We are signing our closing documents today at noon. Despite my sometimes negative view on this house I really truly am excited to have it. There are so many good things about buying this house and then some bad things too. Obviously the good outweigh the bad because here we are about to close within a few hours.
This week I have been thinking alot about some very shallow and silly things on the bad list.
The house I live in now is cute. It is a 50s rambler with original hardwood floors, a cute semi-open floor plan and very nice 2 panel doors. The backyard has an adorable little tree under which we built a little patio out of random pavers the owner had lying around for years. The back yard is big enough to have big parties and the windows are big enough to see the back yard. I love to entertain, and the dining room is spacious and cute and well laid out. Even though it is a rental I truly made this house feel like our home.
I know it is so silly to care about little visual things but I am going to miss them. The new house was built in 1987 buy a developer and is "builder grade" personafied. It is all carpet and linoleum over plywood and concrete. The windows are few and small, but then who wants to look in their next door neighbors bedroom. The doors are flimsy hollow core doors with no trim or character. The backyard is small and covered in trees [which are not to be removed as to preserve the soil retention] and there is no door directly out back. We are planning to just build a deck off the kitchen because the yard seems somewhat unusable. Our bedroom has ONE window; one standard size, single width, tree facing and off center window.
I will miss having a pretty backdrop for photos. I will miss all the lovely light and privacy of my backyard. And yet, this is not MY backyard. It is some other persons, a person that barely cares for the lovely home he has, who is content to let the gardens go to weeds and the bathrooms sink into the basement.
I suppose this brings me to the good list.
This house, the house we are signing closing on today, the house in the suburb with the carpets and crappy doors, is mine.
So the doors are horrid, perhaps I will slowly replace them until they are lovely. The carpet is icky and unsanitary. Well I will just have to save up to put in hard woods. The yard is little and unusable; that is ok, I will build a deck! No matter the issue, it is my house, and I can change anything I like.
Another very good thing is the separation we will have from Alice. I might love to entertain, and have a lovely living space here to do it, but I still don't. Alice is rude to my guests, she complains about anything I feed her, she has terribly unsavory personal hygiene habits and she makes the main bathroom in the house unusable by my guests.
In the new house she will reside in a sectioned off half of the lover level [my studio and the utility/wash room take up the other half] She will use a bathroom that is wholly and totally hers. She will have her own dining/living space and no one will have to endure her company unless the specifically want to.
This is such a HUGE positive it nearly outweighs all other negatives together.
The final GIANT good list item is the cost. Whats so ironic about the housing market today is that it is cheaper to buy a home than it is to rent one. Our rental house is 1400 square feet and costs $1400 a month plus renters insurance and utilities. [have I mentioned how terrible the gas bill is because of older sub par insulation and windows? or how high our water bill is due to leaking plumbing?] The new house is 1900 square feet and less than $1000 a month INCLUDING home owners insurance. The utilities should not go up much because this home has much better windows and insulation and the heat wont run away like it tends to here.
We are also paying off our car at closing today and that is another $250 a month we were paying. This means come this summer when our lease here runs up, we will be saving $650 a month. That is huge. That is buy a second car huge, finally go on a honeymoon huge, renovate all the icky things out of our house huge!
So while I may miss my hardwoods and vintage charm, I can't ignore how much this move will be improving our quality of life, and that's really worth some temporary ugliness.
Plus we are most likely just going to sell this place in five years to buy our dream home. ;)
This week I have been thinking alot about some very shallow and silly things on the bad list.
The house I live in now is cute. It is a 50s rambler with original hardwood floors, a cute semi-open floor plan and very nice 2 panel doors. The backyard has an adorable little tree under which we built a little patio out of random pavers the owner had lying around for years. The back yard is big enough to have big parties and the windows are big enough to see the back yard. I love to entertain, and the dining room is spacious and cute and well laid out. Even though it is a rental I truly made this house feel like our home.
I know it is so silly to care about little visual things but I am going to miss them. The new house was built in 1987 buy a developer and is "builder grade" personafied. It is all carpet and linoleum over plywood and concrete. The windows are few and small, but then who wants to look in their next door neighbors bedroom. The doors are flimsy hollow core doors with no trim or character. The backyard is small and covered in trees [which are not to be removed as to preserve the soil retention] and there is no door directly out back. We are planning to just build a deck off the kitchen because the yard seems somewhat unusable. Our bedroom has ONE window; one standard size, single width, tree facing and off center window.
I will miss having a pretty backdrop for photos. I will miss all the lovely light and privacy of my backyard. And yet, this is not MY backyard. It is some other persons, a person that barely cares for the lovely home he has, who is content to let the gardens go to weeds and the bathrooms sink into the basement.
I suppose this brings me to the good list.
This house, the house we are signing closing on today, the house in the suburb with the carpets and crappy doors, is mine.
So the doors are horrid, perhaps I will slowly replace them until they are lovely. The carpet is icky and unsanitary. Well I will just have to save up to put in hard woods. The yard is little and unusable; that is ok, I will build a deck! No matter the issue, it is my house, and I can change anything I like.
Another very good thing is the separation we will have from Alice. I might love to entertain, and have a lovely living space here to do it, but I still don't. Alice is rude to my guests, she complains about anything I feed her, she has terribly unsavory personal hygiene habits and she makes the main bathroom in the house unusable by my guests.
In the new house she will reside in a sectioned off half of the lover level [my studio and the utility/wash room take up the other half] She will use a bathroom that is wholly and totally hers. She will have her own dining/living space and no one will have to endure her company unless the specifically want to.
This is such a HUGE positive it nearly outweighs all other negatives together.
The final GIANT good list item is the cost. Whats so ironic about the housing market today is that it is cheaper to buy a home than it is to rent one. Our rental house is 1400 square feet and costs $1400 a month plus renters insurance and utilities. [have I mentioned how terrible the gas bill is because of older sub par insulation and windows? or how high our water bill is due to leaking plumbing?] The new house is 1900 square feet and less than $1000 a month INCLUDING home owners insurance. The utilities should not go up much because this home has much better windows and insulation and the heat wont run away like it tends to here.
We are also paying off our car at closing today and that is another $250 a month we were paying. This means come this summer when our lease here runs up, we will be saving $650 a month. That is huge. That is buy a second car huge, finally go on a honeymoon huge, renovate all the icky things out of our house huge!
So while I may miss my hardwoods and vintage charm, I can't ignore how much this move will be improving our quality of life, and that's really worth some temporary ugliness.
Plus we are most likely just going to sell this place in five years to buy our dream home. ;)
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xox alison