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Home hunting
Aug. 12th, 2017 02:31 pmWe're hoping to move out of this apartment this year and I'm working to move things in that direction. I just sold my mother's house in the country. The house where I grew up. I have no desire to live there but it was very hard to let it go. I turned a three bedroom house and an acre of land on the banks of the Susquehanna river into a check. The check will be used to pay off our debts and move us closer to having a large down payment on the next place. So in the end, I will be getting rid of one place to buy the next one. We have lived in this apartment for 21 years. We raised two kids here, but since they were born and the apartment became too cluttered and small, I have hated it. For 16 years. It was a nice place for a young couple but no place for a family. Having housed us through years of instability and sorrow, it's time to go. I don't feel that this my home or that I own it. It's a cubicle in a big building. We have communal space, but not our own space. I have a back yard, but feel weird sitting in it.
As we look for a new place, in the same very expensive town, I need to consider what kind of place will make me feel at home. It's likely we'll be in the next place for the next 21 years, maybe until we retire. What are the qualities that will make it feel like a home to me? We can't afford a single family house here, and I have no desire to deal with a lawn. I do feel attracted to two or three family houses. They feel like homes to me, with clapboard and a porch. Would I be happy in a brownstone? Is it the outside or the inside that's important? Right now, I dislike the interior, and the layout of the space is awkward. It was cut in half by the condo developer. You walk right in to the living room. There's no real entryway or flow to the space. (It's also too full of crap because the rooms are small and we've lived here for so long.) It's hard to have people over. One thing I do like about our place is the porch and the trees in the backyard. It's quiet back here.
My dream would be to have a real porch or deck where we could site outside. What else? A dining room. I don't even need an eat-in kitchen if I have one of those. Three bedrooms, 1.5 baths. An apartment that was built a hundred years ago for a family to live in. An entryway, a hallway. A welcoming front entrance. Now I'm getting off topic! Would I be happy in a building like this if I had a nice apartment inside it?
As we look for a new place, in the same very expensive town, I need to consider what kind of place will make me feel at home. It's likely we'll be in the next place for the next 21 years, maybe until we retire. What are the qualities that will make it feel like a home to me? We can't afford a single family house here, and I have no desire to deal with a lawn. I do feel attracted to two or three family houses. They feel like homes to me, with clapboard and a porch. Would I be happy in a brownstone? Is it the outside or the inside that's important? Right now, I dislike the interior, and the layout of the space is awkward. It was cut in half by the condo developer. You walk right in to the living room. There's no real entryway or flow to the space. (It's also too full of crap because the rooms are small and we've lived here for so long.) It's hard to have people over. One thing I do like about our place is the porch and the trees in the backyard. It's quiet back here.
My dream would be to have a real porch or deck where we could site outside. What else? A dining room. I don't even need an eat-in kitchen if I have one of those. Three bedrooms, 1.5 baths. An apartment that was built a hundred years ago for a family to live in. An entryway, a hallway. A welcoming front entrance. Now I'm getting off topic! Would I be happy in a building like this if I had a nice apartment inside it?
