I didn't set foot outside of my house yesterday, and I have no plan to do so at any point today. Both days it has been in the high twenties with over a 70% chance of snow. I don't like the cold, so I prefer to avoid it as much as possible. That mans I spend most of my winters inside.
Last year, however, I was in our little 900 sq. ft. house during the blustery, blizzardy winter. For most people at 900 sq. ft. house is just fine. It would be for me...if I wasn't married to a man who owned 2000 sq. ft. of 'stuff'. Trying to squeeze all of that 'stuff' into a tiny house (with no garage or basement) darn near made me crazy. In fact, by early January I was claustrophobic that Matt shipped me out to Vegas for ten days so I could get out without being miserable in the cold.
This year, things are different :) Matt and I are spending our first winter together in our own home. Here are some of the things that I love about this house:
1) It's 1400 sq. ft., including three bedrooms. That's important for me for two reasons:
a. One bedroom is being used for storage. I'm amazed at how long it's taking to get unpacked, but I don't have to worry about it (too much) right now because we have all of our still full boxes stacked in the guest room (out of sight, out of mind!)
b. I have my own office! It's not acting as Matt's closet or the keeper-of-the-camping-gear. It's just MY office. I have it set up for optimum writing production, and it's working (I wrote 1300 words yesterday!)
2) It has doors. Technically our last house had three doors, but they were pretty irrelevant.
a. For one thing, because we had so little space, we had a lot of over-the-door storage units. By the time you have one hanging on each side of a door, it makes it hard to securely close said door. That means you can see everything from anywhere.
b. You can't really close out the clutter when the clutter is in every room (see previous description of my last office)
3) It doesn't leak. I'm not talking about water, but air. In our previous home, I was always cold. It was built in the 1950s and still had single pain, drafty windows. We added 18" of R60 insulation (that's a lot of the good stuff) when we moved in, wrapped the windows inside and out with plastic, kept the heat at 60 during the day/55 at night, and still paid $100/month (usually more) to heat the tiny place.
Our house doesn't have as much insulation in the attic, but it's only 30 years old and has new windows. We keep the heat at 65/60 now and our heating bills are averaging $95/month! There's nothing better than being warmer for less money.
There are dozens of other reasons why I love this house (I can walk to the market and school, it has a garage, I can workout in my living room without having to rearrange the furniture), but those are the biggest reasons for right now. Maybe in a few months I'll tell you about my favorite summertime aspects of my house!
