The first house we ever owned is for sale! We fell in love with this house when we first saw it. It was the perfect starter home. We had to move because our family just grew too big for it. This four bedroom, one full bathroom house is at 277 E. 21st Street in Idaho Falls. It's 1800 square feet - 1100 on the main level and 700 downstairs. We're offering $134,900 for it. If you want to see the inside in person, call 529-4471 or 351-7861. We'll be happy to show it to you.
The roof is
brand-new - put in this past October, as well as the curb, gutter, and the slope of the driveway.
All brand-new. We have fresh paint on all the window ledges, doors, and garage. We also re-built the window frame in front of the living room - the area to the right in this photo. Also, we put
all-new insulation in the attic.
I've taken really good care of the gardens out front. Through the years, I've added many perennials that bloom every single year. If you water the flowers once a day in the summer, they will be just gorgeous. These pics were taken last year:
Here's the garage - it's detached, although it looks attached:
And here's the inside of the garage:
We're including the lawnmower, work bench, and extra roofing shingles in case they're needed in the future. Also, the window in the garage is brand-new.
Let's take you inside! When you enter the front door, to your right, you'll see the dining room:
The dining room has
brand-new laminate flooring and fresh paint on walls, baseboards, trim, etc.
We adore these huge windows. They bring in lots of natural light. All of the windows in the house are recently updated and vinyl - they open and close with ease. The curtains are included with the house.
I love the arches in this house. They're so cool. We have a wood-burning fireplace in this room, as you can see. The fireplace grate is also included with the house.
To the right of the fireplace are some great built-in shelves and another arch which leads to the bathroom and two of the bedrooms.
A closer look at the built-ins:
These were awesome to put school supplies and the kids' library books and homework on.
Another look at this gorgeous flooring:
This dining room really is as huge as it looks. We had an ENORMOUS table in here, and it fit easily.
Next to the dining room is the living room. This room is also huuuuge:
I loved that skinny window in there. It brought in a lot of light, but we didn't have to worry about blinds or curtains, because it was high up. The same new flooring that's in the dining room is also in here, as well as the same color of paint and trim.
The crown molding in here is also one of my favorite things about this room. So pretty. There is an extra front door to this room, as you can see.
There's another cute built-in shelving unit in the wall - we used this for DVDs and books. And then you see the back door which leads to the backyard. It has a brand-new doorknob and deadbolt. We installed one of those hotel-type locks on it when we lived in the house, because our three-year-old liked to break out of the house and run into the street. :) So if you have a toddler or plan to have toddlers, or just like one more lock on your door, you'll like that feature. The front door is the same. Brand new knob, deadbolt, and hotel lock.
A close-up of the built-in shelf:
In this last corner, on the floor, is the access to the crawl space. Here's a close-up to the little door that can go down to the crawl space:
Let's head into the bedroom and bathroom areas. Here is the hallway that connects the three of them:
The control for the central heating is on the wall in this hallway. You can see the doorbell up by the ceiling. There is a HUGE linen closet in this hallway:
Here's the bathroom:
Fresh paint on the walls. The shower/bathtub wall is completely tiled, as is the floor.
We put in the modern vanity lighting and mirror two years ago. The pedestal sink is good for creating more space availability. Not pictured is an additional central light that also has a fan installed inside of it, so that you can fan out steam from showers and, you know, other scents...
The toilet has a new seat on it and a new ring around the base of it. You can see the heating vent right there - the bathroom stays nice and warm in the winter.
Above the toilet is lots of storage. I miss having this much bathroom storage. It was fantastic. Also, there are enough hooks to hold six bath towels underneath this cabinet. This picture doesn't show them.
Let's go to bedroom number one:
The paint in here is the same color as the rest of the house. I suppose that because it's in the back of the house and because we had the light on, it looks a little different.
This is
brand-new carpet. I love the color. It will disguise stains easily if your family is prone to spilling and dropping things. :)
Here's the closet in bedroom number one - those built-in shelves are really handy. We liked those a lot.
The little door you see at the bottom of the closet gives you access to some of the bathroom pipes. We never needed to access those, but it's good to know.
Another look at this pretty carpet:
Bedroom number two is at the other end of the hall. Same color as the rest of the house and same carpet as the other bedroom:
And we loved these built-in shelves, too. Our daughter kept her little shoes on them.
And now on to the kitchen:
You'll see some electrical plug-ins on the half-wall. Also, you'll see another door that goes outside. This house is really full of all kinds of outside doors!! The door shown above leads directly to the driveway.
I miss the dishwasher in this house. It washed and dried dishes soooo well. It's black, as you can see. The microwave is only about five years old or so, and the stove/oven is
brand new - never been used. The disposal button is actually under the counter ledge in front of the left side of the sink. Also, we put in a
new additional plug-in area on the underside of the cabinet to the far right in the above picture.
The man who lived in the house before us put in cement counter tops, and we loved those. They were so durable and very cool-looking. We got lots of compliments on them. We also got lots of compliments on the cabinets, which the man had antiqued himself:
People always asked how we did it, and we told them we had no idea, that it wasn't us! We liked the way they looked. And we painted the kitchen red because we really wanted those cabinets to pop. We felt that painting it a neutral color would make them fade into the background. The man also had installed the tile backsplash. He did a great job. You'll see the other plug-in area on the backsplash under the cupboard to the left:
If you're a woman, you're going to wonder if there's enough space for all of one's food, cooking gear, etc. And I can tell you that there is. I'm an avid cook and always had enough space in my cupboards and drawers for everything I needed. In fact, the drawers here were so deep that they easily stored more than the drawers in my new house. I miss these drawers... The space to the left of the arch is where we kept our fridge.
The floor is slate tile. We feel that the red on the walls also brings out the nice color in this tile:
Here are the stairs that lead from the kitchen down to the basement:
Brand-new carpet on the stairs and fresh paint in the stairwell.
When you reach the bottom of the stairs, you see the laundry room:
This laundry room is really large, which I loved. Having a large family, I had a ton of laundry to do, always, and I had five large laundry bins I could keep to the right of the dryer. Also, this room is
newly renovated. It used to not have walls, insulation, studs, or a drywalled ceiling. We had a professional crew come in and finish off the walls and ceiling and paint the cement floor with a special cement paint.
Here's a vent that helps to draw air into the furnace system, as well as a heating vent. I can tell you that this house's basement is nice and warm, which is strange for a basement:
This is bedroom number 3. We used it as a master bedroom, but when my husband drywalled it, he also designed it so that it could function as a second family room.
The laminate flooring is about 4 years old. We put our bed against this left wall, and we each had a switch on the wall to control the overhead lighting. But again, if this was an extra family room, you could put a couch there and turn on lights for reading or homework or whatever you needed. There are can lights in the ceiling, as well. You can see the closet in this picture as well.
The nook you see is perfect for a dresser (what we used it for) or an entertainment center, if you chose to go the family room route. It also has lighting and a switch if you need to look for a piece of jewelery or want to get dressed without turning the overhead lights on and waking your spouse. :)
We chose to put pocket doors down here when we were first refinishing the basement. It gives the area more space. Then we have latches on each door that lock them into place for privacy. You can see the pocket door to this bedroom below. You can also see an egress window below - it was put in 7 years ago:
This bedroom was seriously huge. We loved it so much. So much space. It felt really luxurious. You could easily have two siblings share this room.
Here's an inside peek at the closet. It also has its own lighting with a switch outside the closet.
There is a hidden door in the wall in the master bedroom/extra family room, which leads into the storage room:
We left the two fully-functional window air-conditioning units with the house, as well as an extra closet door if needed and extra laminate flooring from upstairs if needed. We also left the cans of paint used in the house if those are needed.
Not pictured is the furnace and water heater. The furnace is only six years old, as well as all of the venting in the basement. Which is probably why the basement is so toasty warm.
The storage room was really big. We were able to store a ton of stuff in there - boxes of outgrown clothes to hold onto for when the next child was that size, etc.
On to bedroom number four, which also has a pocket door with a latch for locking.
You see an under-the-stairs closet in the above picture. Here are some close-ups of that:
It is quite spacious. We had two of our kids sharing this room, and we were able to store an extra dresser in this closet, as well as the curtain for hanging clothes and a couple of other boxes.
This room has a dimmer switch, which I really liked. I could dim it when I went in to feed my baby and rock him in his rocking chair.
Another egress window:
And you can see the pocket door in the below picture. It slides right closed.
Let's look at the backyard. I took
these photos in October, when we still had a little bit of greenery
happening.
The reason I personally fell in love with this house 7 years ago was the backyard. It felt like the garden in
The Secret Garden.
There are mature elm trees lining the whole yard, which are tall and
provide ultimate privacy. There's a chicken-wire fence inside of the
tree line. It's almost completely fenced in - it just needs two gates for total enclosure.
The grill in the above picture is included in the price of the
house. We couldn't take it with us, because our new neighborhood has
only electricity - no gas. The grill is hooked up to a gas line that
goes into the house. My husband made these flower beds in the back with
railroad ties. There is an herb garden behind the garage portion of
the house - basil, thyme, and chives grow there.
There
is a gorgeous maple tree near the patio. The backyard is so shady and
pleasant. When the tree first grows its leaves, they're red, but then
they turn green as the summer progresses:
The dumpster is in the alley, through the back fence. Garbage guys come on Mondays and Thursdays.
A view of the house from the back fence:
So that's our cute house! I'll always look back on our time there with fondness - we really loved the neighborhood and the uniqueness of the house itself. We know the next owners will enjoy it as much as we did.
