What to Look for in a House
About a week ago, my friend Stephanie asked what it is that I look for in a house. I had to smile... because I'm picky. No seriously, I'm picky. But when you are buying something that big and expensive, you want to get what you know will suit you best. And after two different places, we know what works for us, and what doesn't. So I thought I'd talk about what I look for in a home.
Must be south-facing. Homes have the most windows on their front sides. The most sun always comes in from the south (particularly in winter). If you want the most energy efficient placement of a home, you want it south facing. You also want the south facing home to be cleared to the south - that's where you want the sun to come in from. When we set our house, I made sure it would be south facing. This is also the best for solar panels - you'll note that houses that have the big black old-fashioned solar on them are always on the south side.
Must have a west wind block. Because of the Gulf Stream (and in the southwest of my state, Lake Michigan), the winds predominantly come from the west. If you want the most energy efficient homestead, you want a west wind block. Yes, it impedes your sunset, but it's WORTH it in the long run. Our first house was west facing/cleared, because I wanted a nice view of the sunset. It was cold and horrible. And sunsets are just as pretty thru the trees... just in a different way. The house we went thru had woods to the west, but the south, north, and east were wide open. Where we are right now, we've got wind blocks to the west, north, and east, with just the south open to the sun. Even at that, there's a row of BIG pine trees that block a south wind, somewhat.
Must have four bedrooms/could-be-used-as. I have five children. One girl (so she isn't going to be sharing), and four boys... which are not going to fit in the very small ONE room situation we have for them right now for very much longer. Even if the rooms are small, splitting them up two and two will afford WAY more space for growing boys. They don't have to be 'bedrooms'... an office I can turn into a bedroom, a library, a rec room... whatever I can convert and use would be fine. Codes say you can't have bedrooms downstairs unless there's a certain sized window, but IMO as long as the window is big enough for shimmying out, it's fine. Brian's room in his mom's house was a basement room done nicely with paneling and such, and it was fine. I just need bedrooms. As I said on last Thursday, we're actually thinking of adding on so that we have enough bedrooms, here.
Must have five or more acres. Our first house had ten acres... it was perfect for homesteading. Of course, we hadn't gotten to that point in our lives, then. Go figure. Our current house has 2.8 (ish)... and half of it is virgin hardwoods. It's NOT enough for critters - we're packed in pretty tightly. We need acreage enough to be able to do hay for our goats. Acreage to keep our critters with a little more space. Room for our sizeable garden and orchard. Now we do have some acreage that could be used for grazing, here, but not enough to bale. Maybe someday we can find a five-acre plot we could pick up to do it with.
Must not be on a high-traffic (main) road. We had thought our first home was on a quiet road in the middle of nowhere, but to our surprise, it was one of two roads leading to the community college and tech center. So it ended up being far busier than we thought... but it wasn't a huge issue, because we were off the road enough, and the kids were toddlers back then - they didn't roam/play. Our current house is on a busy road, and we didn't know it, but we're on a major gravel route. And those semi drivers get paid by the load, so they drive FAST down our road. A lot. It's scary to me. Luckily we have a tree buffer the kids aren't allowed to cross that separates us from the road. Plus we just don't like the idea of being on something well-traveled, in time of SHTF, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Besides, we don't look 'farm', so people looking for animals hopefully wouldn't think that our place was a homestead.
Must have a well that's at least 150' deep. This is my paranoia. Town water is out of the question - they put poisons in it - not just flouride, either. And I don't trust/like groundwater that shallow wells feed off. The deeper, the better. Plus with earthquakes (highly unlikely in Michigan, but still), the chance that the water vein be cut off is higher if the water is shallower. Our current well is 300' deep... insanely deep. I like that.
Must have at least one larger barn/pole building. At our old house, there was a hog house, a chicken coop, a leaning barn, an implement barn, and a HUGE barn with a basement full of stanchions/stalls. It was amazing (just not what we needed at that time). At this place, there was NOTHING when we moved here, but we set a two-stall pole barn. Brian wanted a bigger one, but financially we couldn't swing it. It's... NOT enough. We use a shed as the chicken coop and built a lean-to for the goats, but it's just not ideal. We look a little white-trash, because there's no storage, here (and no room to put up storage, unless I want to hack at the woods... and I don't). We need some storage building space... but in the meantime we tarp things well.
Must not sit next to wetland (snakes). Our last house was in the one place in lower Michigan with the highest concentration of snakes. I know, because I looked it up and got statistics from the University of Michigan. I couldn't walk down the street without stepping around their bodies. They were in my HOUSE up there. Snakes. In my house. I could barely function... I have this intense fear of snakes. Our present house? I didn't know there are wetlands behind our hardwoods. We average 25 snakes per summer, here. It's nearly as bad as the last place. But I say NO to wetlands. Higher elevation is nice - someday I'd just like to NOT be near anything swampy, for a switch. For sanity's sake.
Must not have close neighbors. At our old house, we were FAR from everyone... except our next door neighbor's house. It was so close that you could reach a ladder out the living room window and walk across it to their house, with it extended. That's too close. We THOUGHT we were further from people when we moved to our present home, but the trees tricked us. When the leaves fell, we were staring right up Norm Hatfield's porch. Not so kewl... especially considering it's Norm Hatfield, hello. Luckily he's older than dirt and mostly doesn't come outside. But I fear the day he passes and his kinfolk move in.
Must not have easements beyond county codes. It wasn't even a concern for us... until we moved here. But apparently you need to find out about easements. Our old house had the usual, but our present house has three times the average person's easements. Which means we pay for land that everyone gets to use excepting for us. It's... not funny. They can hack any trees/gardens on that land, even if it's yours. The McCoy's are land-locked, so there MUST be a drive down the length of our land to let them out - which sucks, because our property is shaped like a mailbox flag, and when you take off the 'arm', you take a LOT. Another easement hacks even more off the 'arm'. You can't build/park there. It's ridiculous.
Must be within 30 minutes of Brian's work. We like to see him. Travel equals less time with Brian, more money in gas, and more wear on the vehicles. At the old house, he had a 2-hour commute everyday. Now we're 30 minutes from his workplace. That's WAY nicer.
Must have damp/leak free basement. Our last basement didn't have the problem... in fact, it had a beautiful root cellar in it. But because of the high water table here, our current place has been known to flood. It's not a good thing. More stuff has been ruined by mildew... it's annoying. Even with TWO sumps. Ugh. It's something Tom has recommended we pay extra to have taken care of... so that's on our to-do list, now.
Must have room for our stuff. There are certain things that take up space. My baby grand piano takes up space... so there must be space for that. We have a home gym that I've put together over the past two years. Most of it was $20 off Craigslist a piece: a treadmill, a mini trampoline with handle, an exercise bike, an elliptical, an air hockey table, two plastic rocking horses (for the little ones), and a home gym system. So we need space for our 'gym'. Homeschool is EXPLODED all over my living/dining rooms right now, flowing down the hall and into the parlor. I need room for homeschool, which includes three computer terminals. And it's easy to say 'condense'... except that there are seven of us, so there are seven of EVERYTHING. You can't just ditch one person's things. And more people means more stuff. We all have our hobbies. If we have more bedrooms, that will help immensely with this - people can keep their stuff in there. But right now...? It's crazy.
So those are my biggie criteria. Because we have about 1500 sq ft of useable space right now, for a family of seven. And that's just... not very much, considering we school and stay in, pretty much all the time.
There are other things, of course, if I were to add preferences. I prefer ALL brick exterior (not just half facade), A/C, and lower ceilings (less to heat). We prefer propane to natural gas. I don't want a two-story or bi-level... we're looking at ranches built between the 1950s and 1970s, mostly. I would prefer a wood burning stove or fireplace somewhere in it. Our current home has a bathroom just inside the back door - this is AWESOME for kids in snow boots/mud boots who are out playing and need to go potty. They don't have to strip out of their outdoor gear to take a quick break. It's so nice! I also like floor plans that are circular - meaning I can get to different parts of the house by more than one route. This is kind of a thing with me - our last house was that way, and so is this one.
Like I said... I'm picky. In the past nine months of looking, only this recent one has caught my eye. Is it the house for us? I don't know. A lot would have to happen, and at the moment I don't see it happening. On the other hand, I like to keep an open mind. ((Says she who figures it won't matter at all if we happen to be raptured before December 31st.)) Our current situation is fine - it works well for us, we did a good job planning it (we're south facing with west wind block and more)... it's just that the size is going to get tighter and tighter. And knowing that, we have begun to consider options. Moving. Adding on. We shall see what happens!
nun: player does nothing 
gimel: player takes all the tokens in the pot 
hay: player takes half of the tokens in the pot 
shin: player must put one token into the pot 
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