Our Quirky House

A couple of months ago we had the grand idea to uproot our little family and move to Colorado. Although it involves another future move, we decided to rent before buying, just to get to know the area. After a lot of searching, Brian found a house online. The landlord agreed to a 6-month lease, and even held the house for us for a month because we are Christian. On top of it all, she left us dinner in the freezer, and milk, yogurt and apples in the fridge. How could we go wrong? Wellllll.......

The jury is still out on whether we didn't or did go wrong (although I might be leaning towards the latter), but we did get a rather odd house. It's a rental, and a short lease (thank you, Lord). We've lived in a lot of bizarre places with issues all their own, so there's no doubt in our minds that we can handle this. Houses are affordable here, and we have already gotten a realtor and will start looking at places next week. This house we're renting, though ... it's just a little bit strange. The neighborhood is fine - 20-30 years old, with a mostly blue collar make-up. The neighborhood play area, which is common in this town, is old and badly maintained. I'm not sure the play area or the fences have been taken care of since they were built! The average homeowner here is a little older than we are, but only in his or her mid-40's. The kids are usually older, too. Averages ages are 8 years to the 'teens. We've only found a few kids Brandon's age anywhere near us. It seems safe here, and if you left your door or garage open all day on accident chances are nothing would get stolen. Your neighbor probably would have been "keeping an eye out" on your place all day for you, too! We're in a "covenant protected" community - which seems to be a sort of Homeowners Association term. As a result, the lawns and exteriors of houses are kempt and nice. Our street is off a parkway that circles a golf course. Many HOA's here have their own golf courses and clubhouses, and golfing isn't as expensive as in California. The mail is in a central location, and the kids and I take a walk there every couple of days, depending on the heat, to check it. We also walk down the surrounding streets looking for signs of life. In our old neighborhood in S-town there were people out walking around all the time. Of course, the weather is milder there, and the high-density housing near the Community Center provided for a large number of people in a small area. You don't see nearly the amount of people walking around this neighborhood. I think the higher heat factor (it's usually in the mid to upper 90's in the evenings) combined with the small population contribute to that. Then there is the house......

Our theory (in jest, but mildly serious) is that a bachelor designed this house. He was fresh out of architectural school, never dated, was never around families with kids, and only owned 2 pairs of shoes! The house is a 1400 square foot split level with 3 bedrooms and a 2-car garage. You'd think that, technically, this house would be just fine for us, since we lived in a 1300 square foot 3 bedroom duplex back in S-town, and only had a 1-car garage. And all our stuff fit in that place without a problem! We even parked in the garage! However.... a major point - we had closets in S-town! Big closets! This place, while fitting our needs for the time being, is quirky and sorely lacking in storage space. We have maybe 1/8 the closet space as we had before. Although the kitchen and dining are decently sized, it has been a challenge just to fit in the necessities in the kitchen. The cupboards and shelves are small and badly done. There are a lot of half-shelves and wasted spaces. Our plates only fit into one of several cupboards. We went from 8 drawers to 3. This kitchen/dining area is twice the size of our old one on Offenbach Place! Half our kitchen stuff is currently being stored in the garage. We saw no need to unpack the china when we're going to move in a few months. Good thing, because there isn't any room for it anyway!

The kids bedrooms are upstairs, along with the living room, kitchen and dining room. The kids rooms are decently sized and have adequate storage space. The bathroom is tiny, but it works. I highly do not recommend an upstairs kitchen! Since the house is split level, I have to walk up 7 or 8 stairs to get to the front door, and then another 7 just to get to the kitchen (or an entire flight of stairs if I park in the garage). Unloading after grocery shopping is an Olympic event. Although I'm no longer dizzy, I'm still not use to the altitude. After a few trips up and down stairs I am winded! I feel like I did when I was just a few days from having Brandon - it can be so hard to breath. The world's tiniest family room (with the largest, ugliest, and non-functioning fireplace), laundry room, small bathroom and 1 "bedroom" are downstairs. The bedroom is only big enough for our queen size bed, one dresser, and our hampers. Seriously. No nightstands, no other dresser, nothing. There are about 4 inches between my side of the bed and the sliding glass door out to the backyard (again, seriously!). There is one teensy closet (almost too small for Brian's stuff. Now that's small!). My closet is the coat closet in the "family room". It's narrow and deep, but we've made it work. I've added an extra clothes bar and a lot of shelves for storage, including items other than my shoes and clothes. Brian's closet got a hanging clothes bar to add more hanging space. To get to the bathroom you have to walk through the laundry room, which has no back wall and only a partial ceiling. As a result you can really hear the washer and dryer running, even when you're upstairs and the laundry room door is shut. I'm not sure the bathroom was ever meant to be used regularly. It has a pedestal sink, a tiny shower, and no storage. All extra stuff is stored in the laundry room. We can use the shower, but I wouldn't have been able to use it during either of my pregnancies after the first trimester! We are using the family room as an office area, and place for guests to sleep. It's too small for anything else.

We have a nice shady backyard complete with a play structure for the kids. It's sloped and teeming with bugs, but not too hot in the middle of the day. However, since we live in a split level, you have to go down 27 steps from our second floor sliding glass door to get there, or sqeeze by our bed downstairs to get out to it! But it's a good sized yard. You can't slide the upstairs sliding glass door all the way shut when you go outside, though, or it locks automatically. Better than when it didn't lock at all. And Caitlin going down 27 steps? Can you say "falling", "mangled", or "emergency room visit"? We usually get in the car and go to the one park we've found that has sand to play in instead of jagged rocks under the swings. Sand is non-existant in most parks. Again, so odd!

I think I am finally over being perpetually tired. It has been grueling trying to figure out the challenges of the house, not knowing where anything is, unpacking, and spending all day with my kids and no one else! I am really looking forward to living in a normal place once we buy a house.

On the plus side, we do have a laundry room in the house, as opposed to our laundry closet at our house on Offenbach. We also have central air here, which was a rental house requirement. It has been unusually hot for this area, and most days are close to 100 degrees. We need central air here also, since most of the windows don't have screens. And the ones that do have holes in them. There are lots of wasps here in general, but so far none have gotten into the house. I've notice a lot of houses here don't have screens on the windows or doors, but people have them open anyway! Niiice! . We have a nice back and front yard with big trees. I also like our hardwood floors in the kitchen and dining area. It's so much easier to clean up after Caitlin when she eats! The attic fan in a big plus to suck in the cool evening air when we have it, and circulate it around the house. Right now it's 9:00, and still 80 outside. The winds have picked up, and there's thunder and lighting, but no rain.

I took some pictures over the last few days. Click here to get a tour of our odd little place! It looks good now, but it's taken a lot of work. It could be so much worse. However, since I'm so so good at complaining, I thought I'd share my little world with you.