What's your house like?

[YepBrook]

Thinking about Sheri's question about family got me thinking about our house.

What's your house or apartment like? Do you love it or hate it? How many bedrooms and space do you have? Positives and negatives, things you want to change. .. etc. Does it work for your family or are you hoping to move?

[MamaBee]

Our family of 3 live in a 3 bedroom ones story that is around 1600 sq ft. It's okay... I wish it had more storage... it has one closet (that is not in the bedroom) and that is it for storage. Also we live on a corner... awesome in that we only have one neighbor that we share a border with - hubby LOVES... not awesome in that we had to pay for sidewalks, twice (at $10K)... and that it's a really busy corner - entrance into our neighborhood. I wish our house had more "style"... but we love our neighborhood - great location...

[ellasspace]

About 4000 sf 4 bedrooms 31/2 baths dinning room,living room, family room, game room, loft and a sun room. I want to downsize so bad it's too big for us now as we only have two of 5 left at home. We sit in 6 acres in the woods on a creek.

[KristinCB]

Originally Posted by ellasspace

About 4000 sf 4 bedrooms 31/2 baths dinning room,living room, family room, game room, loft and a sun room. U want to downsize so bad it's too big for us now as we only have two of 5 left at home. We sit in 6 acres in the woods on a creek.

6 acres in the woods on a creek.... ***oh sigh***

[Valgal]

I loooooooooooove my house! We lived right off a busy street in a busy part of town for 10 years with a trucking company butting up against our back yard. Now I live near the woods in a super quiet, pretty neighborhood. We've been here for about 3 1/2 years now.

[breakingbrie]

Not sure what you'd call the place we're in now... It used to be four 3 bedroom apts(?) connected in a row kind of townhouse like, but they redid them and now it's two large 4 bedrooms attached. Duplex I guess... lol. We have 4 bedrooms 2 1/2 baths. So it's kind of a weird layout, and two of the bedrooms are ridiculously large. Our bedroom is the same size as our living room/dining room area downstairs. And the kitchen is the same size as the laundry room, so we have a smallish kitchen and a huge laundry room lol. Enough yard for us. 2 little back patio areas and some outside storage.

I don't hate it at all! We've lived in much smaller, and much worse lol, and ya never know what's next. It'll do for now. My biggest problem is decorating! I've actually gotten a couple things, but nothings on the walls yet still. Been here since December. Love it when the delivery guy comes and asks if we're moving out or just moved in because it's so bare.

eta some pics
Here's the front. The neighbors are at a slightly lowered level, the rest is ours.

Here's a weird pano of our bedroom lol. I'm standing in the doorway, and there's a closet on the wall to the far right past the tv, and to the far left, there's a little corner you go around to the walk in closet and the master bathroom. There's 2 light fixtures, and you can see the little wall in the middle where it used to be 2 separate rooms. The windows are facing the front of the house and the back of the house. It's huge. I like it

^^I would say don't mind the boxes in the corner, because I took this shortly after we moved in, but they're still there, so....

[Valgal]

Originally Posted by breakingbrie

Love it when the delivery guy comes and asks if we're moving out or just moved in because it's so bare.

[olivesparrow]

We just have an average house we rent (I dont know square feet) - 3 bedrooms, etc. I would like a bigger house with an extra room but we picked it because my parents live right across the road =)

The downside is the zoned school is not good but we don't have to worry about that for a couple of years (and the upside is there is a maori immersion school about 30 mins away that has special buses for pick ups and drop offs so if we're here long term, my dude can go there)

[rach3975]

This thread needs pictures! Here's our house.



It's 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and about 1700 square feet for the 5 of us. The main level has a kitchen, playroom, dining room, and family room. The basement is half finished and half storage. In general I like our house. The neighborhood and schools are good, and that counts for a lot. We're on a cul-de-sac and walking distance of the elementary school that 2 of the kids go to. As far as the house, we have enough bedrooms for each of the kids to have their own and enough living space. The kitchen is very small and we need to put some money into renovations (new flooring throughout the main level, redoing closets, etc.) We like that it's an end lot even though the yard is small. (We have several neighbors very close, though you don't see it in this photo.) DH would like to move to someplace a little bigger and a little nicer. I'd rather stay and do the work we keep talking about here. To me bigger just means more rooms that need cleaning!

[adi&co.]

We're military, so we don't get much choice in the matter. We chose to live on post for several reasons and while I don't hate this house, it's not amazing either. But honestly, it's a house. My husband has a job, we all fit and we are happy in Washington, so everything is good

Here it is on Christmas. We are in the middle with someone on either end.

[Valgal]

Originally Posted by rach3975

This thread needs pictures! Here's our house.

Rachel, I love your fencing. I want that in our backyard someday when we don't have dogs.

[MamaBee]

apparently the only scrapped photo I can find of my house...

[carrie1977]

We have a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home...it's about 1500 sq ft. It suits us fine for now. There are lots of things I'd love to change though. I want to rip out all of the carpet and linoleum and put hardwood throughout (except my bathroom which is tile). I want to change the whole setup of the kitchen. We have no pantry and no island. I'd love to have both. I am obsessed with the HGTV channel and I daydream of what could be done to our home. I'd love to have Chip and Joanna Gaines (Fixer Upper) come and redo our house.

[KristinCB]

3 bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. We live in a smaller mountain town. I really really really would love to live somewhere with no neighbours.. a hours in the country would be heaven to me I wouldn't even care what the inside looked like. Our house is a 1970's something house so we have done a lot of fixing up (mostly ourselves) If we could pick our house up and move it somewhere I wouldn't mind that either LOL!

[~Cindy~]

2 bedroom 1 bath. We did add on a room that doubles as my husbands junk room with Cade's bed. I love Cole's school and that the bus picks him up right at our drive way. We have plenty of yard for them play in with hills for them to be boys and jump. Cole loves riding his four wheeler and jumping the hills!

We've tried to get a house and both times things happened. I figure eventually when it's meant to be it will work out. Until then this is paid for so all is good!

[olivesparrow]

Pictures huh? here is ours off google maps LOL a couple of years old but still the same, except more trees

[LeeAndra]

Ugh. I hate where we live.

We rent a 3 bed 2 1/2 bath duplex in Indy. Our LL lives in California, and the management company he has hired to oversee things sucks. We are their only property in Indy with all of the other properties they manage in a city 40 minutes away (which is where their office is).

We're not sure if we get such poor service because of our location or because that's their style, but currently both upstairs bathrooms leak into the walls (this has been 'repaired' no less than 4 times in the last 4 years by 4 different contractors), the management company refuses to give us screens for the windows or compensate us for the ones we've purchased on our own, our back door is torn up from the last tenant's dog, the drain under the washer doesn't drain properly so all the toilets flush slowly and the washer leaks all over the floor, the sink faucet leaks into the cabinets below it (something else that has been 'repaired' multiple times since we moved in), the dishwasher freezes up every time it's below 25 degrees or so outside, and we have a recurring bee/wasp problem that the management company refuses to deal with. That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

We are caught between a rock and a hard place with them as we can't afford to move anyplace else with our financial situation and we are so tired of reporting issues to them that their contractors never properly repair that we have given up and now work around the issues.

With all that aside, the place is too small for us, especially now that we have the baby. I understand that my SS12 needs his own room when he's here, but it drives me crazy that his bedroom sits empty 70% of the time while the baby sleeps in the master bedroom with us (and wakes up more often than not because he hears us coming in to go to bed). I'm hesitant to move him into our daughter's room as she is also a light sleeper and not to mention a complete monster when she does not get a full night's sleep.

The house's only redeeming value is that we have nice neighbors with children the same age as my daughter. There are 7 children between the ages of 4 and 8 between our house and the ones on either side of us, so it's great that she can go outside during the summer and play all day with her friends.

[flergs]

Here's mine

[jacinda]

I scrapped this in 2010. There is a house in the lot next to us now.

I love our house. It has 5 large bedrooms (I use one for my study), 2 lounges, 3 bathrooms and a triple garage. I have no idea of the floor space. It's larger than the average house in our area, and faces the water. We've been in it for 6 years, and will likely be here for a few more years yet. I don't think there's anything I'd change about it except to have a shade sail over the back patio, because it gets super hot in the summer.

<<this is my house

[MommaTrish]

3 bedrooms.
1 working bathroom.
<1200 sq. feet.
6 people. 1 baby. and a dog.

take a wild guess how I feel about my house. lol

[nietis]

WOW!! Reading this I feel like I live in a tiny chicken coop! LOL!
Anyway, we're moving apartment soon and our very own apartment that we are moving into is around 77 square meter, which is 829 sf. It has 2 bedrooms and one bathroom.
A kitchen and a big living room that we'll divide into a dining room and living room.

[breakingbrie]

Jaconda, I wouldn't change a thing either!! It looks amazing!

[Melissa Bennett]

I love where we live right now. We are just over 1 acre out in the country down a dirt road with only a few neighbors, one is psycho, but still. LOL! We have a 3900 sf 6 bedroom 3 1/2 bath house that we are slowly working on. We are right in the middle of a kitchen remodel right now. One of the biggest factors for this house was downstairs has a 2nd kitchen and we figure if my hubby's parents ever need a place as they get older that they could move in downstairs. Hubby talks about moving all the time but not gonna let that happen now that I'm getting my dream kitchen.

[Saar]

This is our home.
We moved last October.

I love that we have a backyard and a garage.
Also, we live in a better neighbourhood, than first.

[SeattleSheri]

Our house is 3,500 gross sq ft (950 sq ft is a semi-finished basement used as a laundry room, storage and a game room - we have ping pong and foosball tables). It was originally built in 1910 and completely remodeled in 2006. It's a 4 bedroom / 4 bathroom (1 full bath, two ¾ baths and one ½ bath) with a 2 car detached garage. We have a peek-a-boo view of Lake Washington, downtown Seattle and the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately our view of Mt. Rainier is obstructed big house across the street.

We have awesome walkability (coffee shops, restaurants, etc) and live across the street from a fantastic park which has pickle ball, basketball, covered picnic areas and a ½ mile walk path.

[nietis]

Question!
What's a 3/4 bathroom and a 1/2 bathroom?

[jak]

This is my house:



4 bedroom, 2.5 bathrooms, 4 living areas, fairly open plan downstairs, modern kitchen... We're on a corner block with a reasonable back yard, nice neighbourhood, fairly leafy, a bushland park just down the street, walking distance to school, shops, sportsfields, etc... Only downside is a lack of storage space.

[Traci Reed]

It's so fun seeing where everyone lives all over the world! This is our new home, we bought it in October of last year...the first (and hopefully last) home we'll ever buy. It is EXACTLY in the town/neighborhood/school zone we want to be in, so we're buckled in for at least the next 14 years.

1900 Sq ft 2 story in the town I grew up in (suburbs - woot!) less than a mile from my childhood home. we have a pretty large backyard for the town we live in, but it's certainly not "property".

[Traci Reed]

Originally Posted by nietis

Question!
What's a 3/4 bathroom and a 1/2 bathroom?

1/2 bath = toilet + sink
3/4 bath = toilet + sink + shower
Ful Bath = toilet + sink + tub and shower or tub/shower combo.

[nietis]

Originally Posted by Traci Reed

1/2 bath = toilet + sink
3/4 bath = toilet + sink + shower
Ful Bath = toilet + sink + tub and shower or tub/shower combo.

Thank you for the answer!
I guess here, it's mostly 3/4 bath! LOL!

[nesser1981]

Sorry, this picture is from the fall.

We live in a starter home still, it's 3 bedrooms 1 1/2 bathrooms, 1 car garage, fenced in backyard. Our lot is .3 of an acre, we live in town. It's like 1100 Sq feet upstairs and half of the basement is finished, so about 1600 sq feet of living space. We only had the 2 kids and only thought we'd have the 2 kids when we bought it almost 5 years ago.

Do I love it, yes, it had everything we needed on our list when we bought it, it's just getting too small for a family of 5.

We have completely remodeled the kitchen & 1/2 bathroom. Replaced the vanity, flooring, mirror, lighting and cabinet in the main bath, we plan to completely remodel it before we try to sell in the next year to 2 years.

We've also put a new roof on, new windows, new gutters, new garage door & a new shed. I'm tired of projects, LOL!

[Lindsay]

2-story with four bedrooms, 2.5 baths. Bought in December 2014 - what I love...the bonus room that has become a library for me, lots of space for family, backyard is enormous, once its painted (going white with black trim/shutters) I'm going to love the exterior. What I dislike...parts of the backyard becomes a swamp whenever it rains, previous owners did not make repairs and house is drafty, kitchen counter space is horrible, stairs feel like their slightly uneven, drop down popcorn ceiling in master bedroom makes it feel cramped, and previous owners did little to no landscaping. Sometimes I wonder why we bought it, tells me everything else we looked at was completely horrible and this was the best of the lot. It needs quite a bit of love before we'll be truly happy but it has really good bones.

[pewtertm]

We just bought our house on Halloween last year, so no moving anytime soon (or ever, acc to the hubs).

We've got 1800 sq ft, one story, 3/2/2. I love the large living room with the fireplace and hardwood floors. Love having a garage, and mostly I LOVE having our own storm shelter in the backyard. The only thing I don't really like is that the 2 secondary bedrooms are small. When Rachel graduates and moves out, it won't matter, but until then, she's stuck in a tiny bedroom.

[NotAVampLvr]

Our house that we own is a 5bdrm 1960's Colonial style... brick and white exterior (can't wait to paint it when its time!) It was purchased as a fixer upper so it still is VERY dated inside. Right now we are relocated for work and living in a huge Georgian house built in 1802. I LOVE IT HERE but I am so glad we do not own it. Way expensive to heat and we are constantly having to call our rental company to fix leaky radiators... a roof issue, etc.

[Valgal]

I love seeing everyone's houses! I have to remind myself to not be envious of a few of them

[nikkiARNGwife]

2-story 3 bedroom 2 1/2 baths on about 6 acres...we live way off the road and I love love our location and yard. I have major issues with the inside of our house. The couple who built the house had no children and the space is totally wonky. I do not like having stairs at all. DH is determined to buy land and build a new house..I want to stay where we are and remodel. Who knows what we'll end up doing.

[YepBrook]

I love your house, Nikki! All that land... sigh!

We just bought a new house in June 2014. It's a 1600 sq. foot 3 bed, 2 bath house with a 1.5 car garage. It's in a very expensive (aka over-priced ) and desired neighborhood in the city due to the location, no HOA neighborhood, pool, parks and 3 Aated schools that are walking distance. We are also 5 minutes from the beach, which is awesome. We were looking in this area because it was the perfect area for Aaron to commute to work from... but could never afford anything decent. Then acquaintances from church told me they were selling their house and we were able to negotiate with them without a realtor, making it possible for us to buy here.

It has been a love-hate thing with this house. I go back and forth. The neighborhood is awesome... friendly & helpful neighbors, sidewalks, mature trees & fruit trees, huge fenced yards (huge is relative of course, but they are larger than the average in this area), and lots of kids out playing. It is a light, bright house with lots of windows and shady trees, and enough space for the 4 of us to spread out. The house is older, built in 1959, and has some quirks that make it difficult to repair at times. Old windows, old doors, old sprinkler system that was broken, it was built without central A/C and had to be retrofitted with ducts which were done incorrectly and don't cool the house evenly. Annoying stuff. And the 2 previous owners neglected it badly so it had a laundry list of repairs to be made. I am glad those acquaintances moved out of state because I have often wondered why they would sell this house to friends?! LOL. The worst was the roaches when we moved in!!! Thankfully, they have been dealt with! But... yeah. It finally feels like home but sometimes we just shake our heads and wonder why we bought this place. It's been a crazy stressful first year here.

But then there are days like this and we love it again. Here it is:

[Shawna Clingerman]

This is fun!!

Well if you follow me on facebook you probably know that i LOVE MY HOUSE - we moved into a majorly big, majorly dated, and majorly run down house 2 years ago and it is still very much a work in progress. HOWEVER it has 7 bedrooms and a full basement with a kitchen, it has over 4,000 sq feet, which has been wonderful for our family of 6. All the boys have their own rooms and g and I both have our own offices It is also on a huge double lot and we have 1/2 an acre with a huge yard and the fenced in pool - it is kind a lot to take care of but man is it worth it. We still live in the middle of suburbia (which is what i like) and the kids are walking distance to our elementary school.

Here is a blog post I made about it when we first moved in http://mylittlescraps.com/blog/2013/05/our-dream-home/

At this point we have pretty much totally renovated the down stairs(basement): all fresh paint and new carpet (that was a total must before we moved in!). G and I have our offices all set up, AND we have our pool up and running! Such a blessing - we have worked hard to get it there though!

We are currently in the process of the HUGE task of painting all of the main floor and putting in amazing laminate that we found on craigslist for a crazy good deal - getting the old flooring up has been a huge task and we have been walking around on subfloors for longer than I would like to admit - we also had TONS of wallpaper to rip out so it has been a daunting task, I'm painting the kitchen/dining area this weekend though and then we get to finally lay the floors! When it is done it will be like a new house!

I feel blessed pretty much every day, it is a gift to be living a house that feels like it was made for us. There is a lot of work, but that makes it almost better because we get to feel like this is our baby and everything really is our own.

Yesterday my oldest had 5 friends over spur of the moment and they went swimming and we grilled hambergers. Being able to have them all at our house with out feeling overcrowded was so awesome! LOVE these pictures of them around the table getting food and swimming out in the pool:





As you can see, not fancy by any means, but it really is just right... room to make it exactly what we dream of...

ETA - here is a picture of the front of the house - doesn't exactly have curb appeal as of now....

[lauren grier]

we're in a duplex.. it's about 1000sq ft - 2.5 (lol) bedrooms upstairs (technically it's 3, but the third one is so tiny I just use it as an office.. i think you could maybe fit a crib in there, it's so not a bedroom :P) one miserable tiny bathroom downstairs that does not have a bathtub- only a creepy stall shower... a tiny kitchen.. a weird creepy basement. and it's old, and we have like. .the twist style fuse box thing. it's all terrible. I mean, I love it compared to where we used to live- but the longer we live here the more aggravated I get with everything :P

[ellasspace]

Front of our home



Back


side


Creek out back

[kim21673]

Here's our house....I LOVE our house!


Sorry...this picture was the realtor picture from when we bought it....I didn't feel like digging through my pictures to find a bigger one.

It is about 2500 square feet with a full basement in addition to that square footage. We have 2.5 baths...two of which are huge! There are 4 bedrooms, 3 have huge walk in closets. We have a big yard on 3 sides of our house. We are close to everything, including within a 2 minute walk to the boys' elementary school.

The only thing missing is a porch, which we are going to add on in two years, when we expand the mudroom and put on an office for hubby.

We haven't done a whole lot to the inside since we moved in, but we have put in all new windows, siding and a new roof within the past two years.

Oh and one other thing I love about our house...we have an open staircase, which I love!!!!

[KristinCB]

Originally Posted by ellasspace

Front of our home


]

I am in LOVE!!! OH how i wish this was my home lol!

[NeverendingJen]

We're in a 2 bedroom townhouse right now. I love the area, the finishes are pretty decent, but I don't love this house. We knew moving in it would be very temporary though, as we just wanted the amenities and were planning on staying about 2.5 years. Joke's on us though because we are moving in a matter of weeks cross country again!

[ellasspace]

Originally Posted by KristinCB

I am in LOVE!!! OH how i wish this was my home lol!

Thank you Kristin, it's beautiful but I'm really ready to downsize

[lingovise]

here's our little slice of heaven. we absolutely love this lot... it's just over 1.2 acres with 150 ft of deep water access on the lake [with our own dock]. the interior isn't really our style, as it's very formal with wainscoting every where and 8 & 12" moldings on all the doorways and baseboards. it looks nice sure, but is a bear to dust and clean. we're at 4200 sq ft with 4 bedrooms + 3.5 baths. I'm hoping this next year we'll be able to tackle several of the remodeling projects on our list... like ALL the bathrooms need gutted. all the windows and exterior doors need replaced and the current kitchen is positively shameful.



view from the front portico


back of the house


view from the back deck

[KristinCB]

omgosh loni! your house is amazing too!! adopt me!! please?!?!

I'd be TOTALLY happy to live in the garage!

[mrsashbaugh]

Oh wow! Some really gorgeous houses here!

[Sherri Tierney]

2000 sq feet, 5 bedroom, 2 bath, converted garage bonus room, attached garage - built in '42. Added on two different times in the mid and late 50's. Original house quite small, most of the house is additions.

Living room/kitchen is open concept but not spacious. It was perfect for us when our babies were little (they were 2 and 6 when we moved in here) but now that they are older the space seems too small and we don't like the openness. The bedrooms are small aside from our bedroom which is wonderfully big. We have a balcony outside our bedroom which we adore. We have tons of storage space. We have a large back yard and a good sized front yard.

We have no neighbors across the street - just empty field and then farmland. On either side of us we have an empty lot between us and neighbors. Our only 'close' neighbor is the one we share a fence with. The backyard neighbor and I share relatives, so kinda like family. They keep to themselves but are very friendly when we see them. The neighborhood is FULL of kids now. It was when we moved here, and they all moved away. Now there are tons of kids again and my 9 year old is completely thrilled.

We live at the edge of town, pretty much the last residential street before 'country'. Our street curves right past our house and around the curve is where the city baseball fields are. We can look out from my office and see my son practicing at the 10 and under ball field, which is really awesome because it means we don't have to take him to practice! There is a small park between the ball fields and a concession stand building. This town is big on baseball so this time of year this neighborhood comes alive every evening.

Behind the ball fields is a thick wooded area. We have deer, coyote, raccoon and other woodland creatures that wander into our yard or can be heard outside at night. Just a block from us is a decent sized farm. We aren't in the country at all, but we have many advantages of being in the country.

Everyone knows our house. All we have to do is say that we live in the big red house over in Winway and everyone knows exactly which one. Ours is probably the biggest house in the neighborhood... which isn't saying much as, like I said, it's 2000 sq feet. People always comment about the size of it though. It is long, and I think that makes it seem much bigger than a house that would just be square.

We have a love/hate relationship with this place. So many things here are awesome. However, many of the things just don't fit our lifestyle now. We are keeping an eye out for another place but we aren't in a huge hurry to move. We could stay here and not be burdened too much, it just isn't what we see ourselves in forever at this point.

[misfitinmn]

I want your house, Loni. *drooling*

Our house is a work in progress, especially right now! We're in the process of having our windows and siding replaced - windows are done, siding will be done next week hopefully! So I will hold off on posting a pic until it's done. Then I'll unbury this thread.


Aside from the fact that our house has been under construction in one way or another since we bought it 5 years ago, I LOVE it. We're in a super quiet neighborhood and we have a 3 acre (I think, if I am remembering correctly) lot which is almost equal parts flat, open yard and dense, wooded forest. We have a country feel while still being super close to conveniences (like less than 5 minutes to Target!). The house itself is 4 bedrooms (3 up and 1 in the basement which we just finished this winter), 4 bathrooms (2 full, 1 3/4 bath, 1 half bath), and lots of open space. Since we moved in we have totally gutted and remodeled the kitchen, added hardwood and tile to most of the upstairs, finished the basement, and turned a back family room into a huge mudroom/laundry room/coat closet.

Okay I lied, I will share what our house looked like prior to work being started:


And my kitchen after I cleaned and polished it (this was a few years ago, it never gets this clean anymore!)

[jessica31876]

My niece and her family are stationed in Washington too but not on post. They like it there but I think she is moving back to Florida.

Originally Posted by adi&co.

We're military, so we don't get much choice in the matter. We chose to live on post for several reasons and while I don't hate this house, it's not amazing either. But honestly, it's a house. My husband has a job, we all fit and we are happy in Washington, so everything is good