Thursday, September 29, 2011

The search for our dream home…

…is hard.

On some of the days that Chris has off, we like to take drives to different neighborhoods in Colorado Springs and surrounding areas to try to narrow our focus. Especially since we hired a realtor this week and it would be nice to give her something specific to look for—you know, not just “a house.” Today we went to one of the prettier areas, the towns of Monument and Woodland Park.

Imagine a quant mountain-ish town just 10 minutes from the freeway. Both cities are tucked up against the foothills, although Monument extends to the east side of I-25 as well, and are beautiful. The houses seem to have much more land than you will find in the suburbs, which is anything above 1/8 acre. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to see into ten of my neighbors’ backyards from my back patio.

The problem with these areas is that you are a bit removed from the convenience shopping, the parks, the schools, and other kids. Unless we plan on having 8 kids that can keep each other entertained all of the time, I just think it might be best to be closer to their friends as they grow up. And Chris likes the idea of building a new house with everything he is looking for (but probably not a yard or a beautiful mountain feel).

And the other major problem in our search right now is that we don’t have money. Remember how my parents helped us to get out of our townhome in Charlotte? Well that means that we have a balance to pay them every month. Oh, and let’s not forget those medical school loans that are due now. Oh, and that large chunk of change that we may need to buy into the group in 18-24 months.  But somehow we need to also have a down payment?

Right.

But I really hate our rental!

I hate the kitchen. I hate the white tiles on the counter that show every piece of cat hair. I hate the baseboards in the kitchen that aren’t actually attached to anything. I hate cooking in the kitchen. I hate the dirty white walls. I hate the random blue accent walls. I hate the drafty, dirty windows. I hate the weird smell in the basement. I hate the bugs in the basement. I hate that our master bathroom doesn’t even have a tub. I hate the cobwebs growing on our front porch. I hate the driveway that is crumbling. I hate the garage door that only opens about half of the time. I hate the rock garden in the backyard. I hate that birds fall out of the sky and die in our grass. Yes, you heard me, birds die here!

But mostly I hate that it isn’t mine.

So you can see why I am eager to get out of this place, but we have  8 more months on the lease. Unless the perfect house shows up and our bank account miraculously grows, we’re stuck here.

It could happen, right?

1 comment:

Kimba said...

have dealt with all of the above! renting SUCKS. that's for freakin' sure. and house hunting sucks too. and building isn't always awesome :) good luck! great pep talk, right?