Friday, November 2, 2007

Backdating - 11/2/07 - Our Home

We live in a ranch style home in the suburb of a major city. Three bedrooms, 2 baths, about 1600 square feet. For all seven members of the family. J and J2 inherited this home when their mother passed away. J2 already lived here, as did the dog. The rest of us moved in back in August. Though we would much rather have his parents here with us, we're fortunate that the home came with no mortgage attached.

How is that real, you may ask? Well, for someone like myself who had only ever lived in apartments, the enormity of maintaining a home is real enough. Everything else except a mortgage is still here.

Let's do a walk through:

Entering from the two car garage where there is about 10 years worth of storage so there is only enough room for one car, you will walk through a small mudroom/laundry room with a pantry off to the side. This is where the litter box, the cat's food and water dispensers and the kitchen garbage can is kept.

Walk further, and you are in the eat-in-kitchen. We eat around the table maybe once a week, and at least once if we have a weekend guest, and almost always if we have dinner company. The kitchen is also where the cats live. Sadly, they were used to having roaming privileges wherever I lived. Now, not so much.

There is an extra wide 27" tall baby gate that separates the EIK from the den. And separates the dog from the cats. The younger cat has some sense, preferring ONLY the kitchen, despite dog-less outings into the den. The older cat...she and the dog get into staring contests through the gate, she's gotten caught on the mesh from swatting the dog through it, and though she's clever enough to figure out how to get into the den when the dog is out...she's not clever enough to figure out when the dog is out. When it comes to a 70 lb dog vs. an 8 lb cat...It doesn't matter how fierce the cat is - one bad move from the dog, and the dog will win.

In the den you will find the newer furniture that my MIL purchased in the year before she passed, a large flat screen TV, J2, my husband's new computer and my grandfather clock. And boxes of stuff from our move here which we need to go through and clear out. There are still a few in the kitchen as well, but J and J2 went through a lot of them, and wheedled it down to just a few. J2 spends at least 12 hours a day in the den watching TV. That will change when he gets to working.

Go through one set of double swinging doors, and you will be in the 'formal' living room and dining room. We never use these areas. However, this is where our furniture from the apartment is located. Leather living room set, bar-style dining room set. Go through the other set of double swinging doors, and you will be in the bedroom area. J and I are in the master bedroom, and in it we have two closets and a full bath. We also have additional things that we need to go through including some of his parents' items, and more moving boxes from the apartment. S & J2 have the other bedrooms, which share a full bath.

Outside, in the backyard there is a cemented area where we grill during the summer, a porchswing that no one uses, and the backyard, which only the dog uses. The driveway has two cars - one running, one not.

When we moved in, we were struck by the number of duplicates we had. We now have two desktop computers for which we have no use, 3 TVs, 1 set of living room furniture, 1 set of kid's bedroom furniture, 1 washer/dryer set, and quite a bit more. What to do? Its all in storage at a U-Haul center across town. We pay $108/month for it. Which, when you think about it, is much better than the $1K/mo rent we were paying, or $1300/mo mortgage that we could have been paying. But the very fact we're paying for things that we already own to stay in a place where we can't see it or use it makes me a little bonkers.

Why haven't we unpacked, or gone through storage yet? Until next post...