When Britta Stanton bought the home she and her four children would move into after her divorce a few years ago, she didn’t think she’d ever move again — she loves her home in Irving that much.
“I thought I would never move, I decorated it like I would never move, and now I’m moving,” she said, with a chuckle.
But with good reason — Stanton got married yesterday, and while her fiance loved the home too, she suggested that they at least go look at something they could buy together for their newly blended family.
“When my fiance and I were talking about this house, I said, ‘Let’s just go look at other houses just to make sure we both choose together,’ because I picked this house out myself,” she said. “And he was like, ‘No, I love your house.’”
So that seemed somewhat settled, because Stanton loved her house, too. But then she discovered that a brand new development was going in right behind her children’s school (they go to Uplift North Hills), which is a kindergarten through 12th-grade charter school — which means that a home closer to it makes for a friendlier commute for all four children right up until college.
“So my goal is kind of to have — and I was a mile and a half from the school — Alexandra, my oldest, be able to ride her bike to school because she’s in middle school and has a slightly different start and stop time,” Stanton said. “But we tried to ride it, and it’s just a little too far to ride on a bike.”
So she had made her peace with continuing to finagle drop off for all four kids — until she found the home she and her fiance are building now.
“So we went over and looked at it and it was totally awesome, and it’s literally 150 steps from the house that were so we’re building — it’s a David Weekley development,” she recalled. “This is going to make my life so much easier, because Eric has Boy Scouts after school at school, and not right after school, but later in the day. And the kids have soccer practice — at school. Ali has more events she wants to go to now, too — at school.”
Whew take a breath!
“So it’s just all kind of worked out and seems like a good idea,” she said. “So we’re moving out of the house and I told the kids I wasn’t moving away from.”
Stanton says this house that would’ve been her forever house worked perfectly for her family — you get the impression that if she could have picked the entire home up and moved it to a plot of land 150 steps from school, she would’ve done it in a heartbeat.
But her reasons for picking the home are exactly what will make her current home fly off the shelf, so to speak — the workability and floorplan are incredibly family-friendly.
“The layout is the reason why I picked it over any other house in the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s the perfect house — everything can look nice in the main areas, but you still have all this space for storage. for everything to look nice but you still have like all of this space to throw your crap at the end of the day, because you walk in through the garage and there’s just this big landing area with hooks for coats and giant drawers for the kids to put their shoes and backpacks, and then there’s a whole desk with more drawers and a couple of cabinets where I can put my purse and my papers and the mail and all that stuff.”
The next two rooms you enter from that vantage point are the walk-in pantry and the laundry room, which means this all-purpose staging area is hidden from view.
“And then my closet just enormous and just attached that laundry room so I can like throw my jacket or whatever my clothes in there and keep it a huge mess,” she said, laughing. “And then you walk into the main house and it’s the kitchen and living areas, so it’s just easy to keep clean because of that tucked-back functional area off the garage.”
Stanton’s home, located at 631 Lake Point Drive in the Las Colinas area of Irving, boasts hardwood floors throughout the common areas, an open kitchen tricked out with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a built-in refrigerator.
The master suite is generously sized and the en-suite has double sinks, a soaking tub, and a custom closet that, as Stanton mentions, opens to the laundry room.
A media room, office, and additional bedroom complete the first floor, and three more bedrooms are upstairs, with total five-and-a-half bathrooms for the 5,277 square foot home.
And there is nothing builder-grade about this home, either. This was Stanton’s first major solo purchase after her divorce, and she knew she wanted to nest.
“I bought it, it was my own decision, and it was my house — I did it on my own, and I didn’t just want to update,” she said. “I changed a lot. I painted the entire house. I changed the color of the cabinets and put in wallpaper and changed all the light fixtures.”
“And it really was mine, and I made it even more mine, something just for me and the kids,” she added. “And when I knew we were moving, I actually had our Christmas pictures taken inside the house this year, to document that.”
Outside, a pool and plenty of entertaining space (including a cozy outdoor fireplace) provides plenty of room for pool parties and relaxing.
“I’ll definitely miss having a pool at the new house at least for the first summer,” Stanton said. “It’s just a perfect size little pool in the backyard.”
Stanton said her gated neighborhood is also a nice perk of the home. “It’s really safe, and I’m totally comfortable letting the kids bike around, and there’s a little playground, and there are other kids they’ve met in the neighborhood, too.”
It’s also just off of Riverside Drive, near the Irving/Dallas border, and close to major highways and the President George Bush tollway, and plenty of great shops and restaurants in the Las Colinas area.
The home is priced at $1.16 million, and is listed by Christy Mullins with Redfin. To see more photos, check out the listing here.
