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Sep. 1st, 2011 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI can't quite believe I haven't posted to LJ in this long. I missed my ten-year LJversary on August 3rd. I didn't mean to stop posting... but it does seem like fewer and fewer people are on LJ anymore, which makes me less motivated to write here. I'm posting a lot on forums these days, instead. (Which is funny, because I originally moved to LJ from the "forums" of ten years ago, i.e., newsgroups.)
So. Where were we?
The big news is that we're buying a house. This house. (The listing has been taken down because the house is under contract, but fortunately, the seller's agent has a blog.) We close a week from Friday.
It's funny, because if you had asked me before we started looking about what style of house I wanted, I would never in a million years have come up with "mid-century rancher!" But I found myself completely drawn to them. Maybe it's just that we've spent the last eight years in century-plus houses, but I am so attracted to the clean lines, open spaces, and thoughtful, efficient use of space.
We numbered the houses we toured, for ease of discussion. Colin has dubbed the one we're buying "Number House Six."
Number House Six is built on a sloped lot, a one-story house with a walk-out finished basement. It has an enormous main room with a wall of built-in bookcases and another wall that's almost solid glass, with double sliding doors leading out onto a huge, long screened-in porch. Because of the slope to the lot, the screened porch at the back of the house is at second-floor level. It feels like you're in the treetops. It's so well shaded by trees that it's comfortable to sit out there even on a 95-degree day.
We'll have not one, but two patios. The upper one is in the front of the house, just outside the kitchen. The lower patio is underneath the screened-in porch, so it's covered, and shielded by greenery from the neighbors on both sides. We're thinking about getting a hot tub.
Number House Six has a huge eat-in kitchen with a vaulted ceiling. There's a butcher block peninsula with bar chairs where the kids can sit to have a snack or help me cook, but there's also a beautiful, spacious area by the picture window for our dinner table. The cabinets are old, but they were obviously custom-designed for someone who loved to cook, with tons of features like slide-out shelves and a lazy susan. I have never had a big, nice kitchen before. We've always lived in places with galleys.
The bedrooms are bedrooms. They're not very exciting. We'll have three simple, clean boxes with hardwood floors and high windows. Michael and I have an en suite bathroom, and that's pretty much the only difference between our room and the kids' rooms. That's okay. The public spaces of the house are more important to us.
The basement is divided into three giant rooms. There's a huge fully-finished family room with a gas fireplace that looks like a woodburning stove, sliding glass doors leading out onto the lower patio, and a little half-bath. There's an equally huge mostly-finished room that I guess we'll use for storage and projects, and then there's a more cellarlike room that houses the furnace, water heater, and laundry equipment.
It is such a house, guys. It's not anything flashy or imposing, but it is such an immensely comfortable and inviting space. We love it.
After eight years, though, we are leaving downtown. The new house is still within the city limits, about five miles north of our current location, in an old streetcar suburb the city grew in around long ago. There's a village center with shops and restaurants, and we're about a mile and a half from the light rail which takes us both to work. People who live there tell me that they still feel like they live in the city. It sure is going to be a radical change for us, though, to live in a neighborhood of detached houses with green, green yards.
We're ready for a change, though. There will be things I miss about downtown, for sure, but other aspects of it have definitely begun to pall. And we realized as we began to shop that, the way houses are priced right now, we would have to pay a premium of $50,000 or so to stay downtown. That made it an easier choice. But it still is kind of sad to be setting aside that city-dweller identity.
So that's our big news. How about you? Are you still out there reading this?
So. Where were we?
The big news is that we're buying a house. This house. (The listing has been taken down because the house is under contract, but fortunately, the seller's agent has a blog.) We close a week from Friday.
It's funny, because if you had asked me before we started looking about what style of house I wanted, I would never in a million years have come up with "mid-century rancher!" But I found myself completely drawn to them. Maybe it's just that we've spent the last eight years in century-plus houses, but I am so attracted to the clean lines, open spaces, and thoughtful, efficient use of space.
We numbered the houses we toured, for ease of discussion. Colin has dubbed the one we're buying "Number House Six."
Number House Six is built on a sloped lot, a one-story house with a walk-out finished basement. It has an enormous main room with a wall of built-in bookcases and another wall that's almost solid glass, with double sliding doors leading out onto a huge, long screened-in porch. Because of the slope to the lot, the screened porch at the back of the house is at second-floor level. It feels like you're in the treetops. It's so well shaded by trees that it's comfortable to sit out there even on a 95-degree day.
We'll have not one, but two patios. The upper one is in the front of the house, just outside the kitchen. The lower patio is underneath the screened-in porch, so it's covered, and shielded by greenery from the neighbors on both sides. We're thinking about getting a hot tub.
Number House Six has a huge eat-in kitchen with a vaulted ceiling. There's a butcher block peninsula with bar chairs where the kids can sit to have a snack or help me cook, but there's also a beautiful, spacious area by the picture window for our dinner table. The cabinets are old, but they were obviously custom-designed for someone who loved to cook, with tons of features like slide-out shelves and a lazy susan. I have never had a big, nice kitchen before. We've always lived in places with galleys.
The bedrooms are bedrooms. They're not very exciting. We'll have three simple, clean boxes with hardwood floors and high windows. Michael and I have an en suite bathroom, and that's pretty much the only difference between our room and the kids' rooms. That's okay. The public spaces of the house are more important to us.
The basement is divided into three giant rooms. There's a huge fully-finished family room with a gas fireplace that looks like a woodburning stove, sliding glass doors leading out onto the lower patio, and a little half-bath. There's an equally huge mostly-finished room that I guess we'll use for storage and projects, and then there's a more cellarlike room that houses the furnace, water heater, and laundry equipment.
It is such a house, guys. It's not anything flashy or imposing, but it is such an immensely comfortable and inviting space. We love it.
After eight years, though, we are leaving downtown. The new house is still within the city limits, about five miles north of our current location, in an old streetcar suburb the city grew in around long ago. There's a village center with shops and restaurants, and we're about a mile and a half from the light rail which takes us both to work. People who live there tell me that they still feel like they live in the city. It sure is going to be a radical change for us, though, to live in a neighborhood of detached houses with green, green yards.
We're ready for a change, though. There will be things I miss about downtown, for sure, but other aspects of it have definitely begun to pall. And we realized as we began to shop that, the way houses are priced right now, we would have to pay a premium of $50,000 or so to stay downtown. That made it an easier choice. But it still is kind of sad to be setting aside that city-dweller identity.
So that's our big news. How about you? Are you still out there reading this?
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2011-09-01 03:52 pm (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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Date: 2011-09-01 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:50 am (UTC)And even in a quiet neighborhood with yards and trees, if you're within the city limits you're at least not a suburbanite. ;-)
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Date: 2011-09-01 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:57 am (UTC)Congrats on the new house. You're going to have to install more bookcases, though. :D
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Date: 2011-09-01 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 04:58 am (UTC)Congrats on your new house! The kitchen sounds divine. And two patios!
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Date: 2011-09-01 05:05 am (UTC)My life has been...eventful. I'm happy to tell you more details if you want them, though not in an LJ comment on an unlocked post.
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Date: 2011-09-01 05:10 am (UTC)K. [that is all]
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Date: 2011-09-01 05:10 am (UTC)Your new house looks very nice, though! I love a big porch.
K.
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Date: 2011-09-01 05:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-09-01 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 01:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-09-01 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 05:44 am (UTC)And yes, I'd been missing you. How are the offspring? Did I miss the annual SUUSI report? How goes work? And life in general?
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Date: 2011-09-01 01:06 pm (UTC)- Offspring are thriving, funny, charming, and wonderful.
- SUUSI was great and drama free, and in fact I have been named to the SUUSI Board of Trustees.
- Work is not progressing at the speed I'd like it to, but the new environment is much improved.
- Life is busy.
still reading!
Date: 2011-09-01 06:02 am (UTC)Posting to LJ more than I was last year, but a little sad about the lack of people. Still, I'm posting mainly as a way to keep myself writing something, anything, so as long as I don't mind only seeing a few comments (or none), it's alright. Every now and again, I consider cross-posting or moving my blog somewhere, but I like LJ, darn it! ;)
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Date: 2011-09-01 06:52 am (UTC)(Still reading.)
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Date: 2011-09-01 07:02 am (UTC)I lived in one like that when I was 8-12 and lived in Edmonds (Dad was on Ranger off the coast of Vietnam). I've thought about a rambler if I ever had the money because it can be very easily made accessible (without the basement).
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Date: 2011-09-01 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 01:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-09-01 08:36 am (UTC)Yep! Although it's true that there are less and less active LJs in my circles these days. Never mind, I pull them in using RSS. Maybe consider the odd "here's something I posted in a forum today" post? I've found "here's a comment I posted elsewhere" to be a reasonable way to do a blogging reboot.
Looks like a lovely house! I am excited for you. We are going to be moving back towards the city here to make my husband's new commute shorter, probably about the same distance from the Sydney CBD as from your new house to Baltimore downtown, by the sounds of it. We will not be buying for a long time though.
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Date: 2011-09-01 08:38 am (UTC)How are the kids taking the prospect of moving? I remember moving from a large house in the centre of town to a smaller place outside in my teens, and not particularly enjoying the change of pace, or the move itself.
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Date: 2011-09-06 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 09:59 am (UTC)It looks nice though, lovely gardens.
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Date: 2011-09-01 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-09-01 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 12:10 pm (UTC)Embarrassed to admit I didn't notice you hadn't posted in so long, probably because I've been reading the Tinderbox blog RSS feeds (my 1st grade teacher mom particularly enjoyed Alex's experiment with grades). Most of my flist seems to have migrated to Facebook for lack of time to write long posts. I'm guilty of this as well, but I miss the good old days.
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Date: 2011-09-06 02:54 am (UTC)