Home Sweet Home...For Sale!

We have a beautiful home that I love, but we have decided to sell it. It was a simple decision really when the Lord prompted us to reconsider our finances and our family priorities, but it is a not so simple thing, emotionally or physically, to accomplish! We actually put a For Sale By Owner sign out in the yard November 15th, 2007. About 80 fliers have been taken by people driving by (and our neighbors and real estate agents). We have received 12 phone calls about the house with only 4 of those calls being from interested buyers wanting to schedule a showing. The other 8 calls were real estate agents trying to get our house as their listing. Of the 4 scheduled showings, 2 parties showed up and 1 of them was a private investor trying to get us to keep the mortgage in our name in order to allow someone else to basically come in and rent our home. That is not exactly what we had in mind. We are planning to use some professional real estate help, but with the current condition of the housing market and the fact that we live in a neighborhood where 95% of our competition is new construction, selling this house is going to continue to be a frustrating (at times) and challenging task. Especially the keeping the house spotless with a young child and a sick, pregnant mama part. HOWEVER, I do have faith that this is in the Lord's hands and whatever happens and however long it takes is all a part of His plan for our family! Now, on to the fun part. I have lots of out of state family and friends that would like to see some pictures of our home before it is no longer our home, so here they are. I just took some new ones for a new flier! I will start with the entryway when you walk in the house...

the family room

the kitchen

the "formal" dining area (although I would hardly describe our mealtimes as "formal" :))

the "formal" living room which we have made a reading/music room

the guest bedroom (always available if anyone would like to come for a visit!)

Sophie's bedroom - the only room we painted (pink of course!)

the master bedroom (which will look much more like a bedroom once we get some furniture in there!)

the master bathroom

We will keep the blog posted about the sale of our home and the purchase of a new home. I can't believe there is another move in our future!! I have lived at 10 different addresses in 9 years and poor Sophie has lived at 5 different addresses in 4 years. Clint has also moved an average of once every two years since college so it is time for the Halsted family to stay put and allow some roots to grow down deep. Amen to that!