I have been chatting with friends lately about our houses. We live in one of the most expensive parts of CA. Anywhere else we'd be living in a 2000+ sq. foot home with a formal dinning room and a bonus room. But, we're in a little two bedroom house - with a garage that is usable for anything other than storage. A kitchen that is in desperate need of a renovation (and I'm watching SPICE UP MY KITCHEN at the moment and they just said most kitchen renovations cost $30K-$60K - WHATTT??? gulp). A bedroom where our Queen bed and one dresser maxes out the floor space. And a second bedroom that is, i admit, a decent size for a kid.
We're all in the same boat. Houses that are too small for growing families. Houses that make our husbands frustrated. We converted 1/2 the garage into an office for me - the hubby has one at work. But his little home desk is squished into a little corner and things just get piled up on it.
Now I know that if we lived in Manhattan or San Francisco we'd be in even more close quarters - but we would also be able to get Chinese food or Sushi at midnight.
So what can we do?
Get rid of stuff? Already did some of that - but I'm not parting with my books.
Find furniture that fits in the house? Okay, but that costs $$ and do we really want to invest in furniture when we have a toddler and two dogs?
Oh and what about all the toddler toys everywhere? Hmmm... what to do with that?
Anyway... a bonus - we have a good size backyard and it is summer. Happy outdoor living...
2 comments:
Not to mention every summer half the county is burning... ugh.
hmmm. There is one variable you are forgetting in the equation: time. If you have time, you can come up with clever solutions to all of these, right? Do the construction yourself, etc? But what parent (working or not) of a kid under 4-years-old has time to come up with clever solutions and then personally implement them nail-by-nail? It is very fab that you did the back yard patio already, it is so not clear to me how you found time to do that.
When we are really drawn to a specific vision, it is possible to do just about anything, or at least a LOT easier. That's how I painted my office this past January when I really swear I had no free time at all. I have some current organizing projects I want to do so this has been on my mind. Where does the energy come from? And how about the time itself?
I know it was more of a rhetorical kind of questioning in your post, but it got me thinking. If you can get a vision of a part of your house in a way that it would be way better for you, you might just be able to get there faster than you think. I can totally picture a killer kitchen remodel for you that would only take a few weekends and cost a few thousand dollars. We did a $5k kitchen makeover when we moved into our house (that made the house feel like mine) so I am not just talking as a remodel show viewer!
Okay, didn't mean to get so carried away with this comment. Back to entering my finances in Quicken.
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