Every time we watched HGTV we would dream about owning a house, knowing we never would. It was fun to fantasize about what kind of house we would want and how we would decorate. We made many lists, even though we knew it would never be our lives.
Deal-breakers:
The absolutely can’t-haves
Security Issues-
-exterior French doors
-glass on or near door
Privacy Issues-
-no shared walls/ceiling w/neighbors
-walls that don’t go to ceiling/floor (Cabin-Mansion)
Nuisance Issues-
-HOA
-nearby construction
-too close to freeway/busy road
-galley kitchen/terrible, small kitchen
-bathroom off the kitchen
Money-Pit
-Obvious major problems (sewer, foundation, etc..) or janky basement
-the tiny, brightly colored (pink, blue, green) tiles; tiny white/black tile; subway tile. Any ugly, difficult /expensive to remove tile.
Spoiler alert!
But just like that we WERE able to buy our own house! What a dream come true. And it’s funny, when buying you look at a lot of houses in a lot of locations, make your priorities, weigh pros and cons–alll on a tight timeline. We got a beautiful house that we love and plan to stay in forever. But would you believe on our ‘absolutely no way, no deal’ list we did settle for several of these deal-breakers because the trade-offs made it worth it?
-We have a glass design in our front door (which we plan to move to an interior location in favor of a solid exterior door).
-The road we live on is busy and loud, a main arterial street of our town. We don’t love that. We fear that the cats will get out to the point I’m researching air-lock type double door entries like the zoo has in the bird area. But we’re planning on eventually reinforcing the fence, making a retaining wall in the front to create space and privacy, and constructing acoustic panels to help block the noise. The new windows have helped the sound substantially, and of course the white noise has always been essential for sleeping (everywhere we’ve lived).
-The kitchen isn’t a true galley, but the flow could be better. In the long term we’ll remodel it by removing 2 closets that border it in order to widen it out. We’ll change all the finishes, add major storage, replace every appliance, install a farmhouse sink, and just start over to make it optimally functional.
Until then, I got a lot of organization to maximize vertical storage. Under cupboard glass holders. Knife magnet strips. Magnets to put measuring accoutrement on the interior of cabinet doors. Water bottle holder. Under desk shelf to put cutting boards under a cabinet. You know, that kind of thing. We’ll deal until we either win the lotto, or get a loan to do it right.
-And the worst trade off: The main bathroom IS off the kitchen. It’s not great. Luckily, we don’t get many visitors. I made signs:
Main floor bathroom-
Door to the upstairs-
Upstairs bathroom-
We have an air filter in the bathroom and in the kitchen. On our dream list we have finishing the basement and adding a half bath there, so that should cut down use by the kitchen.
-The basement… could be better. It’s not a money-pit, per-sae but it’s not really comfortable and welcoming either. It’s mostly dry but on rainy days some small drips get inside. It doesn’t smell moldy or gross, but there are cobwebs and crickets come in through the drains. There’s laundry, but I’d never put any clothes on the floor there 😱 One day we want to fill in or screen off whatever the dirt dugouts are, because they’re creepy. And if the cats ever went in there–well goodbye to them. I’m NOT going in there for any reason. It’s a big space though, and the temperature is really good~especially in the hot summer. Of course, we’ll get some survival things stocked up in there. But for funsies we’d like to affix wonderland, caticorn, shroom, and Candyland tapestries. Make a full bar and get some real tabletop and arcade games. Comfortable seating. Fun Lighting. Cool glow in the dark rugs. We wanna make it a cool party hang, in other words. But that might be a long time off.
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