"House" is an overstatement. We own what you could essentially call a winterized bungalow. We paid what some people would consider a redonkulous amount for such a tiny piece of bungalow love. Hell, I think it's a redonkulous amount, but I do a lot of crazy things to stay where I am. And I'll tell you why.
The Beach.
We live 5 blocks from the atlantic ocean, yet only 40 minutes from NYC - where both me and M work. Our community is ridiculously cute and friendly and it's just a truly great town. I am a beach bum, grew up across the street from the beach my entire life. To tell you the truth, I think 5 blocks from the beach is a bit too long of a walk. Yes, I've been spoiled, but I think you might now understand why we chose to live where we do.
It all really came about when we were first moving in together (after only 3 months of dating - hello crazies). We weren't sure where to live. We realized we both loved the beach. He didn't want to live in the beach town I grew up in (and I understood why) and I didn't want to live in either of the 2 towns he grew up in (and he understood why). The town we're in now was the sweet compromise. Well, 5 years and 3 rentals later, we still loved the place and wanted to raise our kids here.
So we got hitched and put away our dreams of a big spacious home to make way for the new dreams which included a seaside bungalow with no driveway, no yard and very little space. But we always knew that was the compromise. Location for space.
And here we are, a year later, struggling a bit more than we expected with the no-space issue. I'm assuming a lot of the struggle has to do with the fact that The Goose was an early arrival. We found out we were pregnant after we went into contract, but before we closed. We weren't expecting to get pregnant so fast, and we count our lucky stars and blessings and anything else we possibly can that it happened so fast. Not to be redundant, but we're so lucky and blessed, we cannot be grateful enough. Even with all that; to say that we weren't exactly prepared to be making a nursery instead of a guestroom/office, well that's an understatement.
So here's the layout, to the best of my whip-it-together-with-what-I've-got ability. It is by no means to scale or anything important like that.
Let me explain to you some of the wonderful joys of owning a nearly 100 year old bungalow. This house is one big mess of "what the *&%$ were these people thinking!?!?!". And by these people, I'm referring to the previous owner. He was also a fireman. He was single. And apparently somewhat handy, but not completely sane. He attempted to turn this house into a bachelor pad of sorts (a money making bachelor pad, no less...but more on that in later post).
Take notice of two extreme "what the eff!?!" characteristics:
1-the house is the size of a pea, and yet half of it is taken up by one room - the master, along with it's bath. I haven't exactly labeled anything, but if you're wondering what's going on with that bath, you're not crazy. Included in this bath: one toilet, one stand up shower, one huge vanity with a miniscule sink you can barely brush your teeth in, and one jacuzzi tub. Wait, what? Yes, folks I said JACUZZI TUB. Damn thing takes up what feels like 1/4th of the room. I know I should love it, but I hate it. I'd rather have another closet . . .
2- . . . that could go in The Goose's room. Yep, that's right, Goose's room currently has no closet. It's absolute insanity. Do you know how much CRAP a baby requires? Do you know how not fun it is to have to store things everywhere but said baby's room? I do. It's a whole lot of not fun. The poor kid's room is already the size of a closet, the least we could do is provide him another one to put his crap in. Unfortunate for you, that's the breaks kiddo, sorry.
Also of noteworth mention:
-There are only two closets in the entire house, one of which is the size of my pinky nail. They're both a greyish color in the pic above - one by Goose's room, and one in our bedroom. I won't even begin to describe the wrath of hatred I have for our home's previous owner. Such a man - two goddamned closets.
-The fireplace. It is not really centered to anything. It can pass as centered to our entire Living-Dining space, but that's not even true. But it works so I try not to knock it too much.
-The two windows on each side of the fireplace. Again, not centered to anything, and that's fo' sho'. Also, they are two different lengths, widths and heights, and of different ages.
- A third window, which is currently halfway hidden by our oddly placed refrigerator in the kitchen.
- Our master bedroom has only two windows, one of which is teeny tiny and in the bathroom, another which is the front bay window. There is a very long wall with no windows that could easily sport a few to lighten things up. There is, however, a square with an A/C in it that looks like it used to be a window (no pictured - sorry I forgot).
-Not noticeable on the pic above, but still very "what the eff?": there are three countertops in the kitchen. They are made up of two different laminates. They nearly match. Call me crazy but "nearly" is not indeed the same. Me no like.
-There are three floor surfaces: carpet in the living room and Goose's room; Hardwood in the master room/bath and the small patch which designates the dining area (since it's open to the kitchen and living area); And nice travertine tile in the kitchen which is actually very nice looking. Too bad it's literally adhered right on top of the hardwood underneath and it's a good 1.5" higher than the rest of the house.
-There are some walls with not even one electric outlet, and others with about 4 in a one foot radius (I'm looking at you kitchen!)
-The lighting situation could easily be worse, but there are two oddly placed ceiling fans in the living area. I go easy on them because it seems that with the whole age and original craft of the house, there's not really any other options for them (and because I plain and simple love a ceiling fan. I realize I'm not in the majority and this makes me even crazier).
-Also not noticeable but easily the most frustrating thing about our sweet, sweet bungalow - no floor, wall, or ceiling is level, even, or flat. Everything is crooked, sloped, or annoyingly bowed.
After writing all of that (and reading it, for you) it's pretty obvious that we are completely, utterly, LITERALLY insane. And I haven't even gotten to the exterior of the house (ha!) or the whole "money-making" part of it - which is, ironically, the reason we bought the house. More to come...
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