The First Reader and I have been building castles in the air. They look more like low brick ranch houses, but that’s just because it’s his beau-ideal of a home. We will, soon, be ready to house hunt, in the meantime we are dreaming, making lists, and plotting for the next step towards having a real home again. As the First Reader recently commented, the apartment feels like camping. Comfortable camping, but nonetheless, impermanent.
Here’s the initial list…
| Must Have |
| No HOA |
| 3 bedrooms – one must fit a queen bed |
| Workable Kitchen |
| Covered Outdoor area |
| Off street parking |
| Gas line to house |
| AC – Central unless price allows installation |
| local friends Approved address |
| At least 1 Bedroom and Bath on First Floor – all one floor preferred |
| Enough yard for dog |
All of those things are easy enough. It’s when we start adding in the other wishes that the field begins to narrow!
| Want to Have |
| Covered Parking |
| Pantry |
| Garage |
| Fireplace |
| Garden/Chicken Space (fantastic if existing) |
| Porch/Patio |
| 2 bathrooms |
| Pecan Tree (mature, bearing) |
| Gas Range |
| Dishwasher |
| Insulation/Modern Windows |
| Workshop |
| Walkable Neighborhood (ie safe to walk) |
| Not on main road (safe to acccess driveway, not on busy curve) |
| Well/Septic in good shape if not city |
| Fenced/Fenceable |
| Decent closets |
| Shower |
And the little bits that I have seen, and went ooh! or would just be fun to have… ok, the hard floors are kind of necessity with my allergies. But they can be achieved post-buying, we don’t *have* to have them before we buy.
| Would be nice… Bonus! |
| All hard floors |
| Built-ins |
| great natural light |
| Peach Tree |
| Foundation warranty |
| greenhouse |
| shade trees |
| place for hot tub |
And of course there’s a list of ‘walking away, now…’ when we see them.
| Deal Breakers |
| Too small to entertain |
| Unsafe neighborhood |
| Bad roof |
| Bad foundation |
| Termites |
| Undrinkable water |
What would you add to the lists? What do you love or hate about a house?
Library, Den, Music Room, Craft/Sewing Room, Art Room (Separate from craft/sewing), Forge (small), Smoke House, Good Basement, Storm Cellar, Allows horses, Guest cottage, Small Pool (or EverPool) Fenced dog run. Bay windows for indoor plants. A shooting/throwing range would be nice, Berry patches (established already), Good yard lighting, Storage shed for yard and gardening tools, potting shed. This is all added on to what you have already said…
There was a house on the market for like… three days. It had it’s own shooting range! But we were not ready, and sadly it was snatched up right away.
I’d edit “bad water” to “bad water even after going through a reverse osmosis filter”. We’ve got insanely hard water (will destroy a new water heater within months if not put through a salt softener first), and a reverse osmosis filter turns it from nasty to “straight out of bottled water” tasting, but with no BPAs. And hard water can be softened and conditioned as long as it’s not truly nasty nasty stuff.
Because if you are going to get a place where you’re getting well water, it’s almost certainly going to be hard unless it’s naturally limestone filtered.
We both have lived places where the water was terrible – not necessarily hard, but full of iron, sulfur, or other things that just made it undrinkable. RIght now, most of the houses we’re looking at are on city water/sewer, but it’s still a criteria we’re very aware of.
I’d add space for a reverse osmosis filter system that’s not inside the house (I’m told they’re kind of noisy).
Space for a smokehouse, space inside a conditioned area for a large deep freezer or two.
My dream is to have a freeze drier, but I can’t quite figure out where to put it in this too small house. I know my own meals freeze dried will taste infinitely better than that commercial dreck.
A big enough pantry to hold food preservation equipment, plus all the foods and serving items, is also one of my dreams.
Finally, a large enough room to hold all my musical instruments in a manner that I can easily play any one of them without having to rearrange the whole room. Maybe then I could even own my own marimba… Happy sigh.
Good drainage for the yard. The yard built up to drain away from the house.
Good point!
No pool in the backyard. Don’t do that. Just sayin. It seemed like a good idea and it was the better house and still is in the better neighborhood. But no pool. And check the roof. Then check it again.