We are official Santa Barbara homeowners!

Here she is!  In all her foreclosed glory...

You have to go down a driveway behind another house to get to ours, so it's tucked away a bit.  It's also hidden by some fruit trees that will need to be nursed back to health:  avocado(!), orange, and loquat.  The structure on the left is a dilapidated 2 car garage which we will use for storage and parking until we are able to convert it into a small studio to produce some rental income.  We'll eventually put up a basketball hoop to make good use of all that concrete.  And trim back the Wall of Bushes.

This is the front yard where we will be adding a few more fruit trees (lemon, lime, and another avocado(!)) as well as FINALLY getting to grow a vegetable garden in our own yard!  Don't you love how the prior residents divided their overgrown weed patches into random sections with old scrap wood, broken furniture and shoelaces?  Me neither.  But my on sale bird feeders, coconut & seashell windchimes, & pretty thrift-store-find-of-a-bird bath should spruce up the place. We will also be moving the staircase and doorway to the center of the house and putting in one of Luke's favorite structures in the world:  a deck.  

And this is the front room that is an enclosed porch.   (Turquoise?  Really!?!)  FYI:  We will be repainting the entire inside of the house.  Our washer and dryer (kindly donated by Luke's folks) will go against the back wall with some cabinets above them and we have already knocked out the wall to the left to open up the front room.  

This is the front room that will have to fit our couch and dining room table, so start praying...  BTW, It's turquoise too.  When we win the lottery, we will extend this room another 6 feet.  And we will wait to repair the fireplace until we really need it.  (read: probably never)

And we will be patching the kitchen together with matching cabinets and a new sink, countertop and appliances.  In fact, our friend Seth gave us the idea to extend it to the left by filling in that doorway and putting in a dishwasher.  And the frig and pantry will be to the right next to the doorway.  A kinda weird set up, but there's really no where else to put them.

This will be Luke and my room - yay for storage space!  And each of the rooms will be getting a new (and on sale) laminate flooring.

The kids' room which will be repainted white for John's sake and we plan to add a light blue accent wall down the road.

This is our poorly-tiled retro bathroom.  The floor will be replaced with a simple vinyl sheet of fake tile and we got a great deal on a new vanity.  

This is our renter, Shayne's, room.  (We love her!)  The light paint and new floors will really brighten it up.

And this is her cave of a bathroom that will get a facelift along with a great craigslist vanity and mirror.

This is our hot pink, soon-to-be, chicken run.  CHICKENS!!!

And on this side of the house, Luke's dream of an outdoor shower will finally materialize.  A must have in beach country...

As far as location goes, we only get a 63% on walkscore.com, but we have the following places within one mile of our home:  neighborhood library, Trader Joe's, 4 parks, the SB zoo, Leah's school, 5 authentic Mexican restaurants (!), a Thai and Vietnamese restaurant, Luke's favorite volleyball courts, a farm stand, a local hardware store, and a new Fresh and Easy market.  

Oh.  And THE PACIFIC OCEAN.  

And downtown State Street is a short bike ride away.  

We're feeling quite grateful at the moment, that God would provide a place with so much potential for such a great price.  And we have a number of new friends from church who are vocationally skilled at just about everything we need - a roofer, an electrician, a flooring specialist, a painter, and an all around handyman.  And a shout out to my bro-in-law, Jason, our realtor who braved infinite stacks of paperwork that make a visit to the dentist sound exciting.  

So remind me (if I start to complain about the stress of remodeling) about how generous God has been.  

We hope to have most of the remodel done by the end of April so we can move in by the 30th.  We would appreciate your prayers for safety, quick work, and that I won't have an "I've moved 3 times in one year!" breakdown.  

And then you have to come visit!