Goodbye little home.

 A long time ago my friend Jen Scott told me how hard it was to leave/move from her little run down apartment and how that surprised her. She talked about how even though it was not her ideal living condition it was where she called home for many years and it was sad saying goodbye to it. As we moved from our old home, I thought about her statement and completely felt the same way. Even though I was so excited to move on I was very emotional as I said goodbye to our home.

Our home meant so much to us. It was our first purchased home in Huntington Beach. It was where we brought home all four babies from the Hospital. It was our home and we had so many great memories there.

Some of my favorites things at the house were the plants my friends gave me. When we first purchased the house the Beutlers gave us a stick from their plumeria tree and over the years it blossomed into a beautiful tree in our yard.

 

Another favorite plant was one that my friend Brooke gave me when my Grandpa Smith died. It was a beautiful Hibiscus flower and turned into a huge plant in our front yard. 

These plants always made me feel the love from my friends and I really do miss them...

We will always have a special place in our heart for our little home!

We moved (well in September we moved)

I hope you watched the episode "She is going to Jail" on TLC. I was so nervous to see how they would edit the episode. For the most part I think they did a good job. It is amazing to see how 4 days of filming can turn into 20 minutes of a TV show. There were so many parts that I thought they would include but didn't. I am glad they didn't make Bettie look crazy, she is such a sweet lady with a heart of gold. As for us, they edited things we said to make them look a little mean.. but for the most part it wasn't too bad.

With the episode finally aired I can now move on with the details on the house!

After we filmed the TV show and right before April's wedding Tad decided we needed to move! Yes with no notice we were suddenly searching for places to rent. After much search we found a place that was a good price, good enough size, and was willing to do a 9 month lease (which is the shortest lease we could find). We signed the lease and 2 days later we moved in.

Tad being involved in what seems like a trazillion moves decided he didn't want to ask for help. ;( He asked the Missionaries fort help with the big items and then asked our 15 year old neighbor to help with the rest. This was a ridiculous move, so unorganized... due to Tad giving me no notice to move, and it took forever because Tad had no one help... at the end of the day... yes it was all Tad's fault. ;) haha.

After a week of craziness we survived and moved in. I take my hat off to all those out there that move multiple times. I really never want to move again.... ok maybe just one more time.

Here are some pictures of our temporary place.

front of our place

Master

Kylie's Bedroom

 I never took a picture of the boys. But they enjoy their room ;)

Kitchen

Family room

One of my favorites!! The no fireplace and random light fixture... ok not my favorite.

But I do love the washer and dryer

And a little place for my kids to run around.

 We are grateful to have found this place. It is enough room for all of us, it has all the appliances we need, it is really close to the beach, it has pools to swim in, and still really close to our new house. As for the negatives... well I can name a few.. but lets just keep this positive today ;)

Hoarding; Buried Alive

The end of September they came...the Hoarding Buried Alive Crew. They came for a weekend to perform a miracle... empty out Bettie's House. They filmed us walking through the house, they interviewed us, filmed us packing up our house, playing with our kids, and the most important part... they helped Bettie with all her stuff!

The Haul out day was amazing! It was terrifying being in front of the camera for 3 days but it was an experience of a life time and the answer to our prayers.

AND.... guess what! The episode airs this Wednesday APRIL 3RD 9 pm (my time) TLC.

It is a must watch!

Hoarding: Buried Alive Episode: "She's Going to Jail"

Season 4, Episode 17

Episode Synopsis: Examining the case of a woman who's been sent to jail four times by local authorities because of her hoarding. Also: A couple who bought a house without looking at it now own the hoard that's inside. Original Air Date: Apr 3, 2013

SOLD!

It was time to get going. We knew now that Bettie was going to be moving soon which meant we would be owning the house soon. This was really going to happen. After a lot of research and time we found a great loan. It is called the FHA 203K loan. It is this great program where you can get a loan for the house and the construction all in one. We knew this was going to be the best option for loans. This loan came with a lot of restrictions and guidelines. One of the major restrictions is that we needed to sell our current house immediately.

Luckily we know a really great real estate agent, Tad. He had a great photographer take some pictures of our house. He put our house on the market and within 5 hours and the very first showing it was sold. Such a huge blessing. He is a single guy that wanted a turn key house close to the beach. He feel in love with our home. We were thrilled.

Our house

Bettie needs Help

We were just shocked. We had been waiting 2 years for Bettie to pack up and move and after the walk thru it felt like this dream of ours was never going to happen. We sat down and talked about our game plan. How were we going to really help her get her stuff out?

We had four options
1) We (Tad and I) could physically help her: pro's we would have a little control over the situation and could get the process going. Con - we have asked her for the pass 2 years if we could help and she never has let us.

2) She could hire someone: pro - the move out date would be a lot sooner. con- the cost was extremely high.

3) We could just give up and find another house. Pro - we would not have to waste anymore time on something that might not ever happen. Con - we really really really want this location and nothing will compare to it.

4) Call Hoarding Buried Alive. Pro - get free help and soon. Con - Bettie will have to expose her life to the whole world and we have to convince her to do so.

After much thought we decided on number.... 4!! Yes we were desperate and so we did it.
Tad called Hoarding: Buried Alive and after many conversations over the phone and emails, the show said they would help us! We couldn't believe it. That was an extreme blessing.

 Now we needed to convince Bettie.

We called her and had her meet us. We talked about all the different options and with much convincing by smooth talker Tad, Bettie decided that she would think about the show option.

The next day she was on board! Hoarding: Buried Alive was coming to town and soon. We had only about 3 weeks of waiting until they showed up and started filming "the process".  Our prayers were being answered, Bettie was going to be getting huge help.

The Walk Thru

Time went quickly by as we were meeting with contractors and with our architect trying to figure out what we wanted to do with a house that we have even NOT GONE INTO. I know we are so crazy. No close of escrow. No walk thru. Yet still investing a ton of time and now money into this house.

Then it came.... the walk thru 90 days into escrow. WOW. We had been waiting for this moment for almost 2 yrs and it was FINALLY here. August 8th, Tad, Jeff (one of the contractors), and I went into Betties house.

AND this is what we walked into...

the Living Room

Next the family room 

Then came the Kitchen

AND that is when I left.. I had seen enough.. Tad and Jeff continue to through the house

Guest Bedroom

Hallway from the guest bedroom

Guest Bathroom

Get ready for the 3 car GARAGE

They head upstairs 

Bedroom 1

 
Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Kids Bathroom

Upstairs Hallway

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Heading downstairs to check out the backyard.

Outside.. 

 They were nervous to venture to far out into the jungle

 HOLY COW!!! Houston we had a problem. We had given Bettie a little shy of 2 years to pack up her stuff and NOTHING had been done! She had 2 more months to move out.. This was asking for a miracle. What had we gotten ourselves into???

Designing our Home

In order to get an accurate bid from the contractors we needed to have architectural plans. We decided to go with one of the contractors architect, Phillip. Phillip has been in the business for probably 30 + years and had designed 100's of houses. We felt confident in his work.

We met with him and showed him Bettie's floor plan (or what we thought it was... since we still had not been in it).

The original first floor plan

WE discussed with Phillip what things we would like to be changed: The Kitchen?? are you serious... it is so small. Needed to be bigger. We also needed to have a bathroom that we could access from the backyard.

The original 2nd story:

Things that needed to be changed: Bigger Master Bath and a Large Bonus room.

We also discussed the Style of our House and what we would like it to look like outside.

Now it was Phillips turn. He went to work and tried to figure out how we can get all our wants into this house, using most of the existing floor plan.

After a week or so he came back with this plan:

1st floor

2nd floor

Outside

 We sat down and looked over the plan and needed to make some major changes.
1. Didn't like the guest bathroom and bedroom configuration
2. Didn't like the Master bedroom being in the huge room that needed to be the kids bonus room
3. The outside look was not what we were looking for

Back to the drawing board Phillip, Literally. Yep he hand draws everything which is a huge talent but something that became really annoying really quickly. If we wanted just a little change here or there it took him a while to make the change because he needed to redraw everything.

***A little piece of Advice.. make sure that if you ever have to use a Architect make sure they know how to use the computer.

Second round of designs:

1st floor

2nd floor

Outside

 Ok.. it is getting closer.. but still changes needed to be made.

1) still didn't like the set up of the guest bedroom
2) the Kids bathroom needed to be a lot bigger if they were all going to share
3) The outside still needed to change.

Third round:

1st floor

2nd floor

Yes... getting closer and closer.

1. Remove a small wall on the 1st floor 

2. Still not loving the size of the 2nd story bathrooms.

 4th Round: (can you tell we study these plans over and over and over again.. sorry about the messy paper)

YES!!! Almost perfect but good enough to get a decent bid from the Contractors.

****This was by far my least favorite part of the process*** So stressful! Should we put a window here? or there? should we put the closet here or there? should we have the laundry room here or there!!! Wow I hate decisions... especially when they are important. My brain fills like it is going to explode.