For the past nine years DH and I have been looking for the perfect house to move to and buy. In that time we have found a perfect house, we have bought a house, and we have moved. Unfortunately all of those things did not happen together. We have found many houses we really liked but in someway were impractical. Last year we found the perfect house. It was a total fluke, I was looking up a house I saw in the paper and instead of finding it I stumbled upon a unique house in Brighton. It was on 5 acres, had a chicken coop, a barn, horse corral, a stream and was completely in our price range. Usually this is when I say, “but the house had “. Instead, it was hand built by a monk, was totally unique and DH and I totally dug it. Which for us to agree on a house is unique in and of itself. But it was the beginning of our economy falling apart and we weren’t sure we could sell our house and no one was getting a second mortgage so that was that. Within four days it sold, it was a bargain, a truly amazing house like no other. Did I mention it had a chapel that was built by stones from around the world? It had an (almost) indoor pool. Amazing. It has been a year and a half and we still talk about that house and what could have been.
Since then we keep looking but it isn’t the same. No house seems to compare. How can they, it had everything. If we found the perfect house again we think we may be able to get a second mortgage now with the banks doing better. Every Sunday we look at houses. Every Sunday we are ready to move, not because we found the perfect house just because we know this house is not that. We are officially in a house funk. There is nothing wrong with this house per se it just isn’t the best fit. We have four kids and three bedrooms. Our oldest is sleeping in the family room so she can have her own space. Our neighborhood isn’t very friendly. In the spring, summer, fall and part of winter we are playing outside. The kids on their bikes, me tending my garden and we stick out like a sore thumb. Where are the other kids on bikes? Where are people just outside enjoying themselves? There are certainly walkers, and some much older kids playing basketball but that’s it. No friendly community, no neighbors outside chit chatting. Heck, I don’t even have a neighbor I am close enough to that I can borrow an egg from. How sad is that? I have had more than one pizza crust emergency that resulted in me hopping in the car to the (luckily) nearby store.
And so we have finally decided to change that. We have decided that in order to be open and ready to accept a new house we must sell this house. With four small children at home that sounds about as fun as a do-it-yourself hysterectomy. But I know how bummed we would be if another perfect house (or as close to that one can be) to come our way and have anything holding us back. So we have decided to go at it with full force and try to list in six weeks, Yowza! To do this I need a plan.
My plan so far is to:
1) declutter and organize
2) clean
3) repair/fix
4) repaint and new carpet
5) stage
6) live in a tent so I don’t go insane trying to keep this up? (optional)
I am going to do each step in all the rooms before moving on to the next step. So right now instead of blogging, I should be de-cluttering and organizing the whole house. And this is why I suddenly thought that I should tend to a blog I have neglected for months. I plan on posting updates here to keep me motivated and on track. Wish us luck!
