Five Things I Love About My Home
Jul. 20th, 2015 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebThis post is inspired by Apartment Therapy's 5 Things I Love About My (Imperfect) Home & Why You Should Make This List, Too by Carrie McBride. 'For a time, all I could focus on were the things about our apartment that drive me nuts (a "shotgun" layout, need I say more?), ...' It's a nice post, and her #5 is great.
Like her, I also have great water pressure. Amazing water pressure, really. We can have the washer going and also flush the toilet with no noticable difference to a person in the shower.
And like her, I also have a good location (my walk score of 52 doesn't compare to her walk score of 98, but it's pretty dang amazing for my city). Plus I'm central, so the drive isn't too crazy to get to my friends who live way north or way south (though I do have some friends who live way west that are inconveniently far away) and work rush hour isn't too bad. Plus I'm east--so work driving is generally not into the sun.
But let me think up five other things on my own. Well, the best thing is that it has a Robin in it. But the house itself also has things I love. When I first got it, I was looking for only four things: 1) affordable to me, 2) convenient to UT, 3) solid foundation, and 4) big living room. Score times four. I also got lots of windows and a big yard. But here's what I really love.
1. No HOA and it shows. Most of my neighbors haven't been rich enough to make drastic changes, but there are still quite a few interesting things going on. There's the yard with the dead tree disguised as Gumby. The garden edged in bowling balls. The yard full of trolls, dinosaurs, and many other toys. The funhouse (the second floor is made to look like it slopes). And there is no HOA fee.
2. Good design. There's a party kitchen (square rather than galley shaped). The kitchen cabinets go all the way to the ceiling. There's a figure eight layout, which means if one route is blocked for some reason, you can probably get where you want to go some other way. You don't have to go through one room to get to another. There's only one door to the bathroom.
3. It's in my favorite (affordable) city. Half my friends live here. It rarely gets cold and never gets crazy cold. It doesn't rain often. (I almost said it doesn't rain much--ha!) When it snows, most folks get the day off. It's very casual--I never have to dress up or worry about status issues. Most people speak my first language. And I don't have to deal with a lot of hate talk (except from my state and national Congress people). Also there is one of the largest college libraries in the country, plus city libraries, Wheatsville Food Coop, Alamo Drafthouse Theatres, the Wildflower Center, Trader Joe's, a discount theater, and more. Coming soon: Google Fiber.
4. Bookshelves. Robin made awesome bookshelves that work perfectly for the long windowless wall in the living room and would not work in most other spaces (and probably won't fit through the doors anyway), so they are basically part of the house. They are gigantic and include all the useful heights for bookshelves. And they are beautiful.
5. No downstairs neighbors. So I can walk around or even jump up and down without bothering anyone. So whenever a good song comes on, I can just dance to it.
Added bonus: Clothes washer. Right in the house. Luxury living! Heck, while I'm at it--indoor plumbing of all kinds! No hiking out to the well or dealing with the pump. No running through the cactus and snow drifts in the middle of the night to get to the outhouse. (Why yes, I have read a few westerns.)
What are your favorite things about your accommodations?
Like her, I also have great water pressure. Amazing water pressure, really. We can have the washer going and also flush the toilet with no noticable difference to a person in the shower.
And like her, I also have a good location (my walk score of 52 doesn't compare to her walk score of 98, but it's pretty dang amazing for my city). Plus I'm central, so the drive isn't too crazy to get to my friends who live way north or way south (though I do have some friends who live way west that are inconveniently far away) and work rush hour isn't too bad. Plus I'm east--so work driving is generally not into the sun.
But let me think up five other things on my own. Well, the best thing is that it has a Robin in it. But the house itself also has things I love. When I first got it, I was looking for only four things: 1) affordable to me, 2) convenient to UT, 3) solid foundation, and 4) big living room. Score times four. I also got lots of windows and a big yard. But here's what I really love.
1. No HOA and it shows. Most of my neighbors haven't been rich enough to make drastic changes, but there are still quite a few interesting things going on. There's the yard with the dead tree disguised as Gumby. The garden edged in bowling balls. The yard full of trolls, dinosaurs, and many other toys. The funhouse (the second floor is made to look like it slopes). And there is no HOA fee.
2. Good design. There's a party kitchen (square rather than galley shaped). The kitchen cabinets go all the way to the ceiling. There's a figure eight layout, which means if one route is blocked for some reason, you can probably get where you want to go some other way. You don't have to go through one room to get to another. There's only one door to the bathroom.
3. It's in my favorite (affordable) city. Half my friends live here. It rarely gets cold and never gets crazy cold. It doesn't rain often. (I almost said it doesn't rain much--ha!) When it snows, most folks get the day off. It's very casual--I never have to dress up or worry about status issues. Most people speak my first language. And I don't have to deal with a lot of hate talk (except from my state and national Congress people). Also there is one of the largest college libraries in the country, plus city libraries, Wheatsville Food Coop, Alamo Drafthouse Theatres, the Wildflower Center, Trader Joe's, a discount theater, and more. Coming soon: Google Fiber.
4. Bookshelves. Robin made awesome bookshelves that work perfectly for the long windowless wall in the living room and would not work in most other spaces (and probably won't fit through the doors anyway), so they are basically part of the house. They are gigantic and include all the useful heights for bookshelves. And they are beautiful.
5. No downstairs neighbors. So I can walk around or even jump up and down without bothering anyone. So whenever a good song comes on, I can just dance to it.
Added bonus: Clothes washer. Right in the house. Luxury living! Heck, while I'm at it--indoor plumbing of all kinds! No hiking out to the well or dealing with the pump. No running through the cactus and snow drifts in the middle of the night to get to the outhouse. (Why yes, I have read a few westerns.)
What are your favorite things about your accommodations?
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no subject
on 2015-07-21 10:29 pm (UTC)2. It's six miles from my job. And it's near my favorite city in my favorite state, Boston MA!
3. It has crumbling old Victorian charm: high ceilings, large rooms, great molding, awesome hardwood floors, giant windows, funky features like a nifty mantel and built in cabinets.
4. Great landlords.
5. It stays pretty cool for a lot of the summer without AC, and once I put the ACs in, I only need two very small ones to cool the whole house, even though the rooms are large.
[I could easily come up with three times as many things that I hate, but I will focus on the positives!]
no subject
on 2015-07-21 11:34 pm (UTC)And you just reminded me--my place is fairly cheap to keep air conditioned and to re-roof because it's so small. That sounds like faint praise, but it really is nice to keep the recurring expenses low.
Hope you're saving up your cash while you can (paying down debt counts as saving)! And hang in there with your other ways that you pay!
no subject
on 2015-07-23 07:11 am (UTC)1) It's paid for. Woo Hoo!
2) Open floor plan - lots of light. If I stand in the living room I can see outside in all four directions (assuming the curtains are open).
3) Walking distance from just about everything important. I do drive places, but only because I'm a snob and want to see MY vet vs. the vet down the street, etc.
4) Low standards - while in some parts of town my bindweed ridden yard would make me the neighborhood pariah, here it looks better than half the yards!
5) Basement - I know we're all supposed to love our small spaces, and I do... but I also love having a place to work on my bike, and where the laundry room and chest freezer, and furnace and hot water heater can be out of the way.
OK... I also love having a detached garage, and a big garden, and being 5 blocks from the Greenway & it's hundreds of miles of bike paths, and my neighbors who totally rock, and the big trees shading the roof in the hot summer, and the insulation making it easy to heat in the winter, and someday when I get my proverbial ka-ka together and rip up the avocado green shag, I'm totally gonna love the oak floors that are lurking under there!
:-)
-Cat
no subject
on 2015-07-25 01:53 am (UTC)I also really like my open floorplan. I can only see outside in two (opposite) directions from my living room (hmm, on one spot, I can see a third direction) but that's enough. Plus the direction with no widows is a huge wall covered with those fabulous bookshelves.