Why We Decided to Move

So, as I mentioned in my earlier post this week, Brendan and I made the decision to move into a larger house at the end of this month. As I had said before, we absolutely love the house that we are in now. It's in a small neighborhood really close to where Brendan works on a lake. It's an older 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house, but the owner completely gut renovated the inside so it's really cozy. We have a fenced in backyard that has been awesome for our dogs, and we like the fact that all the living space is open. The kitchen has a window that opens into the dining area which is great for when we are entertaining so I don't feel left out in the kitchen, and the dining area and sunken living room are separated by a half wall so no matter where you are in the living space, it's easy to talk to everyone. Our favorite room is the living room, the walls are painted green and we love the stone fireplace and floors.

This is the outside of our house

This is a photo of our living room at Christmas last year

So, if we like this house so much why did we decide to move?

As it got closer to the time where we would have to re-sign our lease, and I got more pregnant and began to register for baby items, I began to wonder where we would put the extra items that came along with a baby.  The room that was once our office turned into the baby room which meant that we moved our huge desk into the living room, and since I will probably be doing some work from home once Luke is born, I began to try and figure out where he would be while I was working on the computer and realized it would be hard to even fit a swing into our living room without it being cluttered. Then I began to wonder where we would put bigger items, like a stroller... probably right in the middle of the entrance. We don't have a garage, so this week when Brendan was packing his army stuff, we used the baby room... which probably wont work that well in a few months. Basically we are bursting at the seams in this house with just the two of us and I can for-see it only getting worse.

On top of the space issue, there were a few other things that I was concerned about (I'm already a crazy mom.) The first thing was that our neighborhood is pretty small and off a main road, which limits my access to places I can walk and jog with a stroller when leaving straight from the house. This wasn't a huge issue, but it was something that Brendan and I both desired if we were going to make a move. The second issue was the dogs... while the open floor plan is great for us now, but there is really no way to section them off into a certain area of the house, and while I know that they would never intentionally hurt Luke, I get concerned that they might paw at him by accident and scratch him so it would be nice to be able to section them off into a certain area of the house instead of our only options being their crates or outside. The last thing that concerned me was the sunken living room, its about two and a half feet lower than the rest of the house. While I'm not as concerned about Luke falling down stairs once he starts walking and crawling, I am concerned about the fact that there is no railing on one side of the living room, just a two and a half foot drop off, and that the half wall separating the dining room from living room is the perfect height for a curious little guy to climb up. 

With these things in mind, Brendan and I discussed the possibility of moving. We had a few parameters we laid out. We knew we didn't need a huge house, just one with a little extra space in the right areas, and preferably a garage. We also knew we liked the location of our house and its proximity to Brendan's work as well as to my job. We didn't feel pressured to move so if we didn't find something that fit our needs, we were okay with staying where we are.

Over the course of the week, I narrowed our search down to 6 houses for us to check out last Friday on Brendan's day off. Most of them I found on AHRN.com ,which is a website specifically for military families to look for off-post housing. I like this website because not only can you do a search by your BAH (Basic Allotment for Housing) budget, you can also narrow the search down by zip codes, and certain features such as pet friendly. On Friday we set out and went and toured the houses. The first five we looked at were okay, but not exactly what we were looking for, and not something we were willing to move out of our house for. Then we went to the last house.

Come October, this will be our new home!

I actually found this house one afternoon when I was walking with my friend Tracey in a neighborhood near our houses. It had a "For Rent" sign on it, but I couldn't find any info on it online, so I just took a photo of the sign and called the phone number. This was totally a God thing, because the house hadn't even been officially up for rent yet because the previous tenants just moved out. The property manager agreed to show us the house, warning us it wouldn't be ready until the end of the month because they still needed to paint some things and make some repairs... which was perfect for us because we couldn't move until the end of the month either!

The house was in an area that was preferable to ours because I could walk more than 6 miles without getting to a main road. It's still on the lake, which makes me happy because for some reason I just love walking near water. The fenced in back yard has a 7 foot privacy fence all around it which is great for the dogs and will be awesome for next summer with Luke. While the inside isn't as quaint as our house now... it has some pretty bad wallpaper... it is definitely do-able and I'm sure we will be able to work around it. The big reasons why we chose to move to the house other than the neighborhood was the garage, and the fact that it had a formal dining room off of the kitchen that could be turned into an office and playroom, plus an added bonus is that the kitchen is spacious enough that if we wanted to gate it off, the dogs would have plenty of space to hang out in there if we want some dog-free time.

I struggled a lot when it came time to actually make the decision to give our 30 days notice and sign a lease for this house. I mentioned earlier that I really do like the owners of this house, in fact, when we moved in they had left some flowers and a bottle of wine with a note welcoming us and have been really great ever since. I kept asking myself if I was being materialistic since we had much more space here than some families could even dream of. Brendan and I went back and forth and ended up calling the property manager of the new house to see if she could let us take a second look at it before we signed the lease. Finally we made the decision and we gave our 30 days notice, and I felt like I had just broken up with a boyfriend. I couldn't sleep that night because I just felt so guilty... it's so much easier to tell people you're moving out because your husband got re-stationed than because you found a different house!

In the end, I really am excited to move, and right now maybe more excited to get this move over with! I know the next few weeks will be stressful with packing and then unpacking, but honestly I would rather do this pregnant than with a baby, so as long as I keep reminding myself of that I think I will be okay! Anyways, if you're still reading this, congrats! I think when Brendan is gone, my posts tend to be more rambling since I have less people to talk to!