What makes a perfect home?

For those of you who follow me on twitter you will know that we have recently sold our house after 7 weeks on the market and to be honest it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Of course the continuous cleaning totally did my head in as I felt I couldn't leave the house messy at any time and having 2 hairy indoor dogs did not help that situation at all. Not to mention 2 young children who wouldn't know how to pick up an item of their own if they tripped over it 10 times so generally I was the full cleaning nazi for 7 weeks.  But as far as the selling process goes it was pretty stress free.  Our agent was a lovely gent who was very relaxed and easy going and this helped with the general part of selling a home, the open homes, private inspections and at the end the negotiations with the buyers. (he was also very easy on the eye so this was a bonus for me!)

So now we have to find a new home and to me this is going to be the challenging part.  The home we have just sold is only 2 and a half years old, it is our design and all of our heart and soul went into it so it is truly a lovely home and I know I will never have something like this again.  But that is also ok because I love a challenge and to buy an older home and renovate it and put my own touches into it will also be fun.  Its just will we find the home for us that will be perfect in the time frame we have?  I have my doubts.

The reason for my doubts is because what is the definition of a perfect home?  Everyone has their own little things that they love in a home and my ideas may not be the same as my hubbys or my kids.  In fact we built this house with a kids area downstairs and with their bedrooms apart from ours because we believed they would love having their own space but since we have lived here they have hardly slept in their own beds and never go downstairs to watch TV because they don't want to be that far away from us! (god help us) and to think why we have 3 yes 3 Foxtel boxes is just beyond me! (That is not happening in the next house, well maybe but maybe not) So  for our next house we have decided that we will find something smaller with the bedrooms all together so the kids don't feel so far away and so we don't have a child sleeping on our mattress on the floor for the next few years, although in saying that I'm sure when the kids are older they wont want to be so close to our rooms so we really can't win in that situation!

So now we are searching for a 4 bedroom house, 2 bathrooms, double garage, 2 living areas and a big enough yard for the dogs and the kids which shouldn't really be too hard and I'm sure there are plenty of those types of houses out there it's just finding it in the area we want and getting the timing right.  In the meantime our house we have sold seems to be objecting to us moving out, on the day after we signed the contract the smoke alarm decided to lose its mojo and go off every time we closed the garage door, the kitchen light has gone on strike and refuses to work even with a new globe and last night the bathroom window decided it had had enough and shattered mysteriously at 2.30am!  We have spent more money on the house in the past week fixing things than we have in the past 2 and a half years!  Me thinks there is something weird going on there!

Anyway we are now trawling the real estate websites, going to open homes and getting lots of ideas of what we don't want and what we do like and then of course the whole packing thing will need to be addressed so there are lots of fun times ahead all at the busiest time of year! Yay! (insert sarcasm font there)

I will keep you posted on how we go with the perfect house hunt, keep your fingers crossed for us.

Katie
Love ya guts