Trailer House Hunt

Let me start by saying there is nothing wrong with living in a trailer. I lived in one until I was about six years old. My parents had six acres of land and we lived there until my dad finished building my parent's current home. I have no bias against trailers or people who live in them.

But. (And as Aunt Betty would say...it's a BIG BUT tee hee.) I don't want to move from my beautiful-if somewhat disorganized right now-home to a trailer. This is the home D and I bought a few months after getting married. In my favorite neighborhood! It's a two story brick house with tons of storage. It has a huge masterbath, with two very large walk in closets. And my toilet is in it's own little room. I swear (and I can tell y'all this because you already know I'm weird) that is the main reason we bought this house. A toilet with it's own room? Stop it, I'm sold.


This is the home we brought our babies home to from the hospital. We planted the tree in the front yard. We stained the fence. We tore up the carpet in the living room and replaced it with laminate. Then later tore that up to put carpet back. I chose the paint colors and we painted the rooms ourselves. Save for two other families, we are the people who haved lived on this street the longest. I don't want to leave unless it's to move into the Dream Home we designed.


Unfortunately that's not going to happen for a while. The economy has put a damper on our plans. Even though our loan officer called us a few weeks ago asking us to come back in since they will now consider D's overtime as income, we are holding off. We've been running over different possibilities. We thought maybe buying a trailer and living on the land for a couple of years until the economy is better might be wise. Then we could start on the house and be right there while we build.


The main, well only, reason I want to move to the land shortly is so that Little d will start school in that district. The district we live in now is exemplary, but I don't want her to start school, make friends, and then be uprooted to move to another school. Yes I know she will be fine. But growing up I had two best friends move away and it is really hard on a child. I remember.

So last Friday we went to look at trailer houses. Sigh. They are smaller for starters. And they feel less...secure, obviously. (My brother reminds me this is because they aren't really 'strapped down' until they are on location.) And the walls are so thin. And the oak. Okay I totally have a bias against oak colored wood. I need dark stain on wood if it's not painted. Everything in these homes was light wood. I hate it. It made me feel like I was in a badly decorated western. Well the light wood and the heinous curtains. Let me tell you what the curtains looked like. It was as if the decorator (I use that term loosely) smeared mud-colored paint...wait mud-colored and purple...paint on burlap. Cut. Hem. Hang. Repeat.


And for all this they are ridiculously over-priced. I mean $108,000 for a house that is made of spit and kleenex? Okay not really spit and kleenex, but you get my drift. It's not brick. I was thinking $50,000 tops. Hey let me live in my dream world. I could buy a real house here for $75,000 and be mostly happy with it. Oh and PS $108,000 is about what we paid for this house seven years ago.


We thought of another option, renting a house while we build. The drawback is that you are kinda tossing money out the window when you rent. Which would be okay if it were short term, but what if we got stuck there? Unable to build yet and having sold our current house. Plus whereever we rent would not be close to where we are building and this is a drawback when you want to personally do much of the work. Ick, ick, ick.


We kind of keep running around and around the ideas and not getting anywhere. And please know in the grand scheme I realize these problems are minute. In fact, this morning I made a decision. I am going to start living my life and not just surviving it. Does that sound hokey? I just mean I am going to stop putting stuff off until this or that. I am going to start enjoying little things and put other things in perspective. This is a tall order for someone like me who is a pessimist and a worrier by nature.


Well anyway that's my plan. And we all know about the best laid plans...