Comparing Houses to ours

As much as I’ve talked here and here about our dream home, it’s a pretty much given fact that we are inspired to put our house on the market. Our house isn’t exactly ready to sale. There’s a house down the street from us that has been on the market for over 6 months. There’s nothing wrong with it, and their house is clutter-free and they have a flowing design throughout the home. That’s the only difference between our house and theirs.

We once had all our rooms that were fully decorated. Yet hand me downs were given, furniture was passed on, decoration was given. Instead of gracefully declining to the gestures, we now filled our house with furniture and decoration and a lot of miss-matched ugly stuff. Plus, there’s this one specific wall art hanging in the hall way that I loathe each time I walk by.

The home I’m about to show you is the house that is for sale. We have the same floor plan, but our floor plan is switched. Their kitchen is on the left of the house, and ours is on our right. The bedrooms are opposite as well.

Here’s the picture of our comparative house. It’s clean and crisp and not a clutter in sight. It’s an open floor plan, where you can see the kitchen that has a bar with barstools. What’s wrong with our layout? We have two babies with toys spread through out the floor, DVD’s stacked in different places because Chloe likes to pull the DVD’s out of the TV stand and get inside to the DVD. We haven’t even thought twice for investing in bar stools.

This is our kitchen to a T. It’s about as small as a kitchen built in the 1940′s. I was fooled by the open counter space and the bar thinking I was upgrading my kitchen space when we purchased the house. Once we moved in, I realized I lost a whole set of cabinets. However our two pantries make up for the lost space. Just look at the black appliances and the color of the cabinets. The cabinets gracefully blend in with the floor and the countertops blend as well. Can we say yuck about the cabinets? In our comparative house, they have some sort of one-rack lamps over one side the bar and the kitchen sink. Can we saw awkward?

Here’s a view of the dinning nook with the kitchen bar. Beautiful. Our table is pushed against a wall due to a treadmill invasion (trying to kiss my baby weight goodbye). Our kitchen table is only used to gather three diaper bags, two lunch bags, a thousand coats and diapers and my purse and all sorts of bibles.

Our comparative house has a bit of a wider laundry room. They also have a shelf used for rags and decoration? We do not have any shelving unit, but I would absolutely love one. Our washer/dryer houses empty laundry baskets, my coat, purse, and laundry supplies. I would love a coat rack.

We use our pantry in the hall next to the kitchen for the same reason our comparative house uses theirs. There’s nothing fancy about this pantry, but ours looks like a bomb went off and we have cans stacked upon cans and boxes stacked upon boxes and things fallen over in there.

The comparative house uses their second pantry for pots, pans, and the place where their dog/cat sleeps? Our second pantry looks similar. We did have a third rack below the two racks you see in this picture. My husband removed it so we had a place to hang our coats. While this pantry is less cluttered, ours looks like a bomb went off in it as well. Call it a second explosion. Our first rack is full of bakeware that we hardly use, but we do use it from now and then. It’s also full of utility items like light bulbs and batteries. Our second rack is full of additional laundry things (fabric sheets), plastic/paper cups, spoons, forks and then your typical cleaning supplies. Under neath our coats is more cleaning supplies (it was a huge sale and we walked away with those things for free), paper towels, and a tool box that has been opened and never closed so we have a thousand nails laying all over the floor. Not to mention, any broom we have is laying against the wall in our second pantry, including our ironing board that is just laying there.

Our bedrooms are the same. This one is obviously less cluttered than theirs. When my husband redecorated our living room two summers ago, some of the extra items ended up in our bedroom. Now our bedroom looks like a lions din with all the tall fake plants. Not to mention we have a bookcase in their that has been cluttered over time. I will admit it that I have been known to have a water bottle collection (I’m thirsty what can I say), so the water bottles tend to collect on the nightstand on my side of the bed. Although I can proudly say there are only TWO water bottles present right now. :)

Our bathrooms are pretty much alike. Our comparative house has a bigger shower stall, our shower stall is pretty much made for a skinny person. Our tile is also an almost-white, but it’s certainly not the almost-tan to dark grey mix ‘n match that our comparative house has going on. So far I think our bathroom wins with the TV that’s hooked up perfectly positioned above the counter top. We can take a nice relaxing hot bath and watch our favorite TV show thanks to Dish Network’s wonderful technology of splitting our cable from the master bedroom to the bathroom.

Phew. We have a long way to go. We need to get our house up to par in regards to cleanliness, less clutter, more organization, and a few minor upgrades that should make our home number one compared to the house down the street. I mean who wants a kitchen where the cabinets match the floor? Yuckeroo!

PSS, Every morning I have a thousand bags that get piled into the car when I’m off to work the 8-5. One morning, one of the bags swung over the kitchen counter and grabbed the camera and knocked it down to the floor (naughty bag). Our camera has never woke up from the traumatic event. RIP little camera. I’m secretly hoping that Santa will bring me a new one or he’ll give me some cash to do so. I’ve been waiting for a better and clear/precise point and shoot vs. the repeated retakes to get the perfect picture. Thankfully the camera that is currently in a coma wasn’t a $1500 expense. I do have all kinds of ideas and pictures of our house to show you, but we will have to wait until after the new year for a camera to come into our possession. Boo. I know, right?!