This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

Well, yeah. Shop space should be bigger than house space. I want a shop big enough to drive boat and 4 wheeler trailers straight through- doors on either end.

 

I want mine to be half storage space like that, and the other half a dedicated shop with heavier tools (i.e. milling machine, lathe, big saws) and a finishing room.

 

I live in a 2 br in a high rise in Chicago, 20th floor, with floor to ceiling windows and pretty staggering views of downtown and the lake. Our kitchen and bathrooms are a bit dated, but I have 1200 sq ft in a great building, with a good floor plan, and my rent is surprisingly reasonable all things considered (though it wouldnt be to people who aren't city dwellers).

Unlike a few people above, I'm an unabashed space whore. Granted I like it to be functional space, but still. I grew up in a 3300 sq ft house on an acre and now my parents live on just over 1.5 acres in 5500 sq feet. There were 6 of us and in neither place did space feel wasted. I have a friend from college whose parents lived in a sprawling place that was probably 10,000 sq ft, but nowhere did it feel empty and excessive and it pretty much set the aspirational template for what I'd love to have one day.

Before my current place, I lived in a 2200 sq ft townhouse/apt of sorts with 3 other guys. The main thing I miss about that place was the space. Two different living areas besides the bedrooms. I spend way more time in my room now than I used to because my roommate loves sitting on the couch and watching hours of his TV shows, so its sometimes hard to share the living room especially when I get annoyed with him about certain things. 572 sq ft may be great on your own, but add others to the mix and I begin to see the benefits of space in short order.

This is all not to say I want to live in the city my whole life. I grew up in the suburbs, I see their benefits, and I'd love to have a big house with a winding driveway. But that is a ways away, and when I look at "starter" homes, given I want to stay in Chicago for the time being and not move to Iowa, I could get a far nicer apartment in a great building and neighborhood for $350K compared to a house in most suburbs. Bottom line, I'll be ready to move to the suburbs when I can afford to move there in the right way.

 

I live in a 1100 sq. ft.,3 bedroom duplex by myself. I work from home, so I use one bedroom as an office. I am about 15 minutes north of Austin, TX and pay $825 in rent.

I'm seriously considering buying a house soon when my lease is up. This is very simply because after doing the math on it, owning is generally cheaper than renting in this area.

Houses I'm looking at range from 1200 to 2400 sq. ft. and range in price from about $70 to 140K. One house that I am looking at is $88k, 3b/2ba, 1200 sq. ft. and has an in-ground pool.

 

The boyfriend and I live in a 2 bdrm 2 bath townhouse a little further west of rei. 1400 square feet with a shitload of stairs. It's a cute house and we've been renovating it for the last little while. We bought at the bottom end of the bubble and hope to sell within the next two years for something detached. I can't take much more of this whole "I can hear the neighbours fucking" business.

 

This.

It used to be funny and kind of hot at first, but the people who live above me work strange hours, so they do all their fight-fucking at 3am--and she's a screamer in both scenarios.

That, and they must've have given their kid wooden clogs and access to their prized bowling ball collection because that toddler makes more noise than most construction sites.

 

I live in a 1200 sq ft home in the downtown "historic district" of a small town (13000) in Indiana. It was built in 1905 ish. It is a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath. I have hardwood floors throughout, and cool features like french doors and a big bay window off of the dining room. It also has plaster walls etc. I like the old charm it has, but it also has downsides. Due to it being historic, I have wood siding all around, and single pane wood windows in the front. I can't change this due to ordinances.

As you can imagine, this sucks for utilities, and the wood siding needs to painted often. Also it sits over a dirt floor cellar so without some dehumidifiers, it can get really damp. But another high note is my garage/ man cave seen here:
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If I had to do it again I would probably buy a more modern and larger home. Its only me and the girlfriend, but only having one small full bath sucks. Also in 1905 people had less clothes so there isn't a lot of closet space. I bought the place about 2 years ago for 150k and hope to sell it in a couple years and make a little.

 

I own a 2200 sq/ft 3 bedroom 2 bath home in Marco Is., Fl. I bought it before meeting my wife, back in '98. I thought at the time it would just be a starter home and I'd move on/flip it in a year or two. Well, needless to say, that didn't happen.

I met my wife and then we had our two girls. We put on an addition (funded by my custom chopper at the time. Yeah, still a little bitter about that.) while she was pregnant with our second and that added about 500 sq/ft and a pool and spa.

My in-laws live with us during the winter and things can get a little tight. We are planning to move into a bigger place, but we had to put that on the back burner for the meantime because we just bought the property in the condo where our restaurant/bar resides.

I'm still poking around on Trulia looking for the right place though. We had found one that both my wife and I loved, but with the timing of buying the property for the business and what they wanted for it it just wasn't right. We're now talking about buying a lot and building and just leasing back our current home to her parents after they sell their place in NJ. We'll see what happens, but I would like to see it happen before my girls hit puberty and my wife goes into menopause. I'm lucky if I get any peace in the bathroom now.

 

This is a major negative to my new place. Our old townhouse must have had 3 foot thick walls. We lived there 3 years and never heard anything from the neighbors and had parties with over 50 people and as long as the doors were closed, you couldn't hear a peep from our place, even with stereo speakers blasting.

My new place we have to be careful cause you can hear music, even the TV, in the hall if its at a certain level, and our upstairs neighbors have hardwood floors. And they must have a kid or a dog, or both, because random thumping and things rolling on the floor is a weekly occurrence.

 

I live at home with my parents; due to a shitty economy and spending the better part of the last five years in and out of community college(s) I haven't had time or the money to do more than dream of moving out on my own.

It's not a bad house, it's a brick ranch style; three bedrooms of varying size (mine is the smallest); one bathroom; and we converted the one-car garage into a very nice den a few years ago. It sits on an acre and a half of land, so we've got a lot of unused yard space even with a deck, patio, and a decent outbuilding. It's got a sizable basement we've spoken about converting into more living space, yet we've never really done anything with it beyond throwing up a diving wall to separate the 'nice half' from the 'storage half'.

Now as I've mentioned before, my family owns a cattle farm. When my great-grandparents bought the land back in the late 1940's it was all woodland and it wasn't fully cleared til the later part of the 1950's. Since then it's been whittled down piece by piece, quite a bit of it going to developers who built subdivisions just outside a town of roughly 7,500 people. My house sits in a subdivision that was once our corn field; and directly at the bottom of the hill sits our upper pasture and one of the equipment barns; the rest of the barns are on the other side of the hill. Having a five minute walk, or a two minute drive to work four to six days a week is a huge benefit to my current living situation.

As far as what I want, I've struggled with this question for several years now (for reasons that are totally off topic, and worthy of a book). I've come to the conclusion that I'd prefer to stay in my rural, though economically depressed area, so I can continue to farm (either on the family land or land of my own). It's reasonably close to several urban areas, the closest thing approaching a major city is about two hours away; and the interstate is a fifteen minute drive east, so I'm not totally isolated.

If I remain single, or married without children, a house similar in size to what my parents have would be perfect for me. Around here, houses like this one will go for about $69,000 to just short of $85,000; and decent houses can be bought for much cheaper. So it's within my grasp when I find steady employment to purchase my own place; although the price of farm land varies considerably.

 

I love my current apartment. On the New York City apartment scale, I'm basically living in a mansion. We have a second living room downstairs that none of us have been knowing what to do with because we had all basically resigned to the idea that we'd never have an extra room. We've been using it as a guest room slash storage space for the past year, but I'm planning on turning part of the space into a studio, since we all have our own creative pursuits. We have a bunch of cool amenities and I love my neighborhood, but the big downside for me is that it's modern in the worst way. It has zero character. All white walls, feels like a bunch of boxes in a box. Even though my previous apartment had its downsides - I had to buy a new bed because my Queen-sized one took up the entire width of the room - it had charm up the wazoo. My room alone had an exposed brick wall and a fireplace. It was so cozy and while it felt a bit small with 4 twenty/thirty-somethings living in it, it would be a great apartment for a couple to share. The major problem was the neighborhood. It wasn't the most dangerous area but I almost never felt safe. There were violent crimes happening within two blocks of my house weekly, but there have only been three stories in my new neighborhood in over a year. I'd be happy living in my current place for a while. I like living with roommates - I don't think I'd want to live alone. I'm probably going to continue with a similar (if not the same) living situation until I find my own place with a boyfriend. (Just assuming that's the next step.)

My idea of the house with the white picket fence is to buy a pre-war townhouse with a backyard in Cobble Hill (a neighborhood in Brooklyn). Just need to save up around $8 million. I am fo sho a city person, but I do still need to get out now and then, so I'd also throw in a country house. Thankfully, thanks to a superfun conversation I had with my dad on my 21st birthday about his will, I know I'll be getting his house in the Hudson Valley - with a big backyard/gardens and woods with a river behind it. Pretty much my version of the Amurrican Dream.

 

Boyfriend and I live in a 1 bedroom apartment in a converted Victorian house. On one hand, it has huge windows, high ceilings, hardwood floors, a clawfoot tub, 2 fireplaces, and a big eat-in kitchen. On the other hand we have no control over the heat, a piece of shit electric stove, and upstairs neighbors that scream-fuck at all hours of the night. We also live in the shitty town next to the town our families live in because rent is so much cheaper. I describe our neighborhood as the convergence of single family homes, student ghetto, and crack houses. But we pay less than $700/month after utilities so I can't complain (much).

My dream home would probably be a 3 or 4 bedroom craftsman with original woodwork, but I'm in school for social work so I might have to settle for a lean-to or a tent or something.

 

I live in a 1-bed apartment on the first floor of an ancient brownstone. I love my place. I have ~18 ft. high ceilings with crazy crown molding, tons of mirrors and awesome lighting. Apart from the bed and bath, my place is basically one big open space. It works really well for me. Plus, I'm dead-center in the city so it's easy for me to get to any of my friends, and my place tends to be where we congregate before going out for the night. Also, because I'm on the first floor in the middle of a row of brownstones, my utility costs are dirt cheap, although the place itself is not.

When one of my buddies saw it for the first time after I moved in, the first thing he said was, "Dude, you rented a panty-melter." That wasn't my intent but, uh, it's proven to be quite true.

I hadn't lived without roommates before this place, but now I don't think I could go back to it. It's really nice to have your own space. You go home and know it's how you left it, no one is dicking around on the couch all day, etc.

 

I just moved out of my mom and step dad's house. I am currently renting a room in a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom townhouse. The rent is $450 a month, with Internet, electric, gas, water, and trash included. Right now it is just me and the guy whose mom and step dad own the townhouse living here, and they may keep it to just the two of us. The only bad things are that there is no cable and my drive to work is 40 minutes in the morning and an hour on the way home. I rented this place as kind of a quick exit to get out of the house, so I may try to find a place that is closer to work at the beginning of next year, but I can't afford much more in rent that I am paying now.

 

The boyfriend and I live in a teensy studio in a converted Victorian house. Our landlord is mega cheap so a lot of the stuff is pretty run down, but our rent is also hella cheap for the area we live in so it's not too bad. We also barely even have a utility bill because the apartment is so small. It's a bit cramped for two people and all of our (mostly my) things, but it's a temporary situation. We're trying to find something reasonable that at least has a bedroom that is equally convenient to school as this place is.

When we're ready to start pumping out babies, we'd like to build a super energy-efficient house using geothermal energy (the boyfriend is doing his Master's on it) somewhere in the country, but not too far from the city.

 

I'm totally a voyeur, if people wanted to include images, I would be so happy to look at all of your shit....

 

My husband and I are remodeling an old house. It's currently completely gutted, as we wanted new wiring and plumbing. We bought it almost 5 years ago and the wiring was just finished this week. The plumbing is almost done and as soon as our HVAC guy gets to us we'll have the duct work roughed in so that we can finish insulating and putting up the drywall.

The upstairs is over 1000 square feet, so the upstairs alone is about the size of the house we lived in when we were first married. It has 4 bedrooms, though one will be a toy room for now. Two bathrooms, though we had to get creative with the upstairs bathroom since there are slanted ceilings which makes it difficult to place toilet where you don't hit your head when you stand up.

We've owned said house for almost 5 years and we're doing as much as we can ourselves and trying to pay for it out of pocket. Our new goal is to be in it by next summer. Don't hold me to that since we sure as hell didn't think it would take this long to get in the house at all. I did tell my husband that we can't have another baby until we are in the house, which I think explains why so much has been accomplished as of late.

Now, as to where we currently live. When we first bought the house and moved back to our home town of about 1200 people we rented a nice old house. All hardwood except for the kitchen and bathrooms which had vinyl flooring. I thought I would love it but when you live on a dirt road you can never get all the dust off of the hardwood. I hated it.

Compared to where we live now I loved it. When we had to move out of our rental house, due to our landlords giving it to their granddaughter who was getting married, we bought a mobile home so that we wouldn't have to throw money into rent each month. So we've been in the trailer for 4 years now. It's paid for, it's a place to live, and it's on land that we own. That's about all the nice things I have to say about it. Even with just the three of us it's crowded and I can't wait to finish the house so that we can sell this thing.

The house is actually pretty cool. It's too dark to take pictures now but I'll add some tomorrow.

 

The wife and I live in a 5 bedroom, 3 bath bi-level house in a small town in Northwest Indiana. I think we are (somehow) considered a (very distant) suburb of Chicago, but that is mostly bullshit. I sorta hate this town, but we also live a block and a half from my parents and a 10 minute drive from my in-laws which is so perfect for babysitting purposes. It is in that small corner of Indiana that is in the Central Time Zone, and the corner of Indiana that the rest of Indiana wants to disown come every single election season.

We only plan to have 2 kids, so we have two extra bedrooms. One of extra bedrooms we've turned into a guest bedroom and the other into a workout room with a treadmill, a crappy old bowflex, and room for a yoga mat. The last thing we have to do is finish the family room, and we're planning to put in a wet bar with a mini wine fridge under it, and a fireplace.

The best features are that we have a big 3 car garage, which so far is mostly useful for storing shit for my parents and in-laws (and hearing from our in-laws how we store more stuff for my parents than them... ugh), and a large back yard that came already fenced in, which is fantastic for the kids.

I grew up in a neighborhood, and my wife grew up in the boonies with no neighbors near her, and she HATED it, and she wished she had neighbors, so we both agreed to live in a neighborhood, for the benefit of the kids. We lucked out, our house is pretty ideal.

 

I grew up in a very kid friendly neighborhood. It was great. Now i live with my dad in a roughly 4700 sq ft house. 5 bed 3.5 bath.. I'm way past old enough to be moved out but he is blind so I stay.. But here in bumfuck, MS there's no public transportation and we own too much land to leave. Besides it is really nice being only 5 minutes away from the deer woods/duck brakes..
I could never see living in a city. Right now we live on 2 acres and I'd love having 40 more. There's no commute so where I live the furthest you are from work is up to you. 2-10 minutes with traffic.