This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

The future Mrs. Frylock and I have decided the time has come to put down roots. Well, together-roots; we sort of have separate roots now. So we have been out looking at houses, and we currently have an offer in on one. We lowballed, they highballed, we countered with something reasonable-but-low, we assume they will counter with something reasonable-but-high and we'll probably accept. We are quite enamored by the place, though living in this part of the country is expensive beyond any kind of reason.

I'm excited, but I also know that a lot of homeowners I know are more like home-owned - the home owns them. Between maintenance, fixes, and money, ownership is a commitment.

FOCUS: Where do you live, literally and figuratively? Not interested so much in geography - we can do other threads on what it's like to live in different cities. What I'm more interested in is - what is your living situation? What do you want in your living situation? What do you explicitly not want? What has motivated you in the past to change your living situation?

 

I live in the suburbs in a semi-detached house. I will always live in a house, apartments or condos are not my style. I like having complete sway over where I live, and the thought of somebody else having access to where I live or control at that freaks me out.

I like having a yard (especially now that I have a kid), a patio, and the quiet nights. There's no light pollution at night so it's always beautiful oustide when it's clear, and aside from my skunk friends Bob and Steve sometimes giving me a hard time and a couple of asshole neighbours who I hope die(we all have that), I like where I am for now. I was raised in the suburbs and have always liked it.

My ideal place would be just outside the city on a one or two-acre property. No farm stuff, but an extra-large and quiet property that's still close enough to everything we need.

It's good to have land.

 

I have an apartment that, since "moving" there a year ago, I have spent less than half of my days actually living there.

Not a bad place - 1BR, hardwood floors, storage closet, recently renovated. Too bad it's in a shitty neighbourhood and I am 1/3 the average age.

 

I have run the gamut of shitty apartments, and my current digs are no exception. I live in a "studio" apartment, which in Asia amounts to the same amount of living space you can find in a shipping container. Seriously.

However, there are huge benefits to living in a smaller space. Aside from the obvious lower utility costs, I keep it clean because to make the place spotless might take an hour. I also don't buy pointless shit that looks pretty and can easily refuse such gifts because "I don't have space". Since my kitchen is small, I buy fresh food more frequently, rather than stocking a pantry with enough dried foods to last through an apocalypse. Finally, since the space is small and being here for long periods of time gets boring, I go hang out with my neighbors or go read in the park or just walk around.

 

I live in the suburbs. I have no idea why I live in the suburbs .... oh yeah my job is close by. My husband and I have about a 3000 sq ft house with a yard. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. We obviously live in a very cheap part of the country to be able to have this for just two people. Oddly enough, we have kind of "filled" it. We never use the living or dining room, but the extra bedrooms are "used". Master bedroom with a ridiculously large closet that is all mine. Guest bedroom with a smaller walkin closet my husband uses. He uses the guest bath too. The two extra bedrooms are an office and a workout room. It is a bit too much. If I told you how much our mortgage is, you would be pissed. But then again I don't live in NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Hawaii, or anywhere equally as cool.

So, now that I will be changing jobs, we will likely be moving closer in after about 6 months or so. My husband is actually willing to give up his 2 minute commute to get out of the suburbs. Someplace with a bit more character, someplace where you can walk to restaurants and coffee. And someplace smaller. My elliptical machine doesn't need it's own room.

 

double post .... move along

 

We live in a very cool two story, former double house converted to a single. At one point in its very long life it had been a bed and breakfast and when we bought it three years ago it had five bedrooms and five bathrooms. The bathrooms were a little ridiculous. One of the bedrooms had a bathtub in it and the other had the vanity in the room itself rather than in the actual bathrooms. So we did what no one ever does and removed bathrooms, turned them into closets, and now the house has 3.5 baths.

We're getting on top of it slowly, but honestly it was more than we could really afford, but three children require a lot of room. House rich and cash poor isn't all that fun of a situation, but I wouldn't change what we did. I love my house.

 

I live in a very upscale neighbourhood in a suburb of Toronto.... in my parent's basement. [Not in a basement apartment, just a bedroom in the basement]

I know it's a pretty awful stereotype (I work IT), but my parents have agreed to chip my rent into a down payment - I don't want to play the renting game in Toronto because it's overpriced as shit and I've always been a fan of air conditioning, and our real estate market is so over-inflated it's fucking pathetic. I'm going to do this for another year, hope the market falls out so I can buy something more than a 1BR townhouse with $600 condo fees, and jump ship then.

Really it all boils down to the fact I'd rather live in my parent's basement than a stranger's basement

 

I live in the suburbs of Dallas/Ft. Worth. Our house is a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath single story on better than a .25 acre lot with 3 car garage. I love the house, but the builder didn't make the most efficient use of the lot. I easily have at least twice the front lawn as any house on te street. Back yard has a stone patio covered by an arbor, in ground pool and hot tub and just enough grassy area for the dogs to run. Neighborhood is pretty quiet for the most part, but I dislike having to belong to an HOA.

I liked our place in NH. 3 bedroom colonial on 2 acres that abutted state conservation land. Boston was 45 minutes to the south, the beach was 45 minutes to the east and the mountains were an hour north, and it was tax-free living. But by the last year there, I'd had my fill of shoveling snow.

I grew up in a city across the Hudson from Manhattan. I'm done with urban living.

We're at that age where we're starting to think about retirement. My wife loves the ocean and beach, I'm more of a cabin on a lake type. More than likely where our girls end up settling will influence our choice. Unless her aunt leaves her the beachfront condo on the Jersey shore in her will. Or the condo in Siesta Key, Fl.

 

I own a 1500 square foot condo that has two bedrooms, 2.5 baths and a finished basement. I've been slowly remodeling to turn it from an apartment type setting into a home. With the help of my family we gutted the entire first floor, installed a completely new kitchen with granite counter tops, stainless steal appliances and real hardwood floors. It is nice. It may be the first thing I've ever owned that I was proud of.

I live in the suburbs. I know it sounds lame. However, everyone around me is in the same stage of life. Late 20s, young professionals, no kids, etc. I have a couple of bars within walking distance, as well as several restaurants and a grocery store. I like it out here. I don't have to fight for a parking spot. I'm pretty close to where I play golf and work. I have several friends in the area.

The only reason I bought the house was because my payment (condo fee + mortgage + insurance +property taxes) is half of what I was paying in rent. I bought it from a bank that foreclosed on it for half what it last sold for. I'm hoping with the upgrades I'm making that it will be worth significantly more in a few years when I sell it.

I'm very thankful that I live in area where I can afford to live in a nice place that own. Looking at how much things cost in NYC/Boston/Toronto, etc. I'm not sure how young people are supposed to be able to live.

 

I own a condo/apartment (condiment, if you will) in the downtown area of a small town here in CT. It's a little over 1,000 sq. ft. with two bedrooms and two full baths. Brand new hardwood floors, modern kitchen. It's a nice place for the two of us.

The location works because we've got a bunch of bars and restaurants within walking distance and at least a dozen different pizza delivery places. There's a fresh pasta shop right down the road, a seafood market, and a great little breakfast/lunch place that doubles as the best cheesecake dispensary that has ever existed.

What we don't have is an outdoor area, or the lack of people right on the other side of our walls, ceiling, and floor. I hear our upstairs neighbors fighting, then fucking, all the time. I'd kill for a patio with a grill where I could smoke a cigar. But no first place is ever perfect.

Ideally, in a couple years, we'll move into a house and keep this place as an income property. I don't want anything huge, maybe 1,500-2,000 sq. ft. with a garage and a small yard that's easy to maintain but with enough room that we can still have fun in it.

My perfect spot would be that same house on enough land that I could hunt. 20-25 acres would be sweet.

 

We have a 4 bedroom colonial about an hour west of New York City. Everything Crown said about having a house I agree with. We are very fortunate to have great neighbors, and beach access at the state's biggest lake. I've had bears, coyotes, deer, red fox and red tailed hawks in my yard. Our house isn't perfect, but few things are, and we love it.

I'm all about the "roots" thing. We've lived here 12 years now, and if I had my way, I'd live in this house until they pried my desiccated corpse from the recliner. I can't really describe why it is so important to me. A sense of place, being in my place over weeks, months, years and decades, watching the seasons change, as more and more great memories and good times become associated with my home and the area I live in . . . .

Jesus, what a sap.

 

I've lived in the suburbs my whole life, moving every three years for my dad's job. As soon as I got out of school I did the city thing down in Boston, first with a bunch of roommates then a three bedroom place of our own with the GF. I loved our living situation, we had a ton of space and were in walking distance of bars, but it was too big for us and we ended up draining our bank accounts accumulating a ton of unnecessary shit on top of paying a lot for rent.

When I got the job in CT and she stayed in Boston for school we decided to scale it back and do the roommate thing again for a while until we moved back in together. I ended up in a huge (physically huge, 4 bedroom, 4 bath) shit hole with a bunch of other mid-late 20's guys. It was ok for a bit but I got seriously fed up with the absentee landlord and guys not cleaning up after themselves so I decided to get my own one bedroom place on a farm.

We planned on it being temporary but it's really all the space we need and lets us save up to buy a house down the line. We also have the advantage of being less than 15 minutes from everything we need while having the cheapness of apartment living combined with the privacy and land of having our own home, been there over two years so far, longest I've stayed in one spot out of school.

 

Currently I live in a 1,300 sq. ft. house with two other guys in a college town. It's close to campus and takes only a few minutes to get to school each day. The neighborhood is a mix between college aged kids and families. The neighborhood is much better than the one I live in last year where two shootings took place during the fall semester. The downside to the current house is that there are no bars within a walkable distance which results in us cabbing it a lot.

Growing up, I lived on the edge of one of the larger towns in Wyoming. We lived on a golf course and had a mix of shitty and great neighbors. My dad bought the lot because of the view. I have to admit, the view is pretty damn nice. Although it's in Wyoming, it feels pretty much like every other suburb in America.

After I'm finished with school, I would like to move back to Wyoming and live near the mountains. Ideally, Jackson would be where I would live but it's super expensive and there aren't many legal jobs there so that's probably not going to happen. My dream is to live in a house on quite a bit of land near mountains. Something that is big enough so I could hunt on my own property and not have neighbors anywhere near me.

 

I grew up in the suburbs. I currently live in a shithole apartment, but it's a shithole that's five minutes from work. It's spacious enough that having a roommate isn't prohibitive and it cuts down on the cost of living drastically. As an outdoorsman, I have to make some things work, like finding storage for all of the various accumulated hunting and fishing gear that I lug around and I have to pay for boat storage, but dollars-wise, I'm still coming out ahead when fuel costs and total rent is figured. The home that I grew up in was pretty large, with a pool and outdoor area.

My next place will probably be large enough for me to have my space, a home office, room for the boat, and a garden. The funny thing is this doesn't have to be huge. I pulled it off in college in 1,100 square feet and something like 1/8th of an acre.

Ultimately, I want to live on a small lake or large pond in a smaller ultra-efficient home. Solar, geothermal heating and cooling, the works.

 

I rent a room in an old 3 bedroom house in the middle of the city. It has all hardwood floors, a nice fireplace, and a spacious back yard with mature maple trees and a fire pit. My roommate owns the place and rent is super cheap, although we're constantly fixing up something around the house. This is the fourth place I've lived in since moving to Minneapolis and by far my favorite.

The neighborhood itself feels like it could be lifted out of my smaller, quieter hometown, but we are very close to Downtown and all of that stuff. We got lucky with our neighbors- both are sane, pleasant people and good for a beer and some bullshitting in the backyard after work. A highlight to me are the great restaurants in the area, especially ethnic places, and old neighborhood dive bars where you don't wait for a drink and they pronounce my German last name correctly. Nordeast Minneapolis.

No doubt my favorite part of the house is the awesome workshop that was built into the basement. It is big- like 30 feet of bench space, lots of shelves, and storage space. Perfect for me as a workspace and quiet retreat when I come home.

Add an outbuilding and some woods- and you've got my dream home right there. The hardest thing about moving from a rural area to a big city for me was losing the ability to drive just 5 minutes out of town to go hunting. Now it's an hour. That and the feeling of always being enclosed- almost trapped- by the big buildings and concrete. I still need my open space and fresh air.