#Microblog Mondays: Home Sweet Home

Every once in a while, we go looking at houses that catch our eye, because we can't quite decide what to do with ours. Most recently, last weekend (well, the weekend before this one) we went to see a house that seemed absolutely perfect from the listing -- it had ALL THE THINGS (a porch, a private looking backyard, a newer kitchen, a finished attic, a first floor laundry, three bedrooms, office space for both of us, and a kickass location where you could walk to a village and a library and shopping and a movie theater and also the canal path). It really looked amazing.

The key word is "looked." After we saw it in person, we could see all the things that were awful -- the backyard was private to the back but woefully open and viewable from the sides (and one neighbor was exceedingly creepy); the basement had two sump pumps and a water track; the kitchen was newer but in disrepair; the rooms were as small as our rooms; the closet space was nonexistent; the awesome giant garage addition was offset weird and the bonus room space was only accessible from the second floor bathroom window (!); the basement smelled as though it was saturated in cat piss; the porch was also in disrepair -- this was not a house that was loved.

We need a house that is loved. And, quite honestly, we love our house.

So why do we keep looking?

I always thought that if we ended our journey childfree, that I'd want to move. That I'd want a house that was free of counters that had seen injections, free of space that had seen mourning over losses, free of ever having had a nursery that we put together (and then tore down).

Except... we redid our kitchen, so the counters are new. We bought all new living furniture, so the couch that held me wailing is gone and replaced with more joyful upholstery. The nursery was transformed into my office, which is definitely one of my favorite places in the house -- not at all tainted by what it once was.

We made a big list after this last house coveting adventure, and decided that we can make a first floor laundry for this house, and we can try to get a 4-season sunroom/family room addition on the back. Our needs have changed since we last looked at an addition and we don't need to do a two-story jobbie. We love our neighborhood. We love our neighbors. We love our gardens and outdoor spaces. We love our kitchen, and living room, and offices, and bedroom... every time we look at another house we always end up feeling like our house is somehow better.

Because it is. And keeping it will give us greater financial flexibility -- buying a new house would be definitively more expensive than what we have now (and what we have now is 15 years down on a 30 year mortgage, and the possibility of paying the whole thing off sooner than later), and if we stay here we could have the flexibility to travel more (and do it up), to look into the possibility of a lake cottage or something down the line, and to have the glory of not overextended ourselves for a house that has more space than we ultimately need.

So is it because we want a change somehow? Are we putting our want for a new direction into the wrong place? It's possible. It's strange to have been in this place of striving for something that didn't come, and now to be like, "um, now what?"

It's nice though to realize that we don't have to move to find that fulfillment, that we can enjoy what we have and make it even better and then decide where we want to go from here, knowing that we have our home sweet home.

All decked out for the season, loving the fall light

Love our home! Heh heh heh

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays, maybe ones that are actually playing by the rules and are micro? Go here and enjoy!