To House or Not To House?

And that really is the question. We went and looked at the House of Houses again and it was a good look-through. This time, instead of being dazzled by the sheer size of it, we were able to see past that to some of the (admittedly small) warts. Liiiiikkke....
there's no bathroom in the finished basement (although there's a bar -- like we care about that. Bathrooms are a lot more critical than bars when you have children under 6). There's not a ton of storage in the basement, though what there is is probably adequate. You could certainly make the argument that if we have too much for that storage area, we probably have too much stuff.

The yard is rather boring, with too many trees and really over-trimmed shrubs. It's fenced with chainlink (yuck). I think I can do something with it (like rip out nearly all the shrubs), but it will never be the wild, fascinating tangle we have now. And there's really no place I can have a flowerbed like I do now. There is wallpaper in the master and kids' bathrooms, neither of which I am all that wild about. I am, however, experienced in wallpaper stripping, so I could change it if I had to. I am not so keen on ceramic tile, which is all through the entryway and kitchen. The carpet throughout the house probably has about 5-7 more years in it before it needs to be replaced. The lot is small. It's actually the same size as our current lot, only with a house nearly double the footprint on it.

The driveway and front yard are sloped -- very sloped. That bothers me, mainly because I know how much our kids play on our driveway now and enjoy doing that. There'd be no more biking, scootering, etc. on that drive. They'd roll right out into the street. This is kind of problematic, because they're going to lose interest in that yard pretty quickly and then there's nowhere else for them to go. Then there's the money. They're asking a fair price, and they're not messing around: they clearly want to sell. But even if we sank all our savings and had a brilliant offer for our current home, we are still about 50,000 short what we'd need to put down so our payments won't overwhelm us.

So here we are. Frustrated, jittery, indecisive. Part of me says, chuck it...let's just find a good lot and build our dream house. Another part of me says that one more winter with all these kids in 725 sq feet is going to send me to the loony bin. What to do, what to do...the readiness is all.