House Hunting

We need to get going on the house hunt. It's spring. El Burrito's Birthday is just two months away, and it would be nice to have his party at our house, instead of having two parties with his grandparents. And my sister keeps nagging me about it. (She thinks looking at 12 houses in one weekend, 30 minutes per house, is realistic. If you're looking at houses outside of town, not so much.)

Which means that we need some sort of criteria about what kind of house we want. You know, to help narrow down the search. Our problem (one of them) is that we're maybe too flexible. Right now, there are three options.

1. Sell the condo and rent a house for a year while we look for a house with acreage.
2. Look for a house with acreage, then sell the condo.
3. Buy the first good house we see in town, sell the condo, and look for a house with acreage.

(Acreage here being anything over an acre, so we'd be looking outside the city limits, and ideally around 10+ acres so we could have critters - a horse, chickens, a few future-dinner steers.) Anyway, that makes narrowing things down a bit hard, because in-town houses and houses-with-acreage are sort of two different things. I'm not in favor of the rent option except as a last resort, just because it means more moving, and more time with everything in boxes. I've already got stuff that's been boxed up since we were married, just because there's no room here.

So, my criteria at first will probably be based on things that bug me the most about the condo, that aren't easily fixable. For example, I've watched some house-hunting shows and see people dismissing a possible house because they don't like the paint colors. For me, that's not really a deal-breaker. I know where Lowe's is, and I know how to use a paint roller. On the other hand, lack of windows and air circulation would be a deal-breaker for me. Ditto for really creepy neighbors, hideous floor plans, or seriously lousy locations.

We looked at two houses Way Back When that would have been considered if they'd been somewhere else. One was maybe 200 feet from Interstate 70, just off the access road; the traffic noise was constant. The other was on a bluff. It had a lovely view, but the edge of the bluff was maybe 75 feet from the back door. And there was a railroad track at the bottom of the bluff.

So, criteria.

• More than 1,000 sq. ft. In other words, it has to be bigger than this place. I'd prefer 2,000 sq. ft. minimum, but I can be flexible if there's an attic, unfinished basement, or whatever. Or if there's room to expand.
• Windows. Must have windows. Windows that open, and aren't part of the door. The cave atmosphere here is just too irritating.
• Must have a yard, whether there's acreage or not. A fence would be nice, but if it's not there, we can put it in later.
• Closets other than in the bedrooms. I'd love to have a closet in the bathroom or in a hallway, to use as a linen/storage closet. Walk-in closets in the bedrooms are nice, but they're not enough.
• Kitchen counter space.
• Basement level. Because I prefer to have a place to go when there are tornados. The second-floor bathroom option just doesn't feel safe enough to me.
  

And that's about all I can think of right now. Most of the things that bug me about the condo are things that could be fixed with enough time and money (and tools) - the lousy lighting, for example, and the shower. But the fact that it's too small, the bathtub is practically unusable, and there's no natural light coming in - those are harder to fix.