***WARNING*** Mini-rant ahead
CG, when you built this house, didn't you take into consideration your future needs?...
Dear, sweet, innocent
Addie, you have absolutely no idea how out-of-whack housing prices are in the greater-greater-Boston area are compared to most of the rest of the country. Let me clue you in:
When we moved here our primary "future needs" were of a financial nature. We did not want to buy/build a house that would require a larger mortgage than we were carrying. We left a 2,549 square foot home with four bedrooms, two and a half baths including our master bath/closet area that measured 14x14 feet and had a vaulted ceiling with a half-round window above the working windows and a plant ledge where the closet/"throne room" walls topped out before that vaulted ceiling, a formal dining room with a tray ceiling, a formal living room with a vaulted ceiling and that same kind of half-round window above the living room windows, a "Great Room" with a huge walk-through work area and half-vault dinette with bay, walk-out door, a giant family area with a fireplace and the back half of it half-vaulted, an open loft upper hall that still had room for a king-size air mattress even though we already had my sewing machine up there along with floor-to-ceiling twin bookshelves and a rocking chair. Off of that hall were the kids bedrooms along with a guest room for a total of four bedrooms. The kids' bath upstairs was large enough to set up two folding tables and serve dinner for eight...not that we would EVER do that!
But it was large. Full basement, too, although not finished. Quality cabinets, real wood trimwork, a showplace of a home. And it had a 2 1/2 car garage with pull-down steps to access storage space. We lived in a very nice neighborhood in a desirable neighborhood about 22 miles from downtown Cleveland - a place similar in distance and housing to Hopkinton. Except unlike here, our city services were all in place: things like city water and sewer, city contracted trash and full recycling for a quarterly fee, and wide modern roads with *gasp* street signs. And what did it sell for? $196,333. Remember that number.
We looked at a new house in Hopkinton, about the same size, layout, and basic quality of materials. Sitting down? It was priced at $420,000. No, I did not mistype that number. Now I will admit that about $40,000 of that was for a state-of-the-art septic system...but it was a
septic system. No, thanks.
We bought what we could, where we could, with the same mortgage we were carrying. Why not build bigger/better? Well, we didn't need bigger since we had "lost" two kids in the move, thereby not needing a room for each of them so a three-bedroom worked. Plus, Himself did not get any kind of raise in spite of the cost of living in MA compared to where we lived was going to cost us about 15-20% more. Auto insurance alone!
The two of us with a car each and clean driving records was about $200 less than we paid in OH...where we also had two teen-aged drivers EACH with their own car on our family policy. Good thing the kids didn't move - they never would have been allowed to get behind a wheel.
BTW, this house here is 1,806 square feet, 7 1/2 foot ceilings everywhere, basic cabinets, wood molding that looks like it came from apple crates, and a two-car garage with an intrusive steps-and-platform arrangement since our garage floor is about 1/2 story lower than our house's first floor. This house here? $191,638 - a difference in cost of less than $5,000, but a huge, reduced difference in quality and location.
Our home prior to this one was not lacking for anything. This house was built as a temporary stopping point for us. Besides, it's not like I've been building cabinets and counter tops for the last three days. All I've been doing is rearranging what I have in place that has worked for me for over a decade, just trying to make it a bit more efficient and accommodate an an additional piece of furniture to hold the additional kitchen things I added over those years.
Hey,
Addie, I bet you're sorry you asked.
I've never tried that, but I should. You say you cook them on the griller? Haven't tried that, either, but I will!
