Today is the first day in the past week that hasn’t felt completely insane, rushed, and full of stress. While I absolutely love having a day that doesn’t feel like I’m being chased by a pack of rabid deadlines, I have to admit that I feel a little lost. Apparently, once you get used to living in constant chaos, peace and quiet become surprisingly confusing.
One thing that has had me thinking today is our house. I somewhat obsessively check Realtor.com and Zillow to see what’s available in the area. I’ve always loved real estate, although I’m not entirely sure why. There is just something about scrolling through houses that I find strangely entertaining. This obsessive checking behavior is not new, either. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, which is probably why I know the housing market in our area better than I know what is currently happening in my own life.
Anyway, last week I saw a house that looked like it had ENDLESS POTENTIAL. Amazing views, an inground pool, beautiful outdoor dining space, a shop, and even a one-bedroom apartment attached to the shop. Naturally, my brain immediately went to rental potential, while my husband started muttering about not wanting strangers living on our property.
I swear that man thinks everyone is a criminal.
Not that I’m necessarily much better, but I tend to focus more on the potential revenue than the possibility that our future tenant might secretly be planning to murder us. We all have our strengths.
The downsides of this potential dream house, you might ask? Well, the cost was outrageous, and the interior was essentially a full gut job. The house was built in the 1970s, and it appeared to have had very few updates over the years. The updates that had been done seemed to make absolutely no sense.
Our last house was also built in the 1970s and had absolutely no updates. We’re talking avocado-green toilets and carpet in all the bathrooms. Yes, carpet. In the bathrooms. I still have questions. By the time my husband and I were finished with that house, it was amazing.
Of course, by then we had decided we wanted to move to get into a better school district, so we immediately sold the house we had just spent years remodeling. Because apparently, that is how we like to spend our time and money.
We have done the remodel thing before. I loved the process. My husband hated the process. We both loved the results. It was a beautiful, if slightly stressful, partnership. So naturally, I haven’t been able to get this new house out of my mind for the past week. I kept thinking, What if?
Today, the house had an open house, and I have to say I’m glad I went. The pictures made the interior look like it had so much more potential than it actually does. Don’t get me wrong, it still has potential, but we’re talking about at least a couple hundred thousand dollars to completely restructure the layout and turn it into what we would want.
So… no.
As much as I love a good renovation project, I’m not sure I love one enough to take on a project that would require us to essentially rebuild half the house. There is a limit to my enthusiasm, and apparently that limit is somewhere around “spend hundreds of thousands of dollars before the house is even remotely functional.”
However, the house did get my husband and me thinking: Do we actually want to move?
The answer is… we don’t know.
Our current house is a very nice house built in the 1990s. It’s completely livable, although everything is brown. I mean, everything. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to live inside a very nice cup of coffee, you could probably come visit us.
There are plenty of things we love about our house. It’s a one-story layout with an open-concept design, a nice kitchen, a large backyard, and a big shop. Those are all major positives.
The downsides are that our neighborhood isn’t great for the kids. There aren’t many other children around for them to play with, and there are no sidewalks, which means they can’t exactly just wander around the neighborhood like children in a 1950s sitcom. The shop is also located down a steep driveway that is an absolute nightmare to navigate, and we would love to have a pool.Unfortunately, putting a pool in our current location would probably provide us with absolutely no return on investment, other than the return of having a pool, which is admittedly a pretty good return if you enjoy swimming.
So what have we decided?
For now, we’re going to slowly start fixing our place up so that if we ever see the perfect opportunity, we’ll be ready to list.
What does this mean?
Well, just about every room needs to be painted. The laundry room needs to be finished, and the garage drywall needs to be repaired where we had a leak a couple of years ago. Nothing major. Honestly, these are all things we can easily do ourselves. Of course, “easy to do” and “actually getting done” are two completely different things. They all take time and money, but at least this gives me things to work on. Apparently, when I’m not dealing with skunks, mysterious whispers, or whatever other chaos life decides to throw at me, I need a home improvement project to keep me occupied.
The first room I’ve decided to tackle is the master bathroom. I need to repair several tiles surrounding the shower, do some minor drywall repair, and then paint. I’m hoping I can accomplish all of this next weekend. Baby steps, right?
I’ll keep you posted.