This is the story of a family of 5 moving into a 1900 Cape Cod style home. This will be an adventure, as we are voluntarily downsizing from a comfortably large 1970s, 4 bedroom, 2 full bath home, complete with family room and offices, to a 3 bedroom, 1 bath house. Oh, and did I mention that there is a 4:1 ratio of males to females?
We currently own a 2400 square foot split entry home in the suburbs of a once thriving Maryland town. We have what everyone thinks they want: a fairly large family home on a cul-de-sac, in a neighborhood where the kids play baseball at the end of the street. However, we have never felt happy about the house. The neighbors are too close. There are so many expectations about what the outside of house should look like. We would rather spend a beautiful fall day biking with the kids on the Canal than raking our leaves, and the dirty looks from the neighbors lat you know that this is not the way we should think.
Because of our discontent with the house we have put in a new kitchen, redone both bathrooms, put in hardwood floors….. all with the intention of liking our house. And we like our house now, we just still hate the location.
So because of that, and a few other things (job changes, oldest son’s school), we decided to move “to town,” where the mortgage was less, and we can walk to places like the library. We enter into the adventure with some trepidation (how can 1 bathroom possibly work?!?), but mostly with excitement for what is about to come.