My good friend and her husband (who is a very smart guy that happens to be a general contractor) came over for dinner on Friday night. They knew ahead of time that we wanted to pick his brain about possibly adding on to our house. He has lots of experience and was able to share tons of knowledge about all of the options, whether it be adding on to our existing home or buying a new home and renting ours out (which is something that we’ve certainly never given much thought). He advised against building a home right now, as the market is saturated with homes as it is. Sure, we can do a lot of the work to fix a place up, but time gets in the way eventually. Money too.
We’ve been trying to figure out how to do the dance of buying and selling a home at the same time. It seems like some great luck or an act of God to time that sort of thing just right. What if we put our house on the market and it sold immediately, and we had nowhere to go? Or worse, what if we found a house that we just couldn’t pass up, then our house sat on the market for months and months or more, leaving us with 2 mortgage payments? He pretty much convinced us that there isn’t much to renting and as long as you check the potential tenant’s credit, you can more or less rest easy that they won’t tear up your stuff. So in the second scenario I mentioned, I guess renting would be an option.
But back to adding on to our existing home – we talked all weekend about our ideas and how we could customize each and every detail. It would be so rewarding to do a good portion of the work ourselves. We’re thinking that we would only have to hire someone to do the exterior and to finish the drywall on the interior (because let’s face it, that’s an ART). We came up with a rough plan to add a real laundry room (and building a pantry where the washer and dryer sit now – in the kitchen) and a master suite, complete with a walk-in closet and a full bathroom. Glorious.
Right now, our cute little 1961 traditional ranch is feeling a little small. It’s okay for now, but all of my clothes are in the guest bedroom closet or the dresser in the guest bedroom. Not such a big deal until we have the next kid…who will have to live in the hallway or something because right now, there’s just no room for any more STUFF. So anyway, we need to do something, whether that means moving or adding on. Right now my heart is telling me to add on instead of moving away. We have a great yard and we love the location of our home. Some people want to be out in the middle of nowhere…not me. A dealbreaker for me has always been that I have to be able to get to Target just as easily as Walmart because I don’t do Walmart. At all. (As it turns out, we do live closer to a Walmart than Target but not by much. That’s beside the point…).
The thought of adding on excites me. It’s an adventure waiting to be had. I don’t know for sure if that’s what we will end up doing. We are still looking at homes online and considering the home of a cousin’s cousin that isn’t on the market yet. It’s good to have options!
~C~