13 Things I love MOST about our new house #thursdaythirteen #homeiswheretheheartis #motherhood
We moved from our beloved 1,192sq.ft. Craftsman bungalow almost two years ago because the opportunity came up (finally!) for us to rent a bigger house with a huge lot.
I miss that house {the neighbors!} more than I could ever truly express in written word; however, there are so many positives about the house we moved into.
Here are the 13 things I love MOST about our new house:
All brand new, double-paned, screened windows
There's nothing better than the ability to fling open the windows on gorgeous, warm days, and NOT worry a child or pet might fall {jump} out! They also keep our home super warm and energy efficient, which has saved us hundreds since we moved. These 100-year old homes are lathe & plaster, translation: zero insulation, so anything you can do to keep the heat IN is necessary.
Nearly 1,900sq.ft.
We not only gained another bedroom and another bathroom in this house but we also gained a foyer, eat-in kitchen, laundry room, and a play room. We actually have space to play and share and be alone when you want some quiet time! It's also a great house to entertain in because the house is split lengthwise with all the bedrooms and bathrooms on the leftside {easy for the kids to sleep while the adults party} and all the common rooms on the right side. The rooms flow straight back into each other without any doors separating the spaces. I really love the easy flow!
A backyard
We had a sidewalk fenced around three sides of our old house. Literally, a sidewalk! You could touch the side of our house and the fence with your arms outstretched. We had no room for a sandbox, water table, nor a table and chairs to eat dinner outside. We basically just stored the trash cans and water hose out there. Here, we have a paved side courtyard that runs the length of the house where I have a Potter's shed, trash can storage, and a dedicated space for smoking meats that includes storage for all the wood, charcoal, and BBQ tools that leads to an 8-piece outdoor dining table and 4-piece outdoor lounge furniture where we have a fire pit. We also have an organic garden that is approximately 100sq.ft. and a grassy area in the middle of it all where we have a swing set and slide combo. We have a trampoline, sandbox, water table, chalkboard, picnic table, and basket ball goal. The kids LIVE out there almost all year-round. And we love to entertain every 4th of July. We host every birthday party here, we eat dinner outside almost all summer, and we grill every weekend. I love to sit out there during nap time with a book. It's probably my favorite feature.
Two bathrooms
If you've never had to share one bathroom with four family members you might not get just how much of a deal-breaker this one might be. Enough said.
Dimable light fixtures
In every single room and bed room plus the Master bathroom, all the light fixtures are dimable. Controlling the lighting without changing light bulbs is really cool.
Laundry room. Hell, just indoor laundry!
With homes built before modern electricity and washing machines, it's extremely rare to find one that has had the plumbing moved so that the washer and dryer are IN the home. Our last house and every home friends of ours lives in had the laundry plumbed into the garage. Which really isn't a functional garage because, again, the age of these homes was around the time of the ModelT which was incredible narrow and short, but that's another item on my list. A Smartcar is about the only vehicle that fits into the "garages" around here. In this house, we have an actual laundry room that sits between the kid's bedrooms and the Master bedroom.
An attached "garage"
Like I mentioned above, a garage around here is NOT at all what you think. It's NOT for a car. It's basically just a storage space. The best part about the garage in this house is that it's an attached garage and there's direct access to it from the hallway off the formal living room. We walk down into the garage and load up the stroller, buggy, or wagon and open the garage door to walk right out to go pick up Emily from school or to spend the afternoon at a local park. It's the best on rainy days as we go in and out through the garage and leave our wet raincoats, boots and umbrellas down there, coming upstairs completely dry. We store all our "extras" from bulk grocery shopping down there and it also acts as our workout room and David's man cave, where he paints and sculpts. There's great light down there!
A great working fireplace
We spend most of our time watching movies in the formal living room (the only family room with a TV) so, it's nice of our colder Fall and Winter evenings to warm up next to a roaring fire. It also keeps the gas bill down (our central heat runs on gas) as it takes a lot of energy to heat this house!
The Playroom
It's 300sq.ft., carpeted, has beadboard, and a huge picture window that looks out over the backyard. It was where Nolan learned to walk and where the kids play endlessly with their train set and Magnatiles. It's unorganized and often a huge mess of scattered toys but it's the perfect place for that. It's off the kitchen, like a family room would be in an open floor plan, so I can interact with them while cooking, baking, or cleaning the kitchen. It also keeps the kids out of our formal living room where our nicer furniture is. :)
CLOSETS
What we had in our old house didn't really qualify as "closet space" which was two small 2sq.ft. spaces with doors on them in which to hang things. In this house, there's a huge, deep closet in every room (not exactly walk in), a closet in the foyer, and a linen closet outside one of the bathrooms. All our stuff has a home.
Hardwood floors
Other than the carpeted play room and the tiles kitchen and bathrooms, this house has the original, matchstick oak hardwood floors throughout. They are so easy to sweep and mop with kids and a cat and, while not as warm as carpet, they are beautiful!
Sprinkler system
We have a lot of yard. Front yard and landscaping, side yard, backyard, grass, an organic garden. Hand-watering would be a full time job! I love that we have an electronic sprinkler system we can set to run daily, every other day, while we are on vacation. We just set it and forget it and everything stays gorgeous!
Location
This is probably #1 on my list. We are further away from the main bridges that are always clogged with traffic and are closer to the main downtown strip of restaurants, shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, cafes, post office, banks, toy stores, bars, and the beach. We walk everywhere every day! We are also just a block from Emily's school which is so fantastic because we no longer have to worry about parking at drop off and pick up every day. We have great neighbors and none of them have dogs!
I miss that house {the neighbors!} more than I could ever truly express in written word; however, there are so many positives about the house we moved into.
Here are the 13 things I love MOST about our new house:
All brand new, double-paned, screened windows
There's nothing better than the ability to fling open the windows on gorgeous, warm days, and NOT worry a child or pet might fall {jump} out! They also keep our home super warm and energy efficient, which has saved us hundreds since we moved. These 100-year old homes are lathe & plaster, translation: zero insulation, so anything you can do to keep the heat IN is necessary.
Nearly 1,900sq.ft.
We not only gained another bedroom and another bathroom in this house but we also gained a foyer, eat-in kitchen, laundry room, and a play room. We actually have space to play and share and be alone when you want some quiet time! It's also a great house to entertain in because the house is split lengthwise with all the bedrooms and bathrooms on the leftside {easy for the kids to sleep while the adults party} and all the common rooms on the right side. The rooms flow straight back into each other without any doors separating the spaces. I really love the easy flow!
Before we ordered our new living room furniture, the living room was where we put together all the other furniture the week we moved in.
A backyard
We had a sidewalk fenced around three sides of our old house. Literally, a sidewalk! You could touch the side of our house and the fence with your arms outstretched. We had no room for a sandbox, water table, nor a table and chairs to eat dinner outside. We basically just stored the trash cans and water hose out there. Here, we have a paved side courtyard that runs the length of the house where I have a Potter's shed, trash can storage, and a dedicated space for smoking meats that includes storage for all the wood, charcoal, and BBQ tools that leads to an 8-piece outdoor dining table and 4-piece outdoor lounge furniture where we have a fire pit. We also have an organic garden that is approximately 100sq.ft. and a grassy area in the middle of it all where we have a swing set and slide combo. We have a trampoline, sandbox, water table, chalkboard, picnic table, and basket ball goal. The kids LIVE out there almost all year-round. And we love to entertain every 4th of July. We host every birthday party here, we eat dinner outside almost all summer, and we grill every weekend. I love to sit out there during nap time with a book. It's probably my favorite feature.
Gram and Emily relaxing on the patio furniture we purchased the weekend we moved in. This paved patio runs the length of the house from the back fence all the way to the sidewalk in front of the house
This is the grassy area that houses our swingset/slide and my Organic garden. It hadn't been tended to or mowed in months when we moved in. It was A LOT of work to beautify it.
Two bathrooms
If you've never had to share one bathroom with four family members you might not get just how much of a deal-breaker this one might be. Enough said.
Dimable light fixtures
In every single room and bed room plus the Master bathroom, all the light fixtures are dimable. Controlling the lighting without changing light bulbs is really cool.
Laundry room. Hell, just indoor laundry!
With homes built before modern electricity and washing machines, it's extremely rare to find one that has had the plumbing moved so that the washer and dryer are IN the home. Our last house and every home friends of ours lives in had the laundry plumbed into the garage. Which really isn't a functional garage because, again, the age of these homes was around the time of the ModelT which was incredible narrow and short, but that's another item on my list. A Smartcar is about the only vehicle that fits into the "garages" around here. In this house, we have an actual laundry room that sits between the kid's bedrooms and the Master bedroom.
The washer and dryer is located in the hallway between the Master Bedroom (shown) and the hallway bathroom and Emily's bedroom. It's so convenient!
An attached "garage"
Like I mentioned above, a garage around here is NOT at all what you think. It's NOT for a car. It's basically just a storage space. The best part about the garage in this house is that it's an attached garage and there's direct access to it from the hallway off the formal living room. We walk down into the garage and load up the stroller, buggy, or wagon and open the garage door to walk right out to go pick up Emily from school or to spend the afternoon at a local park. It's the best on rainy days as we go in and out through the garage and leave our wet raincoats, boots and umbrellas down there, coming upstairs completely dry. We store all our "extras" from bulk grocery shopping down there and it also acts as our workout room and David's man cave, where he paints and sculpts. There's great light down there!
A great working fireplace
We spend most of our time watching movies in the formal living room (the only family room with a TV) so, it's nice of our colder Fall and Winter evenings to warm up next to a roaring fire. It also keeps the gas bill down (our central heat runs on gas) as it takes a lot of energy to heat this house!
We spent several weeks around Christmas just like this!
The Playroom
It's 300sq.ft., carpeted, has beadboard, and a huge picture window that looks out over the backyard. It was where Nolan learned to walk and where the kids play endlessly with their train set and Magnatiles. It's unorganized and often a huge mess of scattered toys but it's the perfect place for that. It's off the kitchen, like a family room would be in an open floor plan, so I can interact with them while cooking, baking, or cleaning the kitchen. It also keeps the kids out of our formal living room where our nicer furniture is. :)
This view is from the kitchen looking INTO the Playroom - see the toys?!? And that large picture window that looks out over the entire back yard.
CLOSETS
What we had in our old house didn't really qualify as "closet space" which was two small 2sq.ft. spaces with doors on them in which to hang things. In this house, there's a huge, deep closet in every room (not exactly walk in), a closet in the foyer, and a linen closet outside one of the bathrooms. All our stuff has a home.
Hardwood floors
Other than the carpeted play room and the tiles kitchen and bathrooms, this house has the original, matchstick oak hardwood floors throughout. They are so easy to sweep and mop with kids and a cat and, while not as warm as carpet, they are beautiful!
This is a great view of the floors that run through the majority of the house. This is our formal dining room, between the living room and kitchen. You can also see the great, new windows!
Sprinkler system
We have a lot of yard. Front yard and landscaping, side yard, backyard, grass, an organic garden. Hand-watering would be a full time job! I love that we have an electronic sprinkler system we can set to run daily, every other day, while we are on vacation. We just set it and forget it and everything stays gorgeous!
Location
This is probably #1 on my list. We are further away from the main bridges that are always clogged with traffic and are closer to the main downtown strip of restaurants, shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, cafes, post office, banks, toy stores, bars, and the beach. We walk everywhere every day! We are also just a block from Emily's school which is so fantastic because we no longer have to worry about parking at drop off and pick up every day. We have great neighbors and none of them have dogs!
The beach. We spend a lot of time at the beach, especially when the temperature outside gets above 77!
Looks like an amazing house! I miss having a playroom.
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