Sort-of House Hunting

So, having my Dad say, "The MG is yours if you want it as long as you have some place to keep it out of the weather" has been the catalyst for a change we have known we have needed to make for quite awhile now. We need a bigger place. Our house is 1000sqft and while we like it a great deal, we have completely outgrown it. Even doing a couple more purges of belongings (which we could stand to do) would not gain us much at this point.

Of course, the question still remains, move or remodel?

So, we made a list of things we want in a house:

1. Room for both our offices to be in one room (right now I am in the second bedroom and Ron's office takes up half the living room...it is a problem needing to fit two desks, a drafting table, and a piano in one room)



2. a garage/work room



3. Gas range



4. Fireplace



5. Outdoor living space



6. guest bedroom



7. Walking distance to store/coffee shop



8. Vegetable garden



9. Dance space

Now, some of these are just wish list items. Obviously, having space to square dance is not super high on the priority list. Some we have and know are important to us (the outdoor living space and being walking distance to a coffee shop.)

Some of these things we could get with a remodel, but talking to a friend who is an architect/contractor it sounds like more money/time/disruption that we are up for (we are talking putting in a second floor addition....) But, doing that would get us everything but the garage/workspace, vegetable garden, and dance space.

Of course, what started all this was getting a garage so we would still be missing a pretty big piece of our wish list.

We looked at two or three houses this weekend. Bad smells and tiny rooms seem to be a theme in our price range.

Of course, our current house is not ready to sell, so that is a drag on the process as well. We'll see I guess.

Weather

It is raining again.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like rain. More accurately, I like weather. I like it to change and be different all the time. Living in the Northwest works out really well that way.

Now, a lot of our weather kind of looks alike if you don't live here. If you are a native, you think, "oh, cool, the drizzle has turned to light rain" and look forward to a period of overcast with showers. If you are from someplace else, it is more like, "OMFG it is still raining."

For me at least though, what lets me be okay with the 9 to 10 months of variations on wet and grey is the 2 or 3 months of truly beautiful weather we get from the middle of July until September sometime.

This is the second year in a row that we have not actually gotten that weather. While there have been a few really nice days, for the most parts it has been rain bracketing heat waves. And now fall appears to be here. We have all of one ripe tomato.

I am not amused.