Not your iPad, that’s a different thread… tell me about where you live. Your house, apartment, room, estate, or corner of a closet. How long have you lived there, what does it mean to you, what does it look like, and how much do you care about it?
We live in a 2100-square-foot “California contemporary” house on a half-acre lot in a mid-70s suburb that is surrounded by a forest preserve. My husband bought the house in 2000, in a previous lifetime, as a fixer-upper. He has torn down the “courtyard walls” that created the “California” part of contemporary, since, lets face it, this is the midwest and those outdoor spaces aren’t usable for six months out of the year, so we may as well have unobstructed views from the windows. He also did a lot of much-needed maintenance on the exterior and the lot.
He didn’t get around to doing much with the interior, though. When we met in 2008 he was just started to strip wallpaper and pull up carpet. Our earliest dates were all about cutting and pulling up big strips carpet, sanding drywall, and white paint. When we got engaged, he moved into my house so the renovation at his could pick up pace. We finally moved into his/our house a year ago.
We left the slate tile in the front entry alone, as well as the carpet in the rec room that he had re-done before we met. The rest of the house has commercial vinyl tile (looks like linoleum) in the kitchen and bathrooms, and ash everywhere else. Most walls are white; each of the three bathrooms is a bright, mod color (pink, aqua, spring green) and we’ve just done two pale pink accent walls in the nursery. The house has lots of huge windows and a two-storey-tall great room, so the white walls bounce light and make the whole place feel spacious and airy. The one exception is the rec room, which was the original garage of the house. It is carpeted and painted hot-chocolate brown, with dark brown furniture and small windows. It feels like a cool, dark cave… a nice contrast to the rest of the house.
We re-configured the bathrooms by knocking down dividing walls inside them, and re-configured the kitchen by changing where the doorways are, basically opening it up to the great room. Then we put in IKEA cabinets, which are AWESOME. We have ceiling-height wardrobes with fitted bars and drawers and things in the master, and the lower kitchen cabinets are all deep drawers, which is a great use of space. We also have a wall full of Billy bookshelves in the great room, which is something I’ve always wanted in a house.
After a decade of hopping from dorm room to student apartment to rented house, I feel really good about living here. I hope we stay here for at least twenty years. We’ve got the main parts of the house just the way we like them, and still have a few projects to look forward to. It’s really a collaboration between the two of us, and it was great to have the opportunity to put things just the way we like them. I also love having the forest preserve so close… trees and water calm me and ground me, and break that infernal prairie wind.
If I could have three wishes about improvements to the house, I’d ask for (1) a fourth bedroom, (2) a mudroom, and (3) a larger laundry room, big enough for a drying rack and ironing board.
Big old rickety 100 year old house in the historic district of a small and isolated town in southeast Ohio.
Basement, living floor, bedroom floor, and an attic that we converted into a large home office. About 4000 square feet of living space now. Six fireplaces from the original design but only one is functional. Sometime in the past someone converted most of the chimneys into ductwork for the HVAC system.
Wood floors all through, inlaid patterns on the first floor. Unusual sized windows all through the place.
Teeny kitchen. The place is old enough that some of the cooking wouldn’t have been inside but open fire in the back.
The house is elevated about 78 feet above the street level as a prevention measure against floods. We’re at the confluence of two rivers and they’ve been known to happen. There’s a somewhat sunken carport under the front porch that has a door into the semi-finished basement (we don’t use it for anything but some previous owner put in panelling, flooring and some pool stuff).
The most distinctive part of the house is that it is brick. Not just any brick but bright yellow brick. At the time it was build the yellow brick was a bit of a fashion thing and there are several homes in the neighborhood and surrounding area with yellow brick.
After many years of living alone with my 3 kids, then just one kid, he and I just 3 week ago moved into a cohousing arrangment with another single mom and her kid. Our part of the house consists of a bathroom, a living room, and two bedrooms. We share the kitchen (which is galley, which I hate, but it’s fairly big and bright so it’s okay), dining room, laundry room, and backyard. The house is almost 2000 sq foot, and is a very long brick ranch house. It’s in a very nice and quiet and peaceful neighborhood full of houses like this, all built in the 70’s and 80’s, towards the end of a cul-de-sac, and comes equipped with it’s own Gladys Kravitz neighbor lady, who peeks out the window to see what you’re doing at all hours. Fireplace, central heat and air, fenced backyard (which is pretty much mandatory in this city), carport on the side, semi-circular driveway. And I hardly ever hear gunshots, which is a big step up from where I used to live, so that’s nice.
I live a hotel run by a non-profit for people with mental health issues.
My room is 9’ by 14’, with a small closet & bathroom, no kitchen.
My windows look out at the wall of the neighboring building about 10 feet away.
The building is in a less than safe neighborhood, about 5 blocks from San Francisco City Hall.
I have been here almost 2 years.
It doesn’t mean much, it’s an address, a place to sleep, a place to stay out of the way.
It is almost certainly the last place I will ever live.
I have two: the flat I own and the one I rent, because my job (I’m a self-employed consultant) requires me to be wherever my clients want me to be; right now my client wants me to be in Spain, but about 600 miles away - a bit overlong, as commutes go.
Both of them are 60m[sup]2[/sup] 2B1b (that’s about 650sq ft). Neither one has balconies.
The one I own has a veeeeery long hallway, with the overlarge bathroom on the right, then a storage closet (the gasoil heater used to be there) on the left, then the living room on the left across from the kitchen (the piped-in-gas new heater is there now), a bedroom on the right and another at the end of the hallway. Most of it is brightly-colored, something which has become quite popular in that gloomy part of Spain: the kitchen and bathroom still have their original (mid-60s) pale-green tiles; the living room is painted strawberry; one bedroom in coppery tones (one wall is darker than the others) and the other one is orange. Most of my furniture is wood, generally in pale tones (“cherry”, “honey” or “pine”); I’ve been collecting it here and there and follow the principle that any color wood matches any other color wood, specially if you didn’t pay for it or it’s from IKEA. The stuff on the walls has been acquired here and there: 11 small Moroccan mirrors an aunt gave me; two flat wooden sculptures bought in Costa Rica; a series of Japanese printings from a factory calendar; a frame with five pictures of NYC bought off a street vendor… The clothesline is outside the kitchen window; I have a folding clothesline I can set up in the copper bedroom when I absolutely have to wash something and it’s raining. I have a built-in closet in the living room and a large one in the orange bedroom, as well as two trunks (the oak-and-brass one is a family heirloom) where I store the linens.
I also have a “txoco” in the same building; it’s a large room with a fully-equipped kitchen, on the ground floor. In theory I can use it as a garage, but I prefer to leave my car outside as the weather is generally quite mild (yes, it can snow in August, but whether it snows in August or in January, it rarely lasts for more than three days - and temps over 30ºC are highly unusual) and the door is a bit narrower than I’d like.
Shortly after I bought it, work sent me out of the country for a year: I called a friend who was in his first (and extremely underpaid) job and asked if he’d house-sit. He pays me what would be his share of the expenses, I let him know when I’m going to be dropping by. His gf and him are buying a flat, which they’re supposed to get the keys for this summer - we’ll see. I don’t know what will I do once he moves out; having someone there who can take care of little problems is nice, but I may just hire the services of a “gestoría” that’s in town: this kind of businesses handles other people’s paperwork for a fee, and I think they may be willing to forward my mail and have a copy of the keys in case there’s some sort of domestic accident (plumbers needing to get in or whatever).
The rental in southern Spain is in a building that locals find very strange, as it is grey and dark brown: this is an area where facades used to be whitewashed, with a splash of color provided by tiles or painted doors; more recently and with the arrival of better paint, brightly-colored houses have become popular… but dark colors? In a place where “48ºC in the shadow” is considered standard summer fare, what are you, nuts? So, a very strange building. When I saw the flat, it was painted in bright colors: that’s one of the things I liked.
Sadly, the owner’s whatever-she-is (I’ve never gotten an explanation, I know they have “my house” and “your house”, I’m not going to ask) convinced him to get it painted despite my having stated I was happy to take it “as is”, holes and all - and she chose the pastel colors that my mother and sister in law like; my feelings about them can best be described as “blaaaaahnd”. The kitchen is mucho moderna, all dark woods; so, I added the colors and kitchen and my general dislike of closets and have gone for a minimalist decoration - so far. I have three boutique-style bars to hang my clothes, a trunk for the linens, and any clothes which are not in use are stashed in suitcases. The flat came with a garage and a storage room which is down at the garages. The clotheslines are on the terrace, above the building.
Since it looks like I will really be staying here for several years, I may get the painters in (after talking about it with the owner of course), brighten the walls some and put something on them - so far they’re absolutely naked.
Since I split with my wife, I’ve abided in a 900-square-foot condo in downtown Burlington, Ontario. Two bed, one and a half bath, which is nice as my daughter has a big bedroom with play area and her own half bathroom. HUGE windows, and so it’s very bright and seems bigger than it is, though it’s already a pretty big apartment. It’s on the 15th floor and has as nice a view of Hamilton as a view of Hamilton can be. Very nice building.
It’s not a situation I wanted to be in, but I really like my place. In-suite laundry, all appliances, nicely appointed and furnished, quiet neighbours.
5 years ago we purchased a new (old) house. We moved to Brampton due to the move of the company that, at the time, employeed both of us, and in anticipation of the children leaving home we bought a much smaller house than we previously owned.
When we bought it there were 2 bedrooms and one bath on the main level and one bedroom and a bath in the basement. It had a microscopic kitchen, a fair sized dining room and a weird little 6’x8’ room attached to the dining room. We ripped out walls, floors and turned the kitchen, dining room and weird room into a large eatin kitchen with Ikea cabinets running from floor to ceiling. We also spent a lot of time and money on the basement bathroom - turning the tiny plastic shower and some dead space into a 4’x3’ steam shower.
After the kids actually moved out we turned the tiny 2nd bedroom on the main floor into a large storage room/closet and the living room on the main floor into an office.
The main selling feature of the house for us and still our favorite part is the large backyard that is fully fenced with 6’6" board fence. The dogs run wild out there and we can’t keep grass alive but that’s exactly why we wanted it.
Next years upgrade is to pull up the concrete pad that currently functions as a patio (poured in 1968 according to the names and date written in the back step) and replace it with a low wooden deck, a hot tub to one side and possibly a propane deck heater to extend the short Canadian summer.
1500 sq. ft. home that is kinda a cross between a Cape Cod style and ranch (tall, high-pitched roof, without the 2nd story or dormers). It’s full brick with a 2-car attached garage. It’s a typical 3 BR 2 BA suburban home on the edge of town. It sits on 2 acres–the lot is about 150 ft. by 550 ft. and has a chain link fence immediately behind the house which encloses about 3000 sq. ft. for the dog. We see a lot of deer and wild turkey in the neighborhood.
The home was built by the previous owners in 97 and we bought it in 2001 for $97,500. Today it will appraise for approximately $120K, as real estate values here in SWMO has remained fairly steady through the recession.
It needs a little work here & there. I’d like to replace the carpeting in the living room and hallway. The walls could use some improvement. We have wallpaper up to the chair rail and then a wallpaper border over that. The wallpaper is a bit feminine. I’d like to totally remodel the kids’ bathroom and maybe the master bath, too.
Moved into my almost-dream-house last August. It’s a great neighborhood to raise a kid in, and the house is on this gorgeous wooded lot with a small creek bed that has a footbridge over it. Great landscaping, awesome house for entertaining…it’s just generally kick ass in all respects. The finished basement has a little wet bar, we have a master bath with a nice roomy shower, plantation shutters on the windows in my daughter’s room that makes it nice and dark for her to go to sleep, a big guest room, two fireplaces, …I love this house. Except for the kitchen–it’s a bit small. But we’re saving up to renovate it.
I moved into an ancient plantation-era house in the middle of a wooded 4-acres this past summer. It has been split into four apartments of varying sizes. I’m the only non-family-member of the landlady that lives there. I essentially live up in the top gables in a re-purposed attic. Most of my walls are dark wood panel and slant in at around 45 degrees. There are porthole like windows that give it a cool pirate ship feel in the bedroom, and it has a tin roof so the rain is always relaxing. There are only two big rooms, a large bedroom/office combo, and then you climb up a few stairs into a long room that is everything else. I would say it’s about 750sq. ft total. There are a lot of different “nooks” that help separate things into their own space, though, so it’s not like the living room is pushed right against the kitchen.
I love it. It has a million different crannies, and one of the walls slides back to show more storage. The bottom-middle of our house is communal. There’s a large common room, and the back porch has been glassed in and also contains a laundry room. The front porch has lovely wood detailing and a porch swing. The yard is great too - we have a big bonfire area, a huge garden, a bamboo grove, and all sorts of weird things just hiding in the trees. My only complaint is that even though it has been fitted with CHAC, it is still really hot in the summer. Even with AC going full blast, it is hard to get it below 85 degrees.
Man, you guys have neat-o houses. I want to see a picture of the outside of Jonathan Chance’s house, if it’s not too much to ask…I really enjoyed seeing Time Stranger’s little cottage!
My house is pretty boring. 1040sq ft raised ranch (raised for the basement). Three tiny bedrooms (about 10x10), a decent sized bathroom (with laundry chute!), living room, dining room and a square kitchen that I don’t think has been updated since it was built in 1969.
The house is pretty good for me. Ugly enough that I can have it for cheap ($150k) but the mechanicals were all solid when I bought it. I’ve been slowly making it less bad since 2005. Most of my money has been spent on the yard.
The house was a rental when I bought it. There were 14 (FOURTEEN) trees in the back yard (half acre lot). Five pear and seven apple, and two others. I eventually had them all cut down. I love trees but if you have ever been around 40-foot pear trees that are very healthy and dropping fresh pears on your lawn all summer…well, it’s bad news. I had one lowly tree left, a non-fruit tree. It was gorgeous. Then half of it died. Then the other half. This November…it fell the fuck over 
Put a deck on this year and I am QUITE pleased. Also bought a large shed. Re-vamped the front flower bed 3 times. I think it’s done now.
The basement is full and un-finished. Have spent a lot of time and money making sure it’s dry. I have a guy living down there and he has a pretty sweet room. All carpeted with throw rugs and a wall made from rope and sheets. When he moves out I hope to make it a sweet rec room.
The upstairs of my house hasn’t changed much since I moved in in 2005. Old carpet, old furniture. Same paint I put up when I moved in. I like it tho - it’s mine.
Seconded and seconded!
I just bought my first place, a new-to-me condo. It’s about 1700 sf with a loft, cathedral ceiling, two bedrooms, three full baths. I’m kind of rattling about in it; I don’t have much furniture and it’s my first time living alone (except for the bird) since, oh, 2002. I’m not much good at interior decoration so I’ll probably start some threads begging for advice as I delve more deeply into that.
I love my neighborhood. It’s walkable and runnable. My neighbors are all sweet and friendly. I think I brought the median resident age down by 7 years when I moved into the building. :eek:
14 years ago I got down-sized from a 10 year recording engineer job. I bought this place, sound-proofed 2 of the bedrooms, and converted my home to a 1 bedroom apartment with a 2 room recording studio. I’m on the 2nd floor of a 4 story building, and I don’t EVER want to move again.
I have an audiophile sound system in the living room as well as a separate home theatre surround system. With the studio monitors and the bedroom speakers, I have 14 speakers in the place.
I don’t listen loud very often, but I do listen well.
David
In San Francisco. This is the first and only house I’ve ever owned. Bought 6.4 years ago, about 2 years before the peak of the bubble, so although we are underwater it’s not too bad, and it will probably come back before we have to sell.
The house is called a Jr. 4-room house, because on the main level there is a living room, a kitchen, and 2 bedrooms (plus a bathroom, which isn’t counted as a “room”). Total about 850 sq ft.
Lower level was originally a 2-car garage (single entrance, cars stacked front to back) and basement. The garage is now only big enough for one car, and the rest of the downstairs has been finished (but not with permits, so it’s not warranted) into living space, total maybe 550 sq ft.
The house is on a hill, sloping from the back to the front of the house, so there is a third level, accessible only from the back yard, that the appraiser called a “crawl space”. This is interesting in that it was not excavated to be level, so it slopes upwards. At the doorway the ceiling is over 9 ft tall; at the front of the house it slopes upwards to almost nothing. I made a level place by putting in a floor in the front for a workshop, and there is lots of storage. The floor of the crawlspace is concrete.
What it means to me - I doubt I will ever own another house, so this is my first and only love. It’s tiny. The side walls touch the houses on either side (typical San Francisco arrangement, the lot is only 25’ wide) but it’s not a row house, the houses are distinct and separate, even if the space between them is only enough to slip a piece of paper. It’s a blue-collar neighborhood, some of the neighbors are a little undesirable (but nothing criminal or horrible), and some are very nice. I love it. I’m probably going to be spending $70-$100K over the next couple of years remodeling the kitchen and bath, and making the downstairs pass inspections to be warranted.
Roddy
I live in a 1500 square foot double wide mobile home, it is located in a senior mobile home community in Kent which is about 10 miles south of Seattle. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, lots of room for me and my cat. First time I have ever lived in a place that has a master bath. 6 steps from my bed to standing in front of the toilet when I have to pee in the middle of the night.
Even though where I live is technically a senior only community, there are many younger folks that live here. My neighbors to the north have 2 children. Also, unlike lots of mobile home places, this is not a trailer park. The home owners also own the land under the homes, no one pays rent on the trailer space. The only gripes I have is the lack of parking and no garage.