Today my wife and I closed on our first home. It’s a 3/2/2 in Altamonte Springs, FL. We’re paying about a quarter million dollars for a house with less than 1,400 square feet. However, the house is full of amazing upgrades that really sold us. Full granite counter tops throughout the house, 18″ tile floors, stainless steel appliances, cooktop stove, big yard, etc…

I can’t begin to mention how excited we are about everything. We were pretty lucky that pretty much everyone we worked with was amazing to have around. Our realtor Colleen Offner , lender, parents, and even the sellers were all amazingly helpful.

I’ll have some pictures of everything soon.

Update August 12, 2007 – Pictures

Here are the pictures I promised:

This is the front view of our house. I got a lawnmower yesterday and mowed the yard. It sounds lame, but I can’t express how excited I was to mow my own yard.
The yard itself is 115 x 75. That makes it over 8,600SF, or about 1/5 an acre.
That is stone you see in front as well. There’s also some faux hurricane shutters on the office window in front as well.
The garage is 2 car, though I’m sure my truck will never be parked in there.

Here is a picture of the backyard. It’s not very deep. Most of the yard is in the front and on the west side.
There’s tons of trees on the side though, and that’s always cool.

Here is a picture of the kitchen. It’s the first thing you see when you walk inthe front door. Look at the lower left corner of the picture. That’s stone that wraps around the bar. Hell yes!
We have a cooktop stove, and all stainless steel appliances. We also have a hellacious amount of cabinets.
Most of the house is 18″ tile floors. We intend to change to hardwood, but that’s going to have to wait a while. We’re a bit tight with money right now.

Here is a picture inside of the kitchen looking at the door to the garage. The chandelier is pretty low right now, so we’re going to have to swing it a bit.
The open door you see is to the laundry room. That room also contains the location of where we would install a ‘smart’ system for the house.
Think Jetsons here: You walk in the house and say “kitchen lights”, and they come on for you. If only I could say, “pay bills” ….

This is a picture from inside the living room, looking into the kitchen. The hanging lights over the bar are really nice.
Notice the wood veneer covering the wall underneath the bar. It’s not our first choice, so we’re thinking we might run the stone around the whole under-bar area.
If that prooves to be a bit too expensive, then we might just tear off the veneer and paint dark red underneath.

Here is the master bedroom. I don’t think this picture does justice to the size of the bedroom. It’s a good size room, and the ceilings rake from 12ft high to 10ft high.
There’s already a ceiling fan installed (thank you ceiling fan gods), and there is a cool ledge over the entry way to the bathroom.

Here is a picture of the master bathroom. There’s a good size tub, and a glass shower in there.
It’s nice, though the tub could be a little bigger. The location of the faucet and levers aren’t condusive to more than one person in the tub at a time.
The tile along all of the walls is super-cool though.

Here’s another picture of the master bathroom. Note that there’s only one sink in the master bathroom. :/.
However, it’s hard to complain with the granite counter tops and custom mirror job. The vanity lights are well done too.
The knobs for hot and cold water are a little close together.

And now, a picture heading toward the living room. The stone in the kitchen is more apparent here as well.
This picture also doesn’t give a good idea of just how tall the slider is going into the backyard. I’ve not seen sliding glass doors that tall in my life.
We’re going to have to get new drapses to handle them.
The ceiling fan is controlled via a dimmer switch on the wall. That’s great, since I’m not a fan of pulling chains.