...and our (my lol) brilliant ideas will need to wait about 5 more years. Since twins were born and we realized private school not really an option with 3 kids (we had anticipated two children lol), we have been going back and forth on staying in our current house or moving. Moving for two reason 1) boys school 2) closer to Marcin's work. I love our current house...if I could take it and move that, I would be happy! lol
I was pinning ideas for a great mudroom with cubbies for all the boys school things, shoes, sports stuff, instruments...whichever they may get interested in:-) We toyed with moving the laundry room upstairs to our sitting room.....because really? Who uses a sitting room? Ours has a futon mattress for the boys to jump on and a love seat we dont' need. A storm door for our front door. Extending Master bathroom shower...maybe some nice tile. Tiling over the downstairs bath, the morning room and the new mudroom. I guess I will be saving these for next house, well except for the granite. That would be a good reselling point. That thought just depresses me because while we sold our townhouse at the peak of the market 5 years ago...we also bought at the peak so obviously we won't be making money on this house when it does sell. I never thought we would but I had hoped we might break even....I don't see that happening unless something crazy happens with the market :-(
When we were searching for houses 5 years ago, we ideally wanted to be in the Pike Creek area. Beautiful area but older homes with higher price tags :/ Some needed new roofs, windows, kitchens and bathrooms gutted, etc. Not minor renovations but costly and large renovations. So we started looking elsewhere and found our house :-) We picked out all of the options we wanted, except granite because we figured we could get to that later. Obviously, our needs/wants have changed over the past 5 years that we have been living here. Marcin would also like a slightly larger yard and we both would like a neighborhood or area without the homes being as close. This also seems hard to find in Delaware without a hefty price in the area we would want.
So for fun, I and sometimes Marcin joins me in the fun. I was optimistic in that maybe there were would be more available than there used to be in the Pike Creek area. Not so much. Similar houses....15-20 years old with original kitchens, mauve carpeting, maroon tubs and vanities, forest green carpeting, wallpaper....lots and lots of wall paper! that can be fixed but sheesh, so much wallpaper! LOL The older homes tend to have larger lot sizes. The newer homes that we like tend to be on smaller lots and higher price : /
That leads us to look in Pennslyvania....Landenberg/Avondale area. Beautiful homes, nice lot sizes, most of the homes less than 10 years old, great school districts. Sounds great right? The property taxes are crazy...well compared to Delaware. Some $10k and higher. Although I have been recently told that you can appeal these taxes and possibly cut them in half because some need to be revaluated based on the market going up and down. I need to look into this because almost all of the homes I see here, I really like or need minor cosmetic changes. This area is just 5-10 minutes from Delaware and around the area of Pike Creek/Hockessin. So it would meet our needs of better schools and closer to Marcin's work.
So as I was looking at ways to better organized our hot mess of an office, I realized I really don't need to spend that much of my time on this. Our list has shortened of things to do in our current house....granite in kitchen and updating upstairs bathrooms by painting cabinets and making them more organized/user friendly for family of five :-)
I think we finally decided on a 5 Year Plan. Alot can happen in 5 years....our needs/wants can change. Assuming things don't change too drastically, we will be looking for a new home. What we would want in a new home has also changed a little, more specific that I think will take us a while to find. We should just build our own home but with Marcin overseeing that, it would YEARS to be completed! It would be perfect once done :-) But years and years to meet his standards:-P (love you honey!) Gah....I should start packing now. The thought of packing/unpacking a family of five makes me want to chug a bottle of wine. I haven't done that since college. It was a pain to move with just TWO of us....let alone FIVE! oh vey....in my dreams I see the 9 year old Gavin being super helpful with packing and bossing his younger 7 year old brother around and delegating their tasks. A mom can dream :-P
I was pinning ideas for a great mudroom with cubbies for all the boys school things, shoes, sports stuff, instruments...whichever they may get interested in:-) We toyed with moving the laundry room upstairs to our sitting room.....because really? Who uses a sitting room? Ours has a futon mattress for the boys to jump on and a love seat we dont' need. A storm door for our front door. Extending Master bathroom shower...maybe some nice tile. Tiling over the downstairs bath, the morning room and the new mudroom. I guess I will be saving these for next house, well except for the granite. That would be a good reselling point. That thought just depresses me because while we sold our townhouse at the peak of the market 5 years ago...we also bought at the peak so obviously we won't be making money on this house when it does sell. I never thought we would but I had hoped we might break even....I don't see that happening unless something crazy happens with the market :-(
When we were searching for houses 5 years ago, we ideally wanted to be in the Pike Creek area. Beautiful area but older homes with higher price tags :/ Some needed new roofs, windows, kitchens and bathrooms gutted, etc. Not minor renovations but costly and large renovations. So we started looking elsewhere and found our house :-) We picked out all of the options we wanted, except granite because we figured we could get to that later. Obviously, our needs/wants have changed over the past 5 years that we have been living here. Marcin would also like a slightly larger yard and we both would like a neighborhood or area without the homes being as close. This also seems hard to find in Delaware without a hefty price in the area we would want.
So for fun, I and sometimes Marcin joins me in the fun. I was optimistic in that maybe there were would be more available than there used to be in the Pike Creek area. Not so much. Similar houses....15-20 years old with original kitchens, mauve carpeting, maroon tubs and vanities, forest green carpeting, wallpaper....lots and lots of wall paper! that can be fixed but sheesh, so much wallpaper! LOL The older homes tend to have larger lot sizes. The newer homes that we like tend to be on smaller lots and higher price : /
That leads us to look in Pennslyvania....Landenberg/Avondale area. Beautiful homes, nice lot sizes, most of the homes less than 10 years old, great school districts. Sounds great right? The property taxes are crazy...well compared to Delaware. Some $10k and higher. Although I have been recently told that you can appeal these taxes and possibly cut them in half because some need to be revaluated based on the market going up and down. I need to look into this because almost all of the homes I see here, I really like or need minor cosmetic changes. This area is just 5-10 minutes from Delaware and around the area of Pike Creek/Hockessin. So it would meet our needs of better schools and closer to Marcin's work.
So as I was looking at ways to better organized our hot mess of an office, I realized I really don't need to spend that much of my time on this. Our list has shortened of things to do in our current house....granite in kitchen and updating upstairs bathrooms by painting cabinets and making them more organized/user friendly for family of five :-)
I think we finally decided on a 5 Year Plan. Alot can happen in 5 years....our needs/wants can change. Assuming things don't change too drastically, we will be looking for a new home. What we would want in a new home has also changed a little, more specific that I think will take us a while to find. We should just build our own home but with Marcin overseeing that, it would YEARS to be completed! It would be perfect once done :-) But years and years to meet his standards:-P (love you honey!) Gah....I should start packing now. The thought of packing/unpacking a family of five makes me want to chug a bottle of wine. I haven't done that since college. It was a pain to move with just TWO of us....let alone FIVE! oh vey....in my dreams I see the 9 year old Gavin being super helpful with packing and bossing his younger 7 year old brother around and delegating their tasks. A mom can dream :-P
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