House Poll: Perfect Fit Now vs. Lifetime

[justginger]

I grew up in a small house, DH and I live in a small house. Two totally different issues for me: space and money. I prioritize being mortgage-free, so that means staying in a smaller house. And I personally don't like the trend of expanding houses. I think they are very wasteful, in an environmental sense.

It completely depends on YOUR priorities though. Some of my friends have massive, brand new houses. That's their thing. I have international holidays and diamonds. Money is finite, only you can decide which channel to funnel it into.

 

[rubybeth]

I voted to stay put, and I have a couple reasons:

1) 2,700 square feet is rather large. My parents' home is roughly 2,000 sf bi-level, and even when I was a kid, I felt like it was huge for the four of us living there. It has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and an 'extra' room that has been used as a guest room. Now, with both of their kids moved out, they have 2 guest rooms, basically using just their upper level. Now, if half of your 2,700 sf is basement that's unusable, that might be a different story.

2) Having more space means collecting more stuff. Humans tend to gravitate toward cozy spaces, and we like to 'fill up' empty space. I am the ultimate anti-hoarder, so I would probably happily stay in our 700 sf 1 bedroom apartment for life if my DH didn't collect so much crap that takes up so much of our closet space and if our landlord allowed dogs.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Just curious if you made a decision one way or the other, Rainydaze? Or maybe you're still mulling it over?

 

[rainydaze]

Just curious if you made a decision one way or the other, Rainydaze? Or maybe you're still mulling it over?

Hi NEL, thanks for checking in! It looks like we are going to stay! We just had a long conversation with our contractor, going over things we can do to our house. Our ideas are doable - we can get a bigger loft than we thought with privacy for a bedroom for the third child, and my kitchen ideas will work making that space user-friendly and suited to a family of five. We won't get a mudroom or laundry room, but we love this house/yard/location and the financial aspects of keeping it, so knowing we can work with it to suit our needs won us over.

Again thank you so much to everyone who responded and voted!!! Some great points were brought up to which DH and I has strong resonance with or divergence from, helping us to pinpoint which page we were on.

Dreamer - you're totally right, good problem to have! And we recognize that... I do feel like I'd be tempting fate or waiting for the shoe to drop if we were to move. I know people do it all the time, but at heart I am generally of the less-is-more mentality (except when it comes to diamond, lol!). Thank you for sharing about needing to pare down expenses now - that has come up a lot in our conversation and I'm not sure we'd be good at it.

MG - Nothing like a good dose of perspective now and then! You summed it up in a nutshell, and it looks like that's the route we're going to take!

Freke - What a cool idea!!! Wow, I would have never thought of something like that. So clever!

monarch - Sounds like your parents got it all - space and the option to keep it! I wish we could have it both ways and maybe we could, but from where we stand right now it looks like it wouldn't be practical for us. I hear you loud and clear on the bubble - it's easy to lose perspective of the greater reality and I don't think that's wise.

Zoe - Slight lack of space prompted us to look at our options - which are spend money updating our house to suit our needs or spending money on a new house that is done. When considering the new house, we realized we like the idea of keeping our home and our children being able to come back - though of course we understand the future is unknown - and we wondered how others felt about that. You know, it really is a great space for our family and if we just optimize what we have, I think we can grow more into it just fine!

justginger - Great point about environmental concerns. That is important to us. The newer house had more efficient stuff, and lower costs, but I'm sure there are impacts we didn't consider. DH has been reminding me staying means more jewelry and vacations! Hard to argue with that!!

rubybeth - Ok, I was already coaching myself that if we moved to a bigger house, I wouldn't bring in any more stuff as DH and I love a good purge. We both get irritated and grouchy when clutter happens. But I know you're right, I'd go filling the nooks and crannies. That's totally a drawback in my book too!

 

[Enerchi]

Fantastic that you have both come to a mutually agreeable decision!! Happy that it all worked out - sometimes you just have to go thru the process to get to the end. Pro con lists??? love 'em! but this was a great forum to get lots of creative input!!

Exciting for you!

 

[rainydaze]

Thanks Enerchi! I have to say, I feel really good about the decision and excited about the changes we can make!

 

[Dreamer_D]

How exciting! And you know, there is something great about renovating -- a project where you create soemthing just the way you want. Like jewelery Sure its painful along the way, but the end result should be cherished!

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I agree that a renovation project will be fun! The previous owners of our house did a big renovation to our house before we bought it, but now that we've lived there a couple of years all I can think about are the things I would have done differently. You know your house well, you know what you need and being able to tailor the renovation to that is going to be great! I'm excited for you!

 

[Enerchi]

Who is going to work with you on the reno? An architect? an architectural technician? An interior designer??? It may be worth the consultation fee to get someone's expertise other than the actual contractor/reno person. Some design companies want you to list EVERY.little.thing.you.do all day long on a list, so they can incorporate how you move/think/integrate things into your lifestyle. We designed our house (and by we I mean mainly ME!) and even tho there are a few things I'd tweak now, 13 years later, I'd say the amount of time you spend planning and living the design in your head really helps to make it right once its made.

Very exciting - I love this process! Feel free to share all your ideas... love to live vicariously thru others!