already gone to bed before they finished doing what they were doing, so I just figured Spencer would "lock up" once he was ready for bed.
I didn't sleep well that night- all night I could hear the wind and the rain.
When I woke up that morning I found our front door wide open! Spencer didn't check the lock on the door before going to bed the night before and the wind had blown it COMPLETELY open during the night!
I wondered what the neighbors must had thought of us if they had seen us with our front door totally wide open that cold, rainy morning!

Front entry

(this is the what you see when you first walk in the door)
The stairs lead upstairs to the 4 bedrooms; they're pretty steep stairs- Ian's already taken a few tumbles down them. The two doors on the main floor lead to the coat and storage closet and the half bath for guests.

Common area

Nothing really separates the living room from the kitchen or the dining area; I like this feature because then I can keep an eye on the boys as I'm preparing meals.

Living room

The dining area
(our patio is behind the red curtains on the right)

A look at the kitchen and living area from another angle:
(the front entry is just beyond that arched doorway and the entrance to our garage is off to the right of the doorway- the other door next to the fridge is a food pantry).

The Kitchen

Top of the stairs

The boys playroom is the door off to the right that has giraffes hanging on it.
There are two more bedrooms and a bathroom down the hall on the left.
Mine and Spencer's bedroom is down the hallway that is directly in front- the laundry room is also down the same hallway.

1St bedroom- the playroom

2ND bedroom- the boys room

The 3RD bedroom- our office

Please don't judge us by our mess- hopefully soon we'll have it cleaned up.

The view from the office and the boys bedroom
We have a gorgeous view of the mountains and the American Fork Canyon from the upper story of our house- although in this picture you can't really tell because the clouds are covering them. The 4TH bedroom- mine & Spencer's room
Don't mind that box spring mattress propped up by our window- it's not usually there. We just had our new bed delivered yesterday and we still need to move the old mattress and box spring into our office
so guest can stay with us.
Our room is actually REALLY big, it just looks kind of small because the bed takes up most of the space in it, but trust me- it's a REALLY big bed. I don't think I'll have any more problems with Spencer elbowing me in the face during the middle of the night.

Master bath

The toilet and shower are behind the door off to the left and our walk in closet is behind the closed door directly in front. This bathroom is the size of a bedroom almost- it's HUGE! I love that we have a garden tub- maybe one day I'll get to use it- as for now, the boys have enjoyed taking their baths in it. Noah likes that can he can actually swim it it!

That last picture completes the tour of our house, minus the storage closets, the laundrey room,the garage and the two bathrooms I didn't show you- but you don't care to see those right?

We're pretty happy here in our new place- it's quite a treat after having lived 3 years in Spencer's parents home (we're still more than greatful that they shared their home with us)we certainly have a lot more space to sprawl out! I'm really happy we decided not to buy another house immediately as we had originally planned; we have the opportunity right now to discover what it is we really want and need in a home before getting stuck in a place we purchased that might not suit our needs. Spencer and I have debated as whether or not to buy this house- though we like it a lot- we would LOVE it even more if it had a basement where we could store our food storage. I guess time will tell and we'll be better off deciding in 6 months or a year or two.