To put this in perspective, I must back up a couple months before the house purchase was actually finalized. I was getting daily feeds from our dedicated property broker on all new home listings in this part of town. Each house we visited left us asking the question, "gee, why did they do that?". After countless open houses and home tours, I was resigned to finding a place that hadn't yet experienced a botched home makeover, yet remained in our price range. Did I mention that we were in a time crunch? We had spent the entire summer living out of suitcases following relocation from New England to Portland. Our possessions were slowly cooking, locked up in some non-climate controlled warehouse in the blistering summer heat of Sacramento, while we looked for a house. While there was something liberating about the simplicity of living with less, the reality of registering kids for school in fall - any school - was beginning to wear on me. Besides, I could only take the kids to the park and wading pools around town so many times...
So when I pulled up to this cute little cottage on my 50th day of looking at houses, I was drawn in by the 'cute factor', the fact that it hadn't yet suffered from any seriously blundered makeover, and was situated in a most adorably quiet neighborhood. I was hooked. My wife was less than enamored. Her visit later that day yielded these words: "No way - that house is much too small." I was crushed, but vowed to keep moving forward. Fate would have it that a few days later we found a nearby house that seemed perfect. Our effort to purchase it, however, was thwarted by multiple bids and some serious disclosure items that would never be resolved. In the heat of it all, Jen, to my surprise, blurted out that she wanted to buy the undersized cottage. We had not discussed it in the intervening days. "But it is much too small" I countered, freeing myself from any future liability in the decision we were about to make. Well, the rest of the process is unimportant at this point. What matters is that we have been crammed in our undersized cute cottage for four years now.
It therefore came as no surprise that Jen was the first to crack, with her mention of how we could make this tiny house with 'three bedrooms' and one bathroom work for our family of four. So, while this is where the story really begins, it is only now - four years later that we are ready to act on the primordial discussions that all home owners in our neighborhood have at one time or another: How do we fit ourselves and our belongings into such a tiny little house for the long term?
With that, I have suffered homeowner angst through the past four years. Would it be better to just put out the 'For Sale' sign and buy a house elsewhere in the neighborhood - one that is already 'done'? The standard way of describing our house to somebody that has never seen it before is that it is a perfect house for "a little old lady with a couple cats". The look I get from folks when I talk of felines and little old ladies tells me that the right thing to do is move on. Well, we are on our third architect and second general contractor in trying to answer the question, Do we stay or do we go now?
We have dumped countless thousands of dollars into architectural and engineering fees in our best attempt at due diligence in answering this question. You see, the problem is that we love the neighborhood and the neighbors that go with it. We adore the place - it is only the undersized and inefficient house that challenges me so, causing significant sleep loss.
I am told by our third (and final!) architect that our cottage is a kit house from Sears, though I am yet to come up with a definitive identification. Perhaps somebody in the blogosphere can help me with that one at a later date. I am sure she is correct that it is a kit house - our next door neighbor has a nearly identical house constructed by the same builder ca 1926-1927. Alas, I have talked with several friends that swear they have attended social functions in houses identical to ours in different parts of the city. While that is cute and all, my question is, How?
How in the hell does somebody host a social function in a house identical to ours? With a meager footprint of 906 square feet, there is scarcely room to host a party. Anybody brave enough to call them self a chef in our house is treated to the ability of being able to open the refrigerator, stir pots on the stove, open the dishwasher, or work at the sink - all without have to do more than rotate on an axis. Future discussions will cover it all: architects, contractors, hidden surprises, other philosophical musings as we head down the path of no return.
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