Sunday, May 27, 2012

House Hunting Help

Here we are finding ourselves house hunting once again. After looking at lots & lots of houses in a total of 6 cities surrounding the area of Jared's work place. We have it narrowed down to two potential homes. Both homes are beautiful, about the same size & price, although different from one another both fit our personalities, and in the same school district which we are pleased with.

We do have a slight preference for one house over the other (it's more updated and has been cared for a little more yet still has a historic home feel) but the yard is just so small and not the most usable for our purposes (which are garden, playset, space to throw a baseball, and can handle at least 6-7 kids playing in it as we have 5 nieces & nephews who live nearby w/ 6th one on the way).

The other house is also gorgeous and it's on the historic registry of the town as one of the first houses built in the area which I love!  But it has quite a bit more work that needs to be done to it than the other house (but we're not afraid of work) and several impracticalities about it such as an old elevator in the home. An ELEVATOR! Which I think is so cool but it doesn't work, would be expensive or impossible to fix, Jared wants to know why we need/want an elevator to begin with (always bursting my bubble he is) and it eats up much needed closet space. And that's just one impracticality of the house. But the house is sitting on 3/4 of an acre yard that is very nicely landscaped with lots of space for all of our dreams of outdoor living.

So here's the crux...do we go with the house we prefer and sacrifice the yard because you live in your house everyday, year round and not in your yard? ...OR... Do you go with the bigger nicer yard because we are an outdoorsy family and take the definitely acceptable if not more impractical house?

Just a few pics to help you out.

House #1: Gorgeous Home w/ Small Yard


What you see here is pretty much all there is for yard space.
But look at that gorgeous house.

On the other hand it's not much to mow.


Kitchen is fabulous!


House #2: Lovely Historic Home w/ Large Yard
Sorry some of these pics are dark
Brick driveway with ivy covered arches...swoon.
(I've never been one to swoon over movie stars but these two gorgeous historic homes make me weak in the knees)

Backyard

Some of the beautiful & original built-ins 



The elevator

Itty Bitty Bathroom in Orange (the tub is even extra short)

So what would you choose?
 The yard or the house?

5 comments:

  1. That is a really hard call! I would normally say yard, actually that's exactly what we did when we moved here, we mainly chose this house for the yard. BUT they really are both so beautiful.

    At least you can rest easy knowing that whichever one you choose you will have a beautiful home!

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  2. I would go for the house you prefer even though the yard is smaller. I think you could get really creative with the space to make more play area. Good luck deciding!

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  3. Yard! But the first house is gorgeous!

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  4. The yard...that's not something you can change

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  5. Good luck. No idea which you should choose. I'm mostly just jealous that you are able to choose between two such amazing houses. They make me swoon, too. I love old houses. So much character, history, feeling! None of the cookie cutter nonsense of today's houses.

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