10 Things I Dislike About our House

Two months ago I wrote a list of 10 Things I Love About Our House, inspired by the book Love the House You're In.  We've been here for 11 years and I think I love more about it every year.  A lot of that probably comes from the incessant projects we are doing, fine tuning the house to exactly what we want (benefits to living here much longer than planned!).  We knew very little about house hunting when we bought it at 22 and seemingly a lot of what we like have been happy accidents, things we didn't know we liked or needed.

But then there is this list.  The things we don't like about our house.  I stuck with things that are pretty difficult to change (because pretty much if we can change it we will).  My initial draft of this list was things like "all the window cranks that don't work" (5 of our 8 crank windows are very hard to open and/or close) and such, but then that was more of a to-do list (honey do list) and just reminded me there are plenty of things we still need/want to do.  At least before we sell our house (a thought that makes me sad even though it's potentially years away!).

So, 10 things we dislike about our house, AKA things we know to consider at the next one.

1) Only One Bathroom

Our bathroom also made our love list because I really do like it after the massive renovation 3 years ago (renovating your only bathroom...we can win pretty much every "horrible house project" contest).  BUT...we sure wish we had another one.  Preferably one upstairs, even just a toilet and sink!  As you can imagine, there are many times that having a second toilet would come in handy and going up and down stairs at 3am on crutches or carrying a potty-training toddler just isn't fun.  It'd also be nice to not have all our bathroom stuff (toothbrushes, shower stuff, make-up, etc.) in our guest bathroom OR with Luke (a couple weeks ago he cut his lip (small cut) with my razor...).  We obviously knew there was only one bathroom when we bought the house and it's mostly been fine (only one to clean!) but next house will DEFINITELY have multiple.

2) No Good 3rd Bedroom Option

We technically have three bedrooms.  Two upstairs and then Matt's office is considered the third because it has a door and a closet.  However, at this stage in our lives we don't ever intend to turn his office into a bedroom.  It's fairly small, we haven't measured but we are pretty sure our full bed wouldn't even fit, or fit beyond space to barely walk around it.  We don't want to put a kid downstairs by themselves just for safety/security but also, we live downstairs many hours of the day when Luke is sleeping/supposed to be sleeping/in quiet time.  Noise from the front room would be a problem.  We just don't see it as a functional bedroom.  And did you know that you are supposed to have 50 square feet per kid in their bedrooms?  (Something we need to consider, seeing as we have a home visit coming up).  So...that's kinda a pain.

3) No Cross-Breeze Upstairs

I wrote a whole post about how I don't LOVE air conditioning.  Unless it's 90°+, I much prefer open windows.  I love sleeping with the windows open but even last night, it was 65° outside but our room got a little stuffy.  We have no cross breeze upstairs and that makes turning on the AC at night all the more tempting.  With our Cape Cod, our room and Luke's room each have one window and they don't line up to get a cross breeze either.  So not a lot of air is moving which can make for hot summer nights...even when it's 65°!

4) All the Different Floors Downstairs

We have 5 different floors in our downstairs, down from 6 pre-floor refinishings!  We have installed or refinished every single one of those.  Having the front porch match the front room and Matt's office was a good improvement but that still leaves my office (never changing my bamboo, NEVER), the kitchen, bathroom, and stairs as the outliers.  I'd love to carry the refinished hardwoods through more of the house (besides my office, as people keep suggesting) but hardwoods don't exist in the rest of the house, which makes it rather difficult (or just expensive).  We've talked about changing the kitchen floor to something that would match, color wise, better with the new floors but that seems a little silly when that floor has been down less than 7 years.  So for now, we have a lot of different floors going on.  I probably just need to accept it.

5) No Full-Size Closet

We don't have a single full size, taller than me, closet in our house.  My wedding dress has been hanging on the back of our bedroom door forever because there is nowhere else tall enough to put it.  Our closet is huge but involves turning your head so you don't hit it.  It's not the most ideal situation.  And it all works and we have a lot of built in storage but...a taller closet would be nice.

6) The Unfinishability of the Basement

The basement is the bane of my existence.  And the garage.  Or at least this house.Two spaces that constantly seem to be messy and I can't get organized.  We think our basement floor was capped at some point because the ceiling is rather low (with a tiny bit of stretching I can touch my head to duct work on the ceiling).  It has a rain trough around the edge of the floor and the walls have a small bump-out a few feet down.  We could finish our basement but it would be expensive.  I'll have to settle for function over form here. 

7) The Weird Walls in Luke's Room

When Matt and I were discussing future projects this is one of the first he came up with.  Luke's bedroom walls are not drywall, they are not plaster.  We don't know what they are.  Some sort of weird vinyl-y thing?  The corners aren't mudded & sanded like traditional drywall but just have trim pieces.  The hooks holding up his stuffed animal hammock have been pulling the paint and something else off the wall (see the bubble under there?).  We don't know what these walls are but we'd like them to be drywall.  Which, displacing your kid from their bedroom, would be a huge project and not one we are eager to take on.  I didn't notice until Matt pointed it out, but now it bothers me too.

8) No Counter Space without a Kitchen Cupboard Above it

I'd love an island or peninsula in our kitchen, basically more counter space.  The only counters we have (besides a very small section next to the back door) have cabinets about them which is handy for baking, everything is within reach, but I always feel like my face is right in the cabinets.  There just isn't a lot of counter or clearance.  Next house, maybe I'll get more space.

9) Yard size

We have a small yard which is good for mowing days, bad for when we are trying to determine placement of Luke's swing set.  We don't want a lot of acreage (or even a full acre) but more space would be nice: more space for Luke to run, bigger swing set (Matt's plans keep getting bigger and bigger...).  Our next house should have a bigger yard.  Hopefully. 

10) Tightness of the Stairs, Back Door, etc.

Most of the time we like living in a small(er) house and the natural constraints that puts on us (can't have a lot of stuff when the house is small!) but sometimes it's just annoying.  Our stairs upstairs have three turns in them and moving furniture up and down them is pain (and these chairs have gone up and down a lot lately with floor projects, lack of a couch, etc.).   Same with the basement stairs, they are tight and every thing large down there has been taking down in pieces.  When I recently hosted my sister's bridal shower in the backyard my sisters had to carry our kitchen table out the front door and around the house because it just wouldn't get out the back door.  We have some tight spaces, tight corners.  Basically, our next house will be bigger.

And that's it!  Other than the always growing to-do list, that's pretty much what we don't like about our house.  Still, I am in absolutely NO hurry to move and know I'll miss many things when we eventually do.

What's on your list of things you don't like about your house?  If you say nothing, I don't believe you.

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