Kristin Laura

After three rainy days on our Washington-Idaho house hunting adventure, I was convinced it wasn't going to happen.  Many houses and properties checked off a few of the boxes on our wish list, but I need a house that will satisfy the majority of my housing desires and Shawn's land requirements.  Sunday the sun came out and the first house we visited gave me that "this is the one feeling". Beautiful views of farms and forest 18+ acres of pasture and timber Big windows Deck Attached garage Workshop Updated kitchen and baths Daylight basement Room for guests Today we made an offer, and after a bit of back and forth it was just accepted.  Come Spring we will be retiring and moving to Worley, Idaho.  Here are a few pictures of our soon to be home.

While we finished up day 3 of house hunting with a couple potentials, I wasn’t getting that excited feeling.  Today we headed south of Coeur d’Alene to look at 3 properties.  The first two were in Worley, population 257.  A quick 20 minute drive from CDA and we were in a valley of gently rolling fields surrounded by ridges covered in pine. House #1 – 14995 W Frost Road, Worley, ID The front of the 18-acre property is covered in long grass with a few trees and the drive gently slopes up to a house with huge windows and a deck overlooking the valley.  The main floor of the house has a nice open floor plan with the kitchen, living and dining room facing the floor-to-ceiling windows.  The master bedroom and bath are on the main floor too with doors leading to the deck.  There is a daylight walkout basement with a sitting room, bathroom, and 3 more rooms.  Unlike many of the house we’ve looked at, this one has a two-car attached garage.  I would th...

We drove from Spokane to Coeur d’Alene this morning and entered Idaho for the first time in both our lives.  Right away we both thought Idaho was prettier than Washington.  We met our Idaho realtor Tony and his wife Alicia and headed out to look at five properties today.  Tony asked how it went in Washington and I replied we saw 9 properties: 1 maybe, 6 no’s and 2 hell no’s.  The day was looking promising for Tony. House #1 – 16830 W Nelson Loop Road, Rathdrum, ID The house wasn’t terrible, but the land is mostly hills and valleys.  There is little flat land for growing and it is only 10 acres.  We decided to move on pretty quickly. House #2 – 8247 E Black Bear Road, Athol, ID First off the town Athol sounds like you’re saying asshole with a bad lisp.  This house was the opposite of the first house – flat land and a house with high end finishes.  Unfortunately, the house has a terrible layout.  A lot of wasted space in the en...

Today we ventured north of Spokane to Colville, Chewelah, Deer Park and Chattaroy to look at five properties.  It was definitely more scenic as there were more trees.  Temps were in the 37-44 range and there was still snow on the ground for the first few houses. House #1 – 738 Applegate Road, Colville, WA This house was better than anything we had seen the day before.  It had a nice updated kitchen and open floor plan and four outbuildings: a shop decked out with heating and wired for sound, a 2-car garage, another huge shop that would fit multiple RVs and toys, and a barn.  The 30-acre property had a nice mix of trees and suitable farm land for Shawn’s planting desires.  The major draw back was no cell service.  We want to be remote, but still connected! House #2 – 2660 Burnt Valley Road, Chewelah, WA When we arrived at this house the owners were there and it started out a bit awkward but turned out to be quite informative.  The...