What's your house like?

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.

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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 :p) 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:
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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:

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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....

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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
 
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!!!!
 
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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!
 
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.

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view from the front portico
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back of the house
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view from the back deck
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omgosh loni! your house is amazing too!! adopt me!! please?!?!

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

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

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 :)
 



We have 2 - This one ^^^^^^ is where we moved when we came back to Maine. Cheyanne was raised here until she started 7th grade. It is a gorgeous place to live but once she started Jr. High I wanted her to have a bigger school system (this town's school is K-12 and only has about 200 students TOTAL!) She wanted more opportunities for academics and activities so we moved to the "big" city (about 30,000 population) and rented a place for 1.5 years and then once she picked her high school we bought the place below in a really nice park about 1 mile from her high school exactly a year ago. (My parents and my sister also live in the park, so family is close by). It was affordable and works perfectly for us with 2 big bedrooms, 2 full baths and a living room and kitchen in between (we each have one end of the house to ourselves basically - LOL) There's also a large garage for storage, etc. Once she starts college it will be easy to re-sell or if she goes to one of the universities locally she can get a roommate and live here during college. We go to the first house as often as we can during the school year (school breaks and even weekends - we like to ski there in the winter and hike/do lake stuff in the summer), and we spend the summers there of course. I can't wait to move back there permanently after she's done with high school - 3 more years!

 



We have 2 - This one ^^^^^^ is where we moved when we came back to Maine. Cheyanne was raised here until she started 7th grade. It is a gorgeous place to live but once she started Jr. High I wanted her to have a bigger school system (this town's school is K-12 and only has about 200 students TOTAL!) She wanted more opportunities for academics and activities so we moved to the "big" city (about 30,000 population) and rented a place for 1.5 years and then once she picked her high school we bought the place below in a really nice park about 1 mile from her high school exactly a year ago. (My parents and my sister also live in the park, so family is close by). It was affordable and works perfectly for us with 2 big bedrooms, 2 full baths and a living room and kitchen in between (we each have one end of the house to ourselves basically - LOL) There's also a large garage for storage, etc. Once she starts college it will be easy to re-sell or if she goes to one of the universities locally she can get a roommate and live here during college. We go to the first house as often as we can during the school year (school breaks and even weekends - we like to ski there in the winter and hike/do lake stuff in the summer), and we spend the summers there of course. I can't wait to move back there permanently after she's done with high school - 3 more years!

Marie we have a weekend lake home too .... Love it, I'd like to sell both and buy something permenant on the water.
 
Sara- I want your exact kitchen! So pretty!

We have 4000 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 2 huge living areas. It was built in 1970 so it's a work in progress. We are going to redo all the floors this summer and get rid of all the carpet and have wood tile throughout. Oh and I have a huge backyard. Like twelve acres. Haha.

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A little over two years ago, I bought my first house. I still love it. It's much nicer than I thought I could buy. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 living rooms and a bonus room. We are slowly putting our finishing touches in the place, but really nothing needed to be done that I didn't do as soon as I bought it. We will stay here a long time. I love our neighborhood, the only bad thing is that it way out on the very edge of the metro area. Seems to take forever to get anywhere.
 
I LOVE seing houses and I love your houses sooo much!!
They are so different from most of the houses from here!
I don't have any picture from mine but it's super small compared to yours (all of yours!) And I prefer the inside of it :)
I really want to move to a better place someday... a small city in a house with more outside space for my 3 dogs!
Love this thread!
 
My house is a terrace-linked house...dad bought two houses coz our family is HUGE. There are 4 bedrooms in each house, but we turned some areas downstairs into rooms too, so we have 10 rooms total.

If it's up to me, I'd repaint the house and make it look like the houses in those Pinterest boards. But of course, the house isn't mine so I just have to keep dreaming. We're in the middle of decluttering so I've been trying to redecorate some vacant guest rooms into beautiful spaces.
 
Marie we have a weekend lake home too .... Love it, I'd like to sell both and buy something permenant on the water.

I love living by the water - it brings me peace :D We lived here year round for 8 years and would have stayed there yearound but for the schooling. I figured a sacrifice of 6 years was worth it for Cheyanne's education but I'll tell you, I'm so not a city girl!
 
This is our house, but if all goes well with the closing only until June 12th. We've lived here for almost 9 years now. 3500 sq. ft. living, 4 bedroom+den, 3 bath We live on a lake on a little over an acre.

When we move we're going to rent while we build another house. We're downsizing and rebuilding our current house, but only the bottom floor with a few changes and adding a pool. So then it will be a 3 bedroom, 2 bath about 2200 sq. ft. living.

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This is our little home. I :wub: her.

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We bought it as a "starter home" when Darik and I got engaged but we've decided that there's really no other place we'd like to move to (in Illinois, anyway). We've got 2 bedrooms downstairs and 1 bath. The upstairs is one big room and that's what the girls use as their room. We also have a full basement, but it's not finished. We keep our stand up freezer down there and washer/dryer...plus storage.

Our yard is what I love most about our house.
 
My house is a complete mess! But I'm not giving up on it. I have always dreamed of making my home a relaxing place to live in. This is the reason why I've been in front of the computer for a number of days now. I've been searching for tips and ideas in the internet on how I can make my house a better place to live in. Still in search of the perfect design though. I hope you have something great in mind. Help me out, please.
 
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