(no subject)

[aslant]

another friday, another ill-advised hour wasted on zillow, creeping on houses i'm not buying, just dreaming about.

dear universe, i really like this one:

$200,000 in the southeast 50s.
2 bedrooms. a tiny 636 square feet.

but look, look:

tiny but well-ordered, open kitchen (exactly! yes! this!) and and and!!!

just look at that massive corner lot. all that space for street-adjacent plantings, never mind the yard itself for plantings, playing, etc.




i have to remind myself that it's not pointless to look at stuff-i-can't-have-right-now because it helps me figure out exactly what i do want, when the time comes.

Comments

[duchess-k.livejournal.com]

Cute house! Dreaming is delicious and disheartening, sometimes.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

totally. i'm trying to hold onto the dreaming-and-thinking part of it, and not hold onto the hurt and worry and financial anxiety that tries to creep in when i think about exactly how this would work, or when, or how do we even pay a real estate agent when our house is slightly underwater, etc etc. details = not helpful. dreaming of yards and deciding it's really important to me to have one = helpful.

[duchess-k.livejournal.com]

My imagination runs away with me--I start to picture my New Life so quickly and easily. I just have to stay away.

I really like our little house but until we can afford to finish our basement, the baby will be in our room. Which means she will no longer be a baby by the time we have a room for her. Unless I decide I'm okay with having the TV/DVD/computer in the main living area--right now one of the bedrooms is the "media room". The main living area has a sofa and bookshelves and a stereo and the dining area. I like the tv being Away. If we finish the basement, we can move the media room down there, and voila! A bedroom for the girl.

So sometimes I just plain dream of a larger house. Which isn't going to happen. I just need to tell myself that getting a loan to do the basement would cost less than a sell & move.

[handstil.livejournal.com]

I think it's really good to daydream and explore when you can't move on something! It helps you to prioritize without doing anything impulsive. I spent about a year figuring out what was most important to us in our next house, knowing we'd likely move the following year because of the insane mortgage at our last place. Things like "hardwood floors" became "livable floors" and things like "good neighborhood" became "up and coming and inexpensive."

As someone who lives in a house 200 sq. ft bigger than that, let me say that is REALLY TINY. No escaping one another AT ALL, ever. Hardly any wallspace means a lot of stuff in the garage like books and furniture. I feel like we're fine tuning it but it's a long process!

[aslant.livejournal.com]

Yeah I've been paring it down to: yard, mostly-traditional floorplan (not huge open greatroom like our condo), and open-ish kitchen (or possibility to open it up). Leaving out things that used to matter like floors, old electrical systems, closets, storage generally, extra bedrooms.

With that tiny house I could see expanding pretty easily (right onto the slab of the detached garage for a nice L-shaped addition) but realistically we wouldn't be able to afford it! But it is super tempting to get a tiny place to FORCE us to pare down. I'm in one of my cyclic angsty phases where I want to get rid of All The Things. Grrrr. It's like weight and debt -- stff hangs around and I haven't quite cracked the code to deal with it in the way I'd like.

Also hard to remember that the big outdoor space of that house would be super awesome for two months in the summer, but pretty rainy for the rest of the time. If you check the Zilllow pics there is a carport/covered area set up for outdoor dining. I love the idea of a covered outdoor space like this -- let Penny bomb around on a bike in the rain, or eat outside on a wet but warmish evening. All kinds of possibilities -- way more versatile than a deck.

[debok.livejournal.com]

i love little spaces like this that are full of white and light. so simple and fresh and bright! this is my ideal space (plus some art and books).