The Country House: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

As you probably know by now, we’ve moved to the country! We love our new place, but as I mentioned in a previous post, our new house is not necessarily our dream home. There are aspects of it which are super great and others that are just so-so. No worries, though. We’ve got this handled. In true DIY fashion, we will make this place our own! So, let me share with you the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Space – We have land, people! Like… acreage. That’s a big deal for us since we barely had any outdoor space when we lived in the city. We are so excited that our kids can play outside in our huge yard and the neighbors are fields away. (Not that they are bad. Our neighbors are great!) One of these days, we would eventually like to add a barn with some animals to our farm and maybe even a pond.

Family – The biggest bonus to moving here, is that we are so close to family. I grew up just a few miles from this house, so my parents are close. Plus, this house once belonged to my great aunt and the land has actually been in the family for years! My great-grandparents moved here in the 1920’s when my grandpa and great aunt were kids. My dad and uncle celebrated holidays and played here when they were young. So did my sister and I! It is really cool that our kids will get to grow up here since there are so many amazing family memories.

Replacements – Unfortunately, this house is not perfect. It looks like, over the next few years, we will probably need to fix/replace a few big ticket items, like the roof.

Square Footage – One hurdle we will be facing is space indoors. Although we have a great area outside, a couple of storage buildings and a two car garage, the interior of the house isn’t everything we’ve ever wanted. We have 3 bedrooms (technically, enough for all of us) a living room, dining area, kitchen, and laundry room. However, the biggest issue is that there is only one bathroom. Of course, it’s not the end of the world to only have one bathroom, but with 4 people in the fam and one of them being a pre-teen girl, I can only imagine that we will probably desire another one soon. We have yet to determine if we will be able to build on. If for some reason we can’t/don’t go that route, we would also consider building new. That is a story for the future, though. For now, we plan to stick it out.

Cosmetics – The country house is a cute little yellow ranch home and, on the outside, it doesn’t really need a lot of updating. Maybe a little power washing and landscaping, but other than that, nothing crazy. The inside is pretty decent too, and as far as updating, we will probably do some pretty simple and inexpensive stuff to make it our own. Lots of painting, some new flooring (the carpets are pretty old and ugly), appliances, lighting, etc. We don’t want to sink a lot of money into this house, especially since we don’t know what the future holds.

This week, we are on vacation, but I plan on sharing a “before” type home tour with you sometime after I get back!