house hunting and big decisions.

our house is small.  like, really really small.  one bathroom and under 1,000 square feet small.  it's also adorable and cozy (or, we think so) and the location is perfection (for us, our lifestyle, the pups, etc).  we live on a dead end that ends at the UT intramural fields.   the dogs have never really had to learn how to walk on a leash because we have a big field for them to romp in right outside of our front door.  and because of that we've been lazy about leash training...  we can walk a few blocks to great restaurants, neighborhood grocery stores, a yogurt place, and a farmers' market every wednesday. as far as the whole location thing goes, we are covered.  but, again, small.

when i got pregnant, one of the first things we discussed was should we move?  it seemed like it might be a good idea, what with adding to our little urban farm and all.  but, we ultimately decided that one baby couldn't possibly take up THAT much space (oh, the naivete!), and we didn't want to deal with selling, buying, renting, packing, etc etc etc with the end of grad school and me being big and pregnant.  ha.

so that brings us to now.  in the beginning, i think having a tiny house was perfect.  i could hear emme's every whimper even on those rare (very rare) occasions when she wasn't in the same room as me (on my person).  even now it's nice for nighttime because we don't even need a baby monitor - just an open door and i'm there in 3 steps if i need to be.  but...there are other, less convenient issues.  like...emme has a tub that goes in our tub (duh).  there's not really a place for this thing, so it's either in the middle of the bathroom floor for us to trip over, or sitting in the tub preventing us from showering conveniently.  if we have more than a few people over, there's only one toilet, which is just annoying.  we can't really baby-proof, as that involves putting stuff up, and we don't have an up to put things.  we are not hoarders, i swear, but we just seem to have a bit more stuff than our little 840 square feet can hold.  our poor walls are bowing from installing so many shelves.  it's getting a bit out of control.

our first thought was to just add on to our house.  we figured we love our area and we could deal with a construction project for a while if it meant getting to stay here.  but, alas, the city is conspiring against us because we're on a flood plain, so that means no expansion of our footprint.  then we thought we'd sell our house and use the cash for a down payment on a new place.  this is a two-fold problem: one, the housing market is horrible right now (even in austin), so if we sell, we aren't realizing nearly the gains we could if we were in an up market; and two, we'd be losing our location and potential rent revenue.  sooooo...we decided we want to try to keep our current house as a rental property and maybe hopefully buy something else too.  the rent market is fantastic in austin right now, so this should conceivably work out.  except we can't actually find a house in austin that's big enough and cheap enough and also happens to be located in a neighborhood we want to live in.

and now here we are.  we did actually find a house that was pretty amazing in a lot of ways, but it was just a bit too pricey for us to comfortably swing.  not to mention, we would need to acquire some additional furniture if we moved into a new place, so we can't get into a payment that's so high we have an empty, echo-y house for a couple of years.  even though i am gung-ho for some thrifting and furniture refinishing projects....there are only so many hours and great deals out there.

i guess i'm writing about this so we can look back and remember what it was like to feel so weirdly in flux.  even though we've had countless conversations about this, i still don't really know what we're going to do.  wait it out?  look for a house in a neighborhood we don't love?  move to the 'burbs like all our co-workers think we will?  until then, i'm thinking of installing a butler building...