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the purge, cont’d.

By Andria ⋅ February 18, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

I am addicted to the flip shows on TV. You know, reality-based home improvement shows, where they follow an individual who is flipping a house. I watch them daily, as I am laying on the floor doing tummy-time with Blake, or folding laundry. Muttering to myself “that was a bad decision”, “Ohhh… that was a neat idea”, and the sort. I have half-way convinced myself that I could flip houses for a profit.

First, we need to flip this house.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a really nice house. When we bought the house, I was busy planning our wedding, and left Jason to deal with all that buying a house entails. My mind was preoccupied with other things, and when we walked in after the closing, I was confused. “Wait a minute”, I thought to myself. This wasn’t the house I thought we had bought. What happened, was houses were flying off the market before you could get a bid in, and after viewing the house for the first time, Jason had immediately made an offer. I mistakenly thought that this house, was a different house.

Let me preface the following sentences by saying that I completely appreciate the fact that I have such a nice house. Seriously, I don’t want to come off like a spoiled brat who isn’t happy with what she has. Because, the fact is, I could never have afforded a house of this size, with a pool, in this neighborhood. Jason literally makes twice what I made, and this lifestyle could never have been afforded by me. I am completely appreciative of everything that I have. I really am.

Here we go… I am not happy with this house. It’s a nice size, has four bedrooms, an upstairs and downstairs living area, and there is more than plenty of room for the four of us. (6, if you count the animals.) The thing is, there isn’t smart space. The master suite is downstairs, and the other bedrooms are upstairs. While I don’t want the master close to other bedrooms, I would like them to be on the same floor. Which is why Blake will not be going into the nursery any time soon. There is too much distance between us. The ventilation seems, well, off. The master feels like a cave at times, and gets really dusty. As in, I can dust 5 times in one day, and there will still be dust on things.

The downstairs living room and kitchen are always cold. When we turn the thermostat up to heat those two rooms, the rest of the rooms become unbearably hot.

We both have certain characteristics that we want in the next house. I want a laundry room, and not just an area in the garage. I found a house plan I liked, with the same square footage as the house we currently live in, but it’s not fragmented into so many different areas. The rooms seem to flow in to the next, and are open and inviting. It also gives a defined office, as opposed to counting one of the extra bedrooms as the office. I know Jason wants a home gym, and I would love an area for sewing/crafting.Before we move, we want to flip this house. When we moved in, we were truly in 80’s hell. There were flourescent boxes, and yucky colors in some of the rooms. We have repainted the majority of the inside of the house, and installed track lighting in the kitchen, and Jason completely redid the bathroom upstairs. The house looks completely different, and there are still some changes that we want to make. Tomorrow, I am heading to North Austin to eat lunch with some friends and, to pick out wood flooring to get an estimate to install it. I’ve been reading real estate investor articles, which inform you in what direction you should go when improving your house. We still have some things we want to do, like the floors, and maybe install new countertops in the kitchen. Repainting the rooms to what the realtors call “buyer khaki”- a neutral palate that is buyer friendly. (Ailane’s room is probably the one room that would have to change, she has a Hawaiian theme, and the bottom half of her walls are ocean blue, and the upper is white. The two colors are separated by surfboard decals. It’s cute, really. But, not for everyone, I suppose.) All cosmetic changes. We don’t want to “overbuild” as they say, and not get the money that we spend on upgrades back when we sell the house.