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When I was a kid living in Michigan, my family would make the {ridiculously} long drive out to Utah every few years to visit my Mom's family.  The majority of her family lived in Brigham City, and my siblings and I loved to make fun of the small town.  It was funny to us to go to get Slurpees with my aunt and have the employees of 7-11 know her name (although now that I think about it-- there's a good chance the people in her Colorado 7-11 know her name also. It may have nothing to do with where she lived and everything to do with her love of Coke Slurpees!).  We loved to read and laugh at the small-town newspaper.  Brigham City in general was kind of a joke to us.

Fast-forward 15 years, and I'm moving there.

Remember how it was never part of my plan to be in Northern Utah?  Heaven knows it's one of the last places I would have chosen to live.  Heaven also knows it's where I need to be.  When DJ and I decided to rent a house for a year in Ogden, I just assumed we'd end up buying a house somewhere on Ogden's East Bench this summer.  However, a year in Ogden was enough for us!  While DJ loves his job and will continue to work at Ben Lomond High School, we do not love living in the "big city" of Ogden, and were ready to get back to smaller-town life.

We decided to start looking for houses in Brigham City, but weren't super worried cause we're not pressed for time.  We went to see a house I was interested in about a month ago, but we didn't love it.  Last week we decided to start looking in earnest, and on Wednesday we went to see 4 houses.  The first one I had a love/hate relationship with.  It was built in 1888 and has AMAZING character.  Seriously, if those walls could talk... wow.  It was so charming.  But then, who really wants to own a house from 1888?  It seems like maybe too big of a liability.  We went to 2 more houses which were so not awesome, and then pulled up to the last house.  We both fell in love with it from the outside, and were hoping the inside was great as well.  It totally was!  It's an older house-- built in 1998-- but not nearly as old as the other houses we had seen, and in significantly better shape!  The layout is nice, and the yard is big.  The basement is partially unfinished, which is SO perfect for us-- storage for now, with room to grow later!  We decided to put an offer on the house that night.

A week went by with no word-- the house is a foreclosure, so we expected it to take a little while, since we were dealing with a bank.  Yesterday my Auntie (who is my also my Realtor) called me and let me know there were some other offers on the house as well, but ours was the only one the bank was currently reviewing.  I got really nervous, hoping they'd accept our offer and not review the others!  I knew that if it didn't work out we'd find something that did, but that didn't stop me from really wanting it to work out!

This morning my Aunt called me and gave me the good news-- our offer was accepted!!!  In the past week there have been SIX MORE offers on the house.  SIX!!!  But luckily for us they only reviewed ours and accepted it.  Phew!  We are so incredibly excited!  The house needs some love-- new paint and light fixtures are the first things on my list, and other small things like new door knobs will follow-- but the space is great!  We love the yard also-- again, it needs help.  Like, tear up the weeds and lay sod kind of help.  But for the price we got it, those things seem very minor.

The house is adjacent to Pioneer Park, which has baseball fields, a basketball court, pickleball courts, playgrounds and even a big pond!  The girls are going to be SO happy to spend a lot of time there this summer!  Apparently the Fourth of July fireworks are also set off from the park, so our backyard is going to have the perfect view of them.  We are just so excited!  Barring something catastrophic happening with our inspection next week, we'll be closing the beginning of May and hope to move in by the end of May or beginning of June-- whenever we can get the paint all done!

I wanted to post some "Before" pictures, partly so other people can see, but mostly for myself so I can remember the state I bought the house in!

Front of house:

Back of house and backyard:

Upstairs family room/entry:

The kitchen... which needs an overhaul. I'll paint the cupboards and change the lighting for now, but eventually I'll get new counter tops and appliances too.

Eat-in kitchen/dining room-- yikes on the light, right?  Don't worry, it's getting swapped out ASAP.

Master bedroom.  The closet is actually one huge closet, with two sets of doors.  Not quite as awesome as my walk-in closet in Spanish Fork, but infinitely better than my "closet room" here in Ogden.

The girls' bedroom:

I love the big bay window in their room!  

 

Basement bedroom, which is going to be the guest bedroom/craft room for now.

Bathroom (again, I'll fix the cupboards!):

Downstairs family room.

That little alcove is super weird and lame... and this is what it looks like from behind: 

Stupid, right?  We're planning on taking that box out and making the whole area under the stairs a playhouse/toy room for the girls, with the entry from the family room.

Part of the unfinished basement, complete with an exterior door!  This will probably end up being my salon!  How AWESOME is that???  And the big windows let in so much natural light!

The other half of the unfinished side of the basement, which will be a fourth bedroom (with 2 closets already framed in-- pretty sweet!):

 Our future fire pit in the back yard:

The view from our front living room window.  I love it. 

View of the big, sad front yard from the porch:

There are flower beds in the front and back, 

which are just begging me to plant something pretty in!

So, there ya go!  The upstairs walls will all be painted grey, probably with a blue accent wall in the living room.  I do love that there are ceiling fans in all the bedrooms and both the family rooms.  We've got some work ahead of us, but we're ready for it!  We're just so excited to make this house our home!