This is part of our 100 Things in 2015 challenge. Here’s the full list.

Once our house was on the market, we were able to go shopping for a new one. We cast our net pretty wide, since we knew what we wanted:

• Enough space for our family to grow up. This meant three full bedrooms and an office, and hopefully three bathrooms.
• A bigger backyard. All of us were feeling kind of cramped in our old one.
• A safe neighborhood. We’d love to be able to send the kids out to ride their bikes for a couple of hours.
• Not a horrible commute for the kids and I.
• In our budget.

That last one loosened up a bit once we knew what our selling price was (sellers’ markets are fun), but the rest were hard to fit. We ended up finding this little gem:

It’s in Salmon Creek. If you don’t know where that is, it’s okay – I have to explain it to almost everybody we tell. From Portland, go north to Vancouver. Then keep going. When you see the place where you can transfer between I-5 and I-205, that’s Salmon Creek. It seems like that would make our commute awful, but it’s actually been okay; there’s a bus that gets us pretty close to the kids’ school, and while we’re riding I can work, and the kids can listen to audiobooks.

It’s on a cul-de-sac, and the lot is ⅓ acre. It’s 2700 square feet, which is the same size as our Portland house, but with way fewer rooms, so it feels comfortably spacious. There are four bedrooms and four bathrooms – the kids each get their own suite! It’s everything we wanted.

We don’t have any interior photos yet; we’re doing some remodeling first. But stay tuned, we’re excited for what it’s going to be!