A Love Letter to This House
You guys. Living in a house, after spending the last four years in an apartment is mindblowing. I’m kind of in heaven here.
And Ella keeps saying, “Don’t you love having a house where there is space for everything? And Ani doesn’t have to sleep in the bathroom anymore!”
Indeed, I do love having a house. And I am happy for Ani (I’d been worried about transitioning her to a room because when we went to Utah in May, she was so unaccustomed to sleeping in a space that wasn’t 100% pitch-black that we had to double-garbage bag the windows in my in-laws’ basement to get her to sleep. Happily, she’s had no such issues here).
I feel like I probably would have been happy with any house, but I’m particularly thrilled by THIS house. It’s just a really really nice house (such a huge relief after picking it sight-unseen, and wondering if the excellent price meant it was a complete lemon).
A few things I love about this house:
- Carpet. If you ever came over to my apartment, you almost certainly heard about how much I hated the carpet which was horrible when we moved in and was even worse after three years. And with the dining area carpeted? I can only tell you how BAD that carpet looked after two small children. My heart sings a little every time I just sweep up under the high chair, and it hasn’t permanently stained the carpet. The carpet in this house is brand-new, and I am in love.
- A garage. I can’t tell you how many times I loaded the girls up in the car and then realized I’d forgotten one tiny thing upstairs. Also, my car is no longer a cool 110 degrees every afternoon from sitting in direct sun for hours on end.
- Two sinks in the master bathroom. This has been on our wish-list for YEARS. And now it’s finally a reality. It is just as good as I hoped.
- A bigger kitchen. As far as apartment kitchens go, ours was pretty nice, but if Bart was doing the dishes, there was basically no room at all for me to do anything in there. Just a couple more feet of width has made all the difference in the world.
- A dedicated playroom. It’s actually the dining room, but we have no dining room furniture, plus it is in the ideal spot for a playroom (at the very back of the downstairs, just next to the kitchen), so its perfect for the girls to play in while I’m making dinner.
- An upstairs and downstairs. It’s so nice to put the girls to bed and then go downstairs and just feel like we have a little space from them. (I won’t lie – my legs are pretty tired at the end of the day from going up and down, and I’m feeling really really grateful for the phone set VTech sent me as part of a sponsored campaign (you get two land-line like phones, but they run through your cell phone), so I don’t spend half my life missing phone calls now that I can’t hear my cell phone vibrate from every inch of my home).
- The fact that you can’t see the kitchen from the front door. This was something my mom never liked about houses, and our apartment opened RIGHT into the kitchen. I felt like I could never keep it looking as clean as I wanted because my kitchen is generally used very very frequently.
- An office. This is pretty much a dream come true for me, and it’s upstairs, which is really great for working while the girls are napping because I can hear them (or field questions from Ella about what time she can be done with quiet time).
- A mailbox right in front of my house. Now I can go check a hundred times a day, if I want (I do not want, necessarily, but I COULD).
- No upstairs or downstairs neighbors. I couldn’t have asked for better downstairs neighbors than Lindsey and Blakely, but it is nice not to have to worry that we’re too loud, and I am not at all sad to not have people stomping around above us, especially during naptime. The last set of people who lived above us were a bunch of college students who were EXTREMELY loud, and culminated their residency in our building by having one guy fall off the third-story balcony (drunk) and breaking both arms and a few ribs, plus puncturing several major organs. There were many many fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars that night.
So, no, not really missing apartment living much at all. Just our Texas friends.
Later this week, I’ll share a couple of pictures of the house – probably one room at a time, because thus far there are NO rooms that are ready to be shared. But I’m hopeful by Friday I’ll have at least one room tour-ready.
Yes. To all of this.
Enjoy your house. We love ours!
I am so glad everything worked out and you are in such a good situation. And yes, a house can be a wonderful thing after an apartment, even a good apartment. Love to all.
Um, story #10. Seriously?
Glad you guys are settled in! We'll probably be moving into a hovel-like shoebox so I'll live vicariously through your house adventures, if you don't mind.
Happy you are loving your new house! When we moved in to our Texas house Gwen ran around in circles throughout the whole thing for hours. It felt like a mansion!
Seriously on the carpet! I hate apartment carpet. Always always so dingy and not matter how many times you clean it….. it comes right back up!
Yay!!! Having a garage improved our life by 300% and I also love having an upstairs and downstairs- to have a separation from sleeping children, and because I can usually keep my downstairs fairly clean and nice-looking and I don't have to worry as much about the upstairs because people hardly go up there. Now to just live in a house where the kitchen is not right off the entryway…
One day I will have a house, with a garage and a dishwasher and AC and maybe even more than one bathroom. And more than one closet.
Swoon.
xox
It is all fun and games until you want a bigger house . . .
*smiling*
(that is all)
🙂
i just really, really, really want laundry in my abode. 4.5 years of marriage has equaled 4.5 years of laundromats. sigh…
also, you have to walk through our kitchen to get to our living room. *cringe*
I'm so used to living in a house that I don't think I could ever downsize into an apartment! Unless like college time or whatever, but I can't imagine doing the apartment thing with two kids.
And poor Ani, sleeping in the bathroom! 🙁 Are the girls sharing a room now or do they have their own rooms? I'd love to see a house tour sometime… if you're into that kind of stuff, that is. I know some people are weird about putting pictures of their house layout all over the internet, but a few peeks would be fun, especially after you've talked about the new house so much!
ummm yeah, it would have been nice if I had read the last paragraph. 🙂
1. My house opens into the kitchen. It is not my favorite.
2. MY KITCHEN HAS CARPET. CARPET. I always questioned the sanity of people who put a rug under the table on top of a perfectly good mopable floor. And now, I HAVE CARPET IN MY KITCHEN. Who does that???
Yeah! We have just recently had a similar experience with buying our first home. A relative came over and said, "it's a cute little house", which made me laugh because we feel like it is a MANSION! I have three boys and two of them (the third is 6 months) ran around and around and around and were literally bouncing off walls. Plus a fenced in back yard- the yard is amazing- has put us in our own little heaven (especially with no carpet under the dining area!!). Happy for you!
YES. Yes to all of this. The difference between living in a tiny rowhouse with shared walls where I could tell what movie my neighbors were watching ok TV and having a real house is AMAZING. The GARAGE. OMG, the garage. It is so great to drive right inside your house when it is raining or cold or hot… basically any time. I LOVE that I can run inside to get a forgotten item and not have to unbuckle Hannah and drag her back to the house with me.
Congratulations. Can you expand on the phone thing? Did you do a review post. That sounds like a great solution to our phone problems…..
I actually have never lived in a house without "adults" until my husband and I bought the house we live in now. We have carpet in the dining room too and it's okay, but it's got to go one day. I actually really like having carpet in the living room – especially knowing we have a little one on the way and I would much rather them crawl on carpet than hardwood floors. My husband really wants hardwood floors throughout the downstairs though so I guess I will just find a nice big rug for the living room. I love having an upstairs too. And having a downstairs bath helps when people come over. The upstairs can be a complete mess but that's okay because there's no reason guests need to go up there. It's just our bedrooms, our private areas. =] We do not have a garage but we WILL have one in our next home. I don't want a garage for cars, I want a garage for re-purposing furniture and having a space to do it!
Runt
runtspickins@yahoo.com
http://www.runtspickins.wordpress.com
I remember these feelings when we moved from our apartment to our rental house back in the day… even though our rental house was small and old, it was still heaven in our eyes! 🙂
Sounds so great! We just left SB and are staying at my parents house while they are on a mission. I lament there is practically no empty space for any of our stuff, but so far I am loving the w/d, more space, a yard, garage, and no shared walls- so I totally get you!
Those all sound like fantastic points about the house. Ella is no longer napping? Just quiet time now? Does ani get a morning nap? Do you guys stay home for that every day? I never heard about the upstairs neighbor falling down off the balcony…wow sounds like a winner. You're house/kitchen always seemed clean to me!