S/O...What do you love/hate about your current home?

[nugov2]

Love:

The layout...we have a beautiful ranch, with a double sided fireplace and sunroom

Kitchen...spacious and very open. Huge island and double ovens.

Mudroom with a door to the outside added in. Great for snowy or rainy days to prevent tracks all over the house.

Basement is huge. We opted for the full basement so we have around 2700 sq ft of basement which is great for the kids and their friends to play

Massive backyard

Cons
We only did 3 bedrooms instead of 4...we have 3 kids so my boys share a room, at the time we thought we would only have 2 kids. Hate this! We can move one to the basement when they're older as the windows down there are set up for easy escape if there is a fire, but I don't see that happening until the teen years.

We only did a two car garage when we built. We were young a dumb with only one infant at the time. It gets tight with two cars and all the kids crap


This is our home until the kids are grown
I used to say we stay forever but our property taxes are already over 1,000 a month and keep climbing every year. I can't imagine paying 1,700-2,000 a month in taxes when our kids are grown and out of this school district so we'd likely downsize and stay in the area or move somewhere completely depending on where everyone is.

 

[ronandannette]

I'm copying your style and highlighting the relevant points in red.

Not sure I understand what you mean by a cantilevered bedroom.......is it upstairs and juts out from the rest of the house?

When my parents bought their house 40+ years ago, my mother wanted a gas stove but the builder of the subdivision said no, electric stoves only. Yet they put in a gas line for the dryer and fireplace. I recently renovated the kitchen and intend to put the house on the market this spring. Getting a gas line for a stove was no problem. I don't know why gas stoves were banned back then, unless the builder had a sweetheart deal with General Electric.




In my house I like that the laundry room is upstairs, right by the bedrooms. In fact, that was the deciding feature that made me choose this house. All the laundry rooms I had in the past were either in the basement, or in an awkward part of the main floor. I also like the covered front porch. In nice weather I like to sit there and watch the world go by. I'm walking distance to a supermarket and a KMart too, although I usually drive if I'm picking up more than a few items.

Not really that bad, but I wish the basement had a separate entrance from the outside, rather than having to go thru the house to access it.

Gas line isn't going to happen . We're in an interior unit attached to neighbours on either side and (this is weird and hard it visualize, I know) the gas main for our unit runs into our basement which is actually underneath our neighbour's kitchen and on the opposite side of the house from our kitchen. There is no practical way to make the modification. Running a water line to the fridge could theoretically be T'd off the supply line to our kitchen sink but there's no way to get it across the room and keep it concealed; the kitchen floor is on a concrete slab and to bury it in a wall would involve taking the cabinets down. 30 years ago electric stoves were considered "sleek and modern" and were a hot feature. Fridges with water and ice makers weren't even available yet, I don't think. It is one of the few pitfalls of this "dream-home" of ours.

As for the master bedroom, yes - a cantilever means that part of it is built out into thin air above the main floor. It's the N.E. outside corner that's freezing, especially when the winds blow from that way (it's -17C here today ). Fixing the insulation will require opening both the wall and the floor from the inside as we're not allowed to make any modifications to the exterior of the building.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

Pros:
#1 Pro: It is down the street and around the corner from the house we rented when we first moved to this state, so the kids didn't have to be uprooted again. We are so close that they even still go to the same bus stop
It has 4 bedrooms and two full baths
It has central air and is completely updated with granite countertops, new tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, new windows, completely brick exterior, landscaped, hardwood floors in great shape, brand new carpet on steps and upstairs bedrooms as well as the family room
We have a very large finished family room in the basement
Huge laundry room
Tons of storage
The street is quieter - our old street was a main artery through our neighborhood, with a traffic light at the north end where it intersected a busy road.

Cons:
We lost a mudroom
The kitchen is the size of our old master walk-in closet from 2 houses ago - it is so small that really only one person can be in there at a time.
I can stand at my backdoor, reach my arms out straight and touch my neighbors house.
The living room is only about 14X16 and there is no dining room, so the dining table is pushed up against the wall in the corner next to the kitchen
No driveway
The alley that we need to use to access the garage is in such bad shape that DH got stuck on Tuesday with all of the mushy snow and slushy ice
The alley looks like a river after a hard rain, then the stangnant puddles last forever.

 

[JessM]

I currently live in a condo. It was my first home purchase. I bought in 2014 as a single lady because the mortgage is cheaper than rent and it was hard to find a quality apartment that would accept my dog. It was meant to be someplace that I would live for only a few years. Now that I have met DBF and we have been together awhile its almost time to find something bigger and something that is a single family.

Pros:
-No yard work
-No snow blowing
-Open layout between kitchen, dining room and living room
-Nice big peninsula in kitchen
-Big basement with high ceiling (i.e. the perfect workout space)
-Lots of closets
-One of the few single story, townhouse style homes in the area, should be easy to sell

Cons:
-Expensive association dues - we are up to $243/mo!!
-Way too small
-Old gross kitchen cabinets and counters
-Single story with no separation between the living areas and the bedrooms
-Only one bathroom - the worst with two people!
-Leash restrictions within the association, I can't even play fetch with the dog in the backyard

 

[MIGrandma]

The house we live in is the house my DH grew up in. It's an early 1900's 2-story farmhouse. We moved here in 1980, and his parents moved next door to a smaller home they had put on the lot (pre-fab). I've always loved this house and there really isn't a lot that I don't like. It's huge. The main floor has the living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, office, master bedroom, two bathrooms, and the 24'x24' family room we had added on in 1987. Upstairs are three more bedrooms, a third bathroom, and storage room. It also has an attached 2-car garage (with room for other stuff like a freezer, woodworking equipment/tools, a work bench, shelves for gardening supplies, etc.). It has a wrap-around front porch, and a 3-level deck on the west side of the house. It has a basement, but it stays wet (sump pump runs often) and isn't finished off for any usable space. The furnace and water heater are down there.

Mostly what I don't like are cosmetic things, that just take time and mostly money to improve. I'd like to eventually have the kitchen redone, and we could use new carpet in several of the rooms. I'd like new windows too. They were new in 1974 but very difficult to clean and drafty. The bathrooms could use updating too.

Not sure this will be our "forever" home. We may move next door to the smaller house. I wouldn't mind that at all, as it has 3 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms and it's all on one level so would be easier for us as we get older. Not sure who would live in this house though. Maybe a grandchild would want to buy it eventually, not sure. Or if we were ever to sell the houses/lot (not the whole farm) we might move into town, or a smaller one-level home on the edge of town, or move to a warmer climate, just a lot of possibilities to explore in another 10-20 years. So who knows.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

For the most part, I love my house except for some cosmetic issues that need attention like a new fence or refinishing the hardwood floors. I keeps saying we will live until the last kid graduates high school and that seems to keep getting extended!

I love my huge kitchen with very large island where the sink and dishwasher are. It has a bar on one side, and it's definitely the hang out spot when we or the older kids have friends over. With that also comes more cabinets than I ever thought I could fill coming from a much smaller house, which as you can guess, after almost 8 years of living there, the cabinets are somehow full. We have a huge 5 burner electric stovetop which is separate from the oven, and I love that layout. The oven is more "eye-level", which makes it easier to get things in and out. It doesn't bother me that it isn't gas- I prefer the look of the flat glass cooktop. The oven is convection but I rarely turned convection on as I always seem to burn things that way. But, the entire kitchen and breakfast nook have this terra cotta inspired orangish tile. There is nothing "wrong" with it except it limits what colors I can paint my kitchen, so it' something I can't justify ripping out. The entire first floor is open, so you can see this orange tile from the other rooms too.

The finished basement, however is very compartmentalized, and I've seen other houses in my neighborhood where the exact same model has an open floor plan in the basement, and it seems so much larger. I'm not sure if we'd ever change it, as it would mean ripping out walls and closets, and in going down to less bedrooms, technically lowering the value.

I think the only other thing I would like to change is bigger closets, especially in the master bedrooms, but what I probably need to actually change is my organization skills. We do have a 2 car garage, as well as climate controlled storage that is accessed from the outside of the house, so in theory we have plenty of storage space.

 

[barkley]

so many of these are identical to our situation-

Cons:
I hate the kitchen counters. I don't like the color (grey) with the rest of the kitchen . They are solid surface and the scratching is horrible. Anything moved on the counter leaves a scratch. I have even scratched them several times with plastic containers. I keep going back and forth about changing them, but there is over 75 sqft of counters (plus I would change the backsplash style at the same time) so that's a pretty big expense for something that's not really "necessary"

the spec. builder on our home for reasons we can't figure out spent big chunks of change on some elements but cheaped out on others that would have driven up the selling price in his favor-the countertops in particular. ugly, cheap pale peachy laminate that I babied to keep from staining/chipping for 7 years until it came up on our home improvements list (try to do one big improvement every year or two-ideally paying in full so we can FULLY enjoy it). replaced it with granite (and replaced the stupid split sink w/a large granite composite) and now I don't have to worry about putting the bottle of balsamic vinegar on the counter

It is also nice because this stove has an extra oven (where the broiler/storage drawer is on most ovens). So this is not really a con at this point, but it was when we were looking at houses.

LOVE my double oven-no turning back once you've had one. we've found that our energy costs have gone down as a result as well-with very few exceptions (big roasts, holiday meals, take and bake pizzas) we almost exclusively use the smaller oven which costs less to operate.

-Kitchen storage. Would love a few more cabinets or a bigger pantry (just have a pantry closet) especially for small appliance storage

same here-and my closet is like an afterthought (weird shape/lost space). for my wealth of appliances (big and small) I use what I assume is meant to be a linen closet in the hallway (where kid's rooms are). I just store linens/towels on 2 wicker shelving units in the laundry room (makes it easier for putting away after doing laundry as well). all my appliances fill that 'linen closet' top shelf to bottom.

View (its on a lake)

that was the clincher for us too-walked out of the family room onto the massive deck to see the view with our realtor, and neither of us could fathom why the listing hadn't included photos b/c it's stunning.

Private - we're at the end of a private road and all the lots are at least 1/2 an acre so we're not all on top of each other

love this too-ours are larger acreage lots but I love being able to see my neighbor's houses in the distance vs. being to see into them (the norm for the housing developments in the area we moved from).


the only other 'con' (and it's not a biggie) is that our master bedroom is a bit too large for my taste-I would have preferred that they took some of the square footage away and dedicated it to the adjacent family room. the other bedrooms are decent sized though which was a must when we were looking-I detest bedrooms that can basically only fit a twin bed and a bureau.

 

[Pakey]

I moved into my boyfriend's house and am renting out my smaller home. His house is so much nicer than mine. It's a 4 bedroom, 3 bath.

LOVE: Neighborhood is one of the best in the city. Kitchen is huge and renovated and perfect. Butler's pantry to store all of my cake decorating supplies. House layout is fantastic. Amazing yard with a pool. I have my own walk in closet separate from his.

HATE: It's two story. Upstairs carpet (I don't like carpet). 2 of the 4 bedrooms are too small. Laundry room layout is the worst I've ever seen. Downstairs is dark as windows face the wrong way. Not enough electrical outlets. Garage is only a 2 car. Upstairs bathrooms need to be updated. My work commute increased 4x. Front walkways don't divert rain so it's hard to not get wet feet.

 

[lakelandgal70]

Love:
Fully paid for
Fully renovated inside and out about 4 years ago, plus added a pool
Quiet and outside the city limits. Very close to interstate

Hate:
That it is in Florida. Would love to be in TN
Hubby has an hour or more commute

Honestly if we could pick our house up and move it to TN that would be amazing lol.

 

[loves to dive]

We bought our house 13 years ago not intending it to be our final house so we compromised on a few things. Since then we've decided we don't want the hassle of moving again unless it to a small island in the South Pacific after DH retires.

It's a two story house with a finished basement (we finished it out about 3 years after we moved in) but the master is on the main, a must have for DH. Fireplace was my must have and we put a gas log insert in it when we moved in, in hindsight we wish we had left it a regular fireplace. Basement was a must have for us since DH is a computer consultant who works from home and has huge servers that I didn't want anywhere in the main part of the house and we have a hot tub so the basement was necessary for that. Nice big master bath with a huge walk in closet. A little over an acre of land, which fulfills my south Georgia DH's need to be in the country. We are in a subdivision but the house are not close together and it was built in a pasture so it sits out all by itself. There will never be anything behind us, it's a farm and the way our county zones there there has to be so much natural space so they can never sub-divide the land. We have one of the few houses in the neighborhood that has trees, in the backyard. Which is a pro and a con, love the shade, hate raking and picking up limbs and the fact we can't get grass to grow there. When we finished out the basement we made a dedicated room for me to have a work out room, which is great and we also made a little area with a big ole tub where we can clean and hang our scuba gear when we return from a trip.

The cons are many. I hate the town I work in, and by extension where we live. While we don't live in the county I work in it's the same area and if it weren't for DH I'd have been out of this area years ago. The living room has high ceilings, I think over 20 feet so it's impossible to keep warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It's open concept, so the kitchen and living room are together, although the kitchen counter sort of separates the two. I hate that, DH loves it. I hate that if you are in the kitchen running the water you hear it in the living room, I hate that any mess that is in the kitchen can be seen by everyone. The master bath has a huge garden tub and a tiny little shower that isn't even big enough for a large person, since we have a hot tub we don't need the garden tub and plan on some day taking it out and extending the shower. I can not keep the bugs out of the basement, it's totally sealed yet it looks like the wild kingdom down there. There are 5 bathrooms (just two of us) two full ones upstairs, the master and a half bath on the main and half bath in the basement. Way too many toilets to clean. The house was not made well, the developer skimped on things like good windows and insulation so in the winter you can actually see the blinds in the bed room blow and if you walk by the windows in the living room you can feel the breeze. There is no front porch just a little stoop like thing. I wanted a porch to sit on and watch the day go by, we may eventually add one. I'm allergic to the sun so our back deck is pretty useless right now. We hope to someday extend it to the entire back of the house and enclose at least half of it so I can sit out there in the spring and fall. We did replace all the appliances and the sink in the kitchen so I'm pretty happy with all that. Part of the outside of the house is sided with the cement type boards (can't remember what they are called look like wood). It gets mildew on it bad so we have to have it pressure washed about every two years and have to paint it about every 5 years. It's a nice house that we got at a very good price, we had always intended to buy about 10 acres of land on the lake and build, but soon decided DH and I would kill each other before it was all said and done just from having to make all the decisions, just building out the basement almost broke us up. Now we hope to live here maybe another 10 years and move to the beach somewhere.

 

[Patch'sD]

PROS -- Location, Location, Location, Great School District which is in the top 100 in United States, 20 Movie Screens, Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Deport, BJs, Costco, Train Station, 4 Star to Take out Restaurants, and Fire Department all with 2.0 Mile Radius of the front door. Stew Leonard's is Opening next week! Four Bedrooms three large one small, Large EIK, Nice Neighborhood property is about 50% larger than most in area.

CONS, Older house built in 1938. High taxes over 10k per year, Multi Story, Long Island Environment (cold winters), High Electric costs.

PS House is for sale. looking to relocate to Florida, but not to close to the mouse

 

[aaarcher86]

I HATE not having a fireplace. We also don't have a linen closet which is annoying. My DH hates that there's no divider between the kitchen and living room area.

This is our first house. We got it on a steal, and we were so excited and inexperienced we didn't even know it was missing things we wanted. It's an amazing first home, but when we move South we will have a better idea of what we want.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Pro:
Open floor plan
26X24 garage
Efficient design
12X24 deck (1/2 of it covered)
3 acre front yard

Con:
Laundry room should have been larger given the 3 doors leading in/out
Need way more closet space (3 females in the house)
Unfinished basement
Lots of mowing (see 3 acre yard above)

 

[Squirlz]

I love my location. It's a quiet neighborhood built in the '50s, yet a block away from the main drag with a Mall, restaurants, our bank etc. It's a small house, 2BR, brick, hardwood floors and plaster walls. Less to keep clean but I do wish it had a larger kitchen and bathroom. Since my Wife moved in in 2008 we've made a lot of improvements including a 28' x 40' garage with heat and air and living space. It's bigger than the house! We figure we can live out there while we have a second floor added to the house. The upstairs will be all Master Bedroom, walk in closet and huge bath. We can blow out the first floor and build our dream kitchen.

Because we're on a corner our back yard is only 10 feet deep, so our 'patio' is the new driveway. Every night that's above 50 degrees you will find us out there watching TV and grilling, meeting the neighbors and whatever else wanders by.

 

[RedAngie]

Gas line isn't going to happen . We're in an interior unit attached to neighbours on either side and (this is weird and hard it visualize, I know) the gas main for our unit runs into our basement which is actually underneath our neighbour's kitchen and on the opposite side of the house from our kitchen. There is no practical way to make the modification. Running a water line to the fridge could theoretically be T'd off the supply line to our kitchen sink but there's no way to get it across the room and keep it concealed; the kitchen floor is on a concrete slab and to bury it in a wall would involve taking the cabinets down. 30 years ago electric stoves were considered "sleek and modern" and were a hot feature. Fridges with water and ice makers weren't even available yet, I don't think. It is one of the few pitfalls of this "dream-home" of ours.

As for the master bedroom, yes - a cantilever means that part of it is built out into thin air above the main floor. It's the N.E. outside corner that's freezing, especially when the winds blow from that way (it's -17C here today ). Fixing the insulation will require opening both the wall and the floor from the inside as we're not allowed to make any modifications to the exterior of the building.

I can visualize what you mean. I rented a duplex apartment in a seven story building before I moved into my current home. The living area was on the third floor; the bedrooms were on the fourth floor above a neighboring apartment. The whole building had many such dovetailed units. There was an additional entrance to the bedroom level on the fourth floor that was accessed from a different entrance to the building. Tenants could easily have a surreptitious bedroom visitor escape undetected if their spouse came home earlier than expected.

Now that you've described it, I remember seeing such cantievered rooms from the exterior of some houses and buildings. Some appear to stick out two meters, possibly more.

 

[Wendy31]

Love:
Fully paid for
Fully renovated inside and out about 4 years ago, plus added a pool
Quiet and outside the city limits. Very close to interstate

Hate:
That it is in Florida. Would love to be in TN
Hubby has an hour or more commute

Honestly if we could pick our house up and move it to TN that would be amazing lol.

(bolding mine) That's funny! We're in TN & would LOVE to be in Florida! Every now & then we talk about the possibility & DH trying to find a job in FL.

We moved to our current home in October 2003, so, in 10/2016, we'll have been here for 13 years. It's our 2nd home, & really the only home our 2 older kids know & *is* the only home our younger DS knows.

It is probably not our forever home, but DH & I agree that our next home will be our forever/retirement home - unless, at some point, we do move to Florida. However, we have done so much to this home & almost gotten it exactly the way we want it, that I hate to leave. In just about every room, there is something that DH has built, so it's become very special to me. We've also agreed that our forever home will be something we build so that we can get it exactly the way we want it from the beginning. (We're actually talking about buying some property in the next few years, so that we can get the land paid off.)

Anyway, the PROS:

Location - we're in the suburbs but still within 10-15 minutes of our church, grocery stores, local mall, restaurants, etc. We're also about 10ish minutes away from both of our parents' homes.

Kitchen is open to the family room

2 car garage w/ some (limited) extra storage & the garage is located on the main level

Daylight Basement Playroom/Schoolroom

2 closets in the master bedroom

bay windows in the kitchen & living room

large back deck overlooking a wooded back yard that has a creek that runs through it

it's home - we've redone so much!

The CONS:

I'd like to live closer to where DH works (he drives an hour each way) & further out into a suburb of the next town

Only 3 bedrooms

The front porch is really just a stoop - I'd LOVE a rocking chair front porch

The back yard is not suitable for a pool, & I've ALWAYS wanted a pool!

The kitchen is small & doesn't have a lot of counter space.

When it rains really hard or for a long time, our basement leaks - we keep a wet-dry vac in the storage closet.

In the master bedroom, the sink part of the master bathroom is "open" to the bedroom - kind of like a hotel. Actually, the entire master bath needs to be redone, but it's way down on our list.

We live in a nice (albeit older) subdivision, but our house is located on the not-as-good side - Our neighbors on either side of us are fine & maintain their homes well; however, 3 of the other nearby houses have gotten really junky looking.

 

[nene0182]

Pros:
Historic home in a great neighborhood with awesome neighbors
One a one way
Close to downtown district
Close to large city park and rice
One a one way
Great front porch
Good size kitchen
Tons of original character
Plenty of storage area with full basement and attic
Gorgeous professional landscaped backyard (done before we moved in)

Cons:
Small bedrooms (it's a 4 bedroom that I'd like to change to a 3 bedroom someday)
Detached garage
No driveway (must park on slab in alley, in garage or on street)
No bathroom on main floor
Small closets
Small bathroom

For the most part I love my house and it's very adequate for our family of 3. This is not our forever home mostly due to the fact I do not plan to live in North Dakota forever but I really can't imagine living anywhere else while we finish our time here.

 

[SC Minnie]

Pro-- location. Love the town we're in and the neighborhood. It's an older neighborhood (1980's) for the area so we have at least 1 acre lots. Most neighborhoods around here have 1/3-1/4 of an acre.
- I like that no 2 houses in our neighborhood are alike
-My only must haves when we were looking were- 2 car garage, formal dining room, and 4 br's or 3 br's with space for an office as well. We got all of that.

Cons-
-I wish we had a basement.
-we've been here almost 18 years so things are getting out of date. Would love to redo the kitchen countertops and bathroom floors.
-wish we had a laundry room instead of a laundry closet
-like others I wish we had a larger pantry or more cabinet space. We use a cabinet in the garage for a lot of my small appliances that I don't use often.

 

[VandVsmama]

Pros:

• like the town that we live in
• very safe neighborhood. Several law enforcement officers live in our development. You can tell because their patrol cars are parked in their driveways when they are at home.
• sunsets & the night sky. We live in the Tucson area and there's a county ordinance against street lights because of the solar observatory at the top of Mt. Lemmon. The result of this is that on a clear night, the stars are really amazing. And the sunsets here are really phenomenal.
• it's a 1-story house. This means that I only need 1 A/C unit instead of 2. Around here, a 2-story house means 2 A/C units. 1 story house also = lower electric bills.
• House is well insulated. We don't hear a lot of outside noise from inside the house.
• kitchen & family room layout
• 3-car garage w/the garage cabinets we installed a few years ago for storage
• the fact that we can put both cars in the garage. It helps so that pack rats don't take up residence under the hood of your car.
• good school district
• nice views of the mountains in our neighborhood & good walking/hiking/biking trails are 3 doors down from my front door
• landscaping - I did it all myself with local plants & all of it now thrives on natural rainfall without any supplemental irrigation. And it looks nice. Very low maintenance yet it's very pretty.
• backyard faces northwest. This helps a lot with the 5 months of summer weather we get here. Halfway through the afternoon, the house shades part of the backyard, so the heat is more tolerable.

Cons:

• HOA fees
• having a 40 min commute to work, but I could be living in LA and could face a 2 hour commute to work, so I can't complain that much.
• Having a separate dining room. Waste of space in our house. We use that room twice a year. The rest of the time, the dining room table collects clutter.
• flooring - want to replace the carpeting with large ceramic tile
• wish the laundry room was a little bigger so we could put the cat's litterbox in there.
• the stupid "hell strip" between the sidewalk & the street - the HOA won't let you plant anything there. Our only option is to have gravel on that strip. It just collects weeds, which I am constantly battling. The weeds here in Arizona are amazing. 1 drop of rain and they spring to life like they're growing on magic alone.

 

[bjscheel]

Our home was a super good buy and we have spent a lot of time and money making it how we want it. It's on 5 acres surrounded by farm, so I love the country setting. I like the first floor laundry. I'm really happy we expanded our living room and added a first floor bedroom a couple years ago. When we did that we made the third bedroom upstairs into two big closets for our girls so that is great for them. I like that it's old and not cookie-cutter. Taxes are super low. We have a large metal building/garage, a shop, a barn, and a sweet treehouse DH built. It feels a lot like where I grew up (4 miles away).

Dislikes- well, it's old and there are things that aren't ever going to look perfect. There are still some plaster walls with not enough insulation in them. The basement is just a wet, cement unfinished box (but on the plus side it does have a tornado shelter under the cement porch). It's 11 miles to town and the road down to the corner drifts in really easily. There is only one heat vent upstairs that doesn't put out much so we rely on a fake fireplace heater in the hallway. No central air, so we just have a window unit upstairs where all the heat builds up when it gets too bad, but we're used to being warm in the summer. Mowing and snow removal are big jobs.