How Long Will We Live Here?

Denis and I talked a lot this weekend about our house. Things we like, things we don’t like, things we’d change, etc. Turns out that while we both thought we’d only be here for 2-3 years before building, I believe we’re now thinking of staying for a good ten years or so.

What we like most is the size of the house and land. At 2,800 square feet it definitely suits all our needs. The kids have their own rooms and we have an extra bedroom for guests (whereas in the old house the kids shared a room in order for us to have a guest room). The rooms are all nicely sized with plenty of closet space (compared to the old house’s lack of closet space). Despite having no basement now, we have plenty of attic and garage storage. We *love* the 2-car garage (and as of now can fit one of the cars, with a goal on parking both in there by this summer). The property size (.25 acre) is bigger than we had before, and yet less lawn to mow because the house footprint is larger than our old house and the yards have more landscaping.

And while the list of things we don’t like is longer, it doesn’t mean we don’t like the house. We want to change the kitchen ovens and get bigger ones (but we’ve found the ones we have work well, so we won’t do that anytime soon). We want to get a deeper kitchen sink (the current double sink is shallow and won’t hold large pans). We want to replace the kitchen countertops (from laminate to silestone). We want to add a full bathroom to the guest bedroom (there are two closets in that room now, and behind that is some over-the-garage storage. We’d turn one closet into a doorway and put in a full bath over the garage). We want to replace the builder grade carpeting since it is 10 years old and showing it’s age. We want to rip up the linoleum kitchen flooring and replace with tile. We want to fix up the laundry room pantry with cabinets and counters (we’d reuse the laminate kitchen countertops in there). We want to redo all the landscaping in the front and part of it in the back.

But those things are all just cosmetic and easy to change. The actual structure of the house, the floorplan, and the location, are ideal for our family. It’s open, airy, large and yet affords privacy and quiet when necessary. And I think if we stay in the house for those ten years, and make the changes outlined above, it’ll be a GREAT house and we may never need to build.

The whole reason for building, in our mind, was to have a dream house – library and music room for me, true gourmet kitchen for Denis, media room, swimming pool, etc. However, those are just wishes, not needs. And at this point I’m quite happy to go without the wishlist since this house easily fits all our needs. Do I need a library? No – my bookcases are doing just fine. Do I need a pool? Not since the subdivision has one. Media room? Nope – that was just a fun splurge. And we can eventually start turning our kitchen into the gourmet kitchen that Denis desires by replacing the stoves, the countertops, the flooring, etc.

And if that’s the case – we still don’t regret buying the land in Fort Mill. At this point it is completely paid for and is just gaining in value as Fort Mill continues to grow and develop. In 4-5 years that land could be worth a pretty penny since it’s on a quiet, dead-end, country road that won’t be bought out by developers anytime soon. Even better is to consider the land in 13-14 years when CootieGirl is due to go to college. Any profit from that land could REALLY come in handy at that point.

So to answer the question that began this post, probably for a very long time.