Housing Situations

23 July 2015

So we bought a house.

Wait!? Didn't you like JUST buy a house and then do some renovations and do a terrible job documenting it here on the blog?

Yes. This is true.

Last summer we bought a major fixer upper, and we majorly fixed it up, and my laptop hard drive crashed, and we lost all of our before pictures, so all my Before and After Dreams got a lot less exciting. We're also not done with a single room in the house. It's amazing how long you can let the last two hours of work in a room just languish before you're finally "finished."

But!? Those are bad excuses. You should at least do a post about the kitchen.

Right again.

And WHY did you buy another house??

(I'll leave off with the dialoging.) We bought the first fixer upper with my brothers. We all looked at it as an investment. We would eventually either flip it or turn it into a rental property. For the last 7 months we've all lived together quite happily, but all good things come to an end, and my brothers just bought a triplex in hip Houston, where they will be heading in August, and Jacob and I found a great deal on a place a few miles away from where we are now.

The new place needs a LOT of work. We will blitz a lot of it over the next six weeks and see whether we can pull off a prenatal move in early September. Here it is behind two years of neglected landscaping. Lord help us.
It even came with its own rodent. We like sharing housing with rodents.
Jacob has been overworked, and I have been overpregnant for a while now, so maybe (maybe?) the timing's not perfect, and maybe (maybe?) we're overcommitting ourselves again, but when you're having babies every other year, it's never the right time to do anything...and I've long since accepted that we're just...THOSE people.

We are the people who've been living with two uncles and just invited ANOTHER uncle to come live with us when he moved to Houston in May. So that makes three uncles and one family of 4.5 sleeping in a 1400 sq ft house for a couple of months. (The kids are bunked in our closet...which leads me to:)

We are the people who build bunk beds for our kids in a closet. (See. Not as bad as it sounds.)
We are the people who move while pregnant. EVERY TIME. This one's not quite fair because usually the baby is precisely the reason we move. Lucy June moved us clear out of state.

And every time I make some comment about how on top of each other we all are, Jacob says: "Abraham Lincoln was raised in a one room log cabin." Then he rests his case, like this is some kind of ultimate comeback.

The funny thing is. I don't really mind any of it. It's actually more stressful for me when we do something totally normal, like buy a lightly used Toyota Sienna. Living with three uncles is feeling pretty par for the course.
Whenever we open a bottle of wine it gets finished and another gets opened. Whenever I make dinner I have multiple adult mouths telling me how good it is as opposed to a couple of kids eyeing it suspiciously. I never venture into the Uncle's Bathroom, and I often have an extra pair of hands to hold a baby or pair of feet to kick a ball with a four year old.

One uncle will venture along with us to our next house, and we'll quickly have a newborn, so the house will still be full, and I will like it that way.

And I've promised Jacob to do a MUCH better job documenting this new remodel. Should be fun because:
But be sure to check back tomorrow. I'm giving away some ice cream. :)

14 comments :

  1. That ALL sounds awesome. I am totally jealous of all of your "family roommates." Having a few extra sets of hands around sounds so great! And those improvised bunks... genius! (Plus, the less room you have, the less clutter you accumulate, amirite?) Can't wait to see what you do with the new place!

    (And we are also biting off more than we can chew in the near future. Baby #2 is due Sept 1, hubby starts a masters program in his "free time" (ha, like that exists around his full-time job and all the ongoing projects at our house) this fall, and we have houseguests coming for the World Meeting of Families at the end of September, plus I just volunteered to host a potentially-big brunch event thing for Blessed Is She at the same time, because nesting hormones have driven me insane. So... it's nice to hear that we're not the only overcommitters!)

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    1. I find that when I'm IN IT, it's really not so bad, but the anticipatory listing of ALL THAT MUST happen is totally overwhelming!

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  2. You. Are. INCREDIBLE. Sending good vibes and tons of prayers for all to go swimmingly for you!

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    1. Thank you! I sure hope we pull it off!!!

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  3. You guys are awesome and my kind of people. The bunk bed is great. And I so miss having uncles live with us!

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    1. I was wondering how you felt about life post uncle-roommates!

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  4. I'm super excited for this. Those windows in the front look awesome!

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    1. We are too! That front room used to be a garage which is wild and makes the floor plan kinda wonky, but here we go!

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  5. Looking forward to new house updates (and that bunk bed is amazing)! And we've moved during every pregnancy (3) too- you're so right that there's never a right time to do anything once you start having kids. You just do what you gotta do. :)

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  6. You're a rockstar. And we have had a steady rotation of sibling roommates for the past 3 years, which has coincided nicely with our ferocious rate of reproduction. Baby #4 should arrive a few days before my latest little sister moves in, haha. I seriously love it though.

    (And you had better back those pictures up because you are like a living, breathing dose of HGTV to me!)

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  7. I'm one of those "more the merrier" people so the idea of smashing children and uncles together in a house sounds totally and completely awesome! Your kids must absolutely love it too, and I imagine they will be so sad when August comes.

    I also can't wait to see you document your new "flip"!

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  8. Yay!!! Congrats on the new house. And sorry to be nosy, but does that mean the first house will be finished and sold by the time the uncles move?

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    1. Thank you!! We're scrambling to finish the first house and hoping to list it for sale or lease in early September and see what kind of offers we get. The schedule for all of it is ASAP...so fun fun fun!

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