searching for our home

Simplicity in life is actually hard work, but I'll get there.

We are currently house hunting for our new home in Oklahoma. Oklahoma for many reasons is our dream location and we are thrilled to be moving there.

There are a few things in a home that we are passionate about. Right now we live in a very nice house. It is new construction, split floor plan which means the master bedroom is clear across the house from the bee's room. Huck still sleeps in our room and will for a while longer, so that isn't a big deal. But I hate being so far from the bee. When she wakes up at night those few seconds that it takes me to cross the house to comfort her seem like an eternity to me. I want to get to her as quickly as possible.

We have a large kitchen, open floor plan with a great room. I can see the living room while I'm cooking dinner, which is nice.

And I love many things about this house, it is large, open, big back yard, a lot of things that are nice.

But it isn't want we are dreaming about as we search for our first home to purchase. And of course we are doing most of this online until we get our house hunting leave in a couple of weeks. So what do we want?

A smaller home, less than 1500 sq feet, on at least 1/4 of an acre of land, hopefully closer to 1/2 an acre. We want a small home because we feel like in a smaller home families tend to be closer and more involved with each other. Plus while my children are small I want to have them close, but not in the same room. Co-sleeping doesn't work well for our family, so I just want them very close. I need a larger kitchen though. I'm willing to give up family room or dining room space to have a kitchen that is workable for me. Gas stoves are the preffered choice, but we'll see.

I want hardwood floors. Carpeting traps all sorts of nastiness and gives off noxious fumes even years after it has been installed. Though carpeting is a big step above the ASBOESTOS floors that they give you in base housing!

The land is very very important to me though because we will have fresh vegetables from our garden starting next summer! I'm hoping to have a fairly to very large garden and since I'm a good gardenener I should be successful the first year and will be putting up food next summer and fall to help sustain us through the following winter. I've got a ton of seeds right now, and will order some new ones after we move in and see what kind of land we have. Oklahoma has wonderful weather and soil for growing things and is a climate that I'm familiar with. We are getting there a little later than I had hoped, but hopefully the ground won't be frozen and I can get a plot put in ASAP and set up my composting heap soon there after.

I do NOT want wood paneling. And wood paneling is freakishly expensive there.

But something else that really doesn't interest us is living in the suburbs or new subdivisions. We hate those types of neighborhoods. For starters we aren't mall people and we don't want to eat at applebees, well ever really. Secondly those neighborhoods tend to be so insualar as I wrote about a few days ago. We want a neighborhood where we actually have the opportunity to get to know our neighbors and to be part of a community.

We are looking at neighborhoods with homes built in the forties and fifties. Brick ranches of course as it is Oklahoma. The neighborhoods are a bit more diverse than you will find out in the suburbs too. And those homes have character! One of the biggest complaints about our house now is there is no character. It is exactly the same as the house three houses away. Down to the type of tile in the bathroom.

Oh I'm so anxious to go out there and look!