I grew up in a home that was always being remodeled. My parents liked to watch shows like "This Old House" and peruse local home improvement stores. I guess maybe it's in the genes. I, too, love house-related things. We moved into our first home when I was just 21 years old. At that point, it felt like I'd waited an eeeeternity to get my own home.
Our first home was a gorgeous 1929 1 1/2 story with original hardwood floors, oak built-ins with leaded glass and was solid as a rock. It was, coincidentally, just a block down from the home I grew up in. With the old-home charm came old-home issues. The furnace was ancient, there was no insulation in the walk-in attic. The 26 windows were all original and not very energy efficient. We didn't have air conditioning and it had the old knob-and-tube wiring.
Looking at it from a purely financial investment standpoint, we decided after only 2 years there to sell for a nice profit and buy one of those new houses up on the hill.
Oh, I was so excited at the prospect of buying a brand new shiny home. One that only we had lived in--no history, no issues. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that you get a shiny new home, but you get a home that has no landscaping, no grass, no central air, no garage door opener, no deck, etc. etc. Also, our home looked just like pretty much 3/4 of the other homes in the neighborhood, just a different shade of "neutral".
We worked over the first few years to make that house comfortable--we put in central air, a garage door opener, grass, landscaping, built a deck, pergo floors to replace the builder-grade linoleum, finished the basement, a fence, patio and eventually new carpet. I was so very blessed to have a home and one that was so nice, but there was always this feeling in the back of my mind that this was a temporary stop for us. This wasn't our forever "dream" home.
After about 6 years in the house, we decided to start looking again. We weren't exactly sure what we were looking for, just that we were ready for something different. We looked at a lot of homes--going 20 miles south (more affordable) and looking at hobby farms mostly. What we ended up with was pretty much the opposite of what we had been looking at.
In the midst of our house shopping, my father-in-law announced he was retiring and selling his home. This is a home that he built himself in 1986 for his family. I knew that this house was well-built but cosmetically it seemed pretty run-down. The potential was there, though, and I was pretty excited about the whole idea. It's kind of neat to tell your kids that you live in the house their grandpa built. After almost of year of false starts, ups and downs and "negotiating", we sold our house and moved to this one.
It was difficult for me to move from a shiny newer home where everything was done into a home that needed a ton of work. It was even harder to realize that because we purchased a more expensive home, we wouldn't necessarily have the money to do the things we wanted to do to the house right away. In hindsight, I would have negotiated better and paid less for it so we'd have the money to put back into it, but what's done is done and I can't change that part of it.
I do like my house.We've done quite a bit to it--new windows, a kitchen update, painting every room. We also did some unexpected things like replacing the well pipes and pump, the pressure tank, some other unexpected plumbing stuff...but we still have so much more to do (I don't want a deck on the front of my house, damnit--I want it on the back!).
Because we bought at the height of the housing boom, we, like a majority of Americans, owe more on our home than we could sell it for right now. I don't necessarily regret moving here because if we hadn't, we would have been "stuck" in our last home. I prefer being stuck here than there, I guess, but I wrestle with intense wanderlust. I don't want to be stuck anywhere. I also wrestle with the fact that we don't live in our dream home. Does anyone really truly live in their dream home, though? Will I live a decent life despite that? I'm sure I will.
