Thinking about MOVING...

D and I have been talking about moving for about a year now, but I think we decided "offically" that we would put our house up on the market early Spring and if we are able to get what we need out of it, we will be moving.

I love this house, but with our family, we need more "first level" space. It's the level that we all basically spend the majority of our time and there's just not enough room. The first level (the main living area) is the smallest level of the whole house. It's a big home, 4700sq. ft, but it's just the way that it's laid out... just doesn't work for our family. D doesn't have anywhere for a home office which makes it *very* difficult with his company. We have the loft which we thought would be great, but it has the open balcony which makes it SOOOOOooOOOOOO *LOUD*. It ECHO'S- it would drive you guys CRAZY. The basement is very roomy, but you get NO phone reception down there and can't even pick up a wireless signal so that's out of the question. Our master is SUPER TINY, so that's not an option either. So D works from our kitchen table, when a call comes in- he goes to our master bedroom (first level) which is SUPER loud with the kids down here.... it just doesn't work.

The girls are ready to move, too. SO.. that's the plan. I *dread* trying to get the house ready to show (my biggest nightmare), but I guess that's part of the process.

Our next door neighbor sold their house in about 3mo., and only came off $10k from their asking price which is hopeful. 2 more houses in our neighborhood just went up on the market a few weeks ago, so it will be intersting to see if/how quickly they move and at what price. There is also a couple that listed theirs about 4wks ago, so we'll see....

I *dread* moving, but this house just isn't condusive to what our family needs. We need more usable space and a MUCH larger first floor area. Our kitchen is beyond small and we do a lot of entertaining in the summer & winter and it always feels like everyone is on top of one another. Our deck is really small, too... so we're hoping that "the" house is out there :) and that we will be able to sucker someone into buying this one. It's a great home, but just doesn't meet our needs with a family our size.

SO. that's the plan, stan. I want to go get one of those big dumpsters and park it in my driveway for a few days and just start tossing things right and left so I can get a big head start on things.

D is going to tear out our shower in our master and tile floor to ceiling and around the jetted tub. Our bathroom is very "basic" right now, so hopefully that will be a good selling point-- our master is really small which hurts us, so our plan is to udpate the bathroom by tiling the shower (floor is already tiled) in hopes to make up for the small room. It's pretty pathetic when the 3 little ones bedroom is double the size of the master.... still trying to figure out what the builder was thinking there.

So.. we'll see what happens. Baby steps first.. first, have to start getting rid of all the "stuff", start doing the small projects to get it ready to be listed, and then see what happens from there. I'll keep ya posted. :)