Looking for a house is hard. Looking while recognising that this will be your long-term home — not a rental, not a summer vacation — is even harder.

You find yourself confronting unspoken pre-reqs. And sometimes, unfortunately, even the happiest of couples have different pre-reqs. Which makes for…interesting conversations. 🙂

My beloved & I are finally on task to move to be w/ our son, DIL, & grandson. So obviously we need someplace to live (believe it or not, the ‘kids’ don’t want parents living forever in their basement!).

I want small — little to clean up, little to maintain. My beloved wants comfort, and a big garage. I’d just as soon sell my car & get a Vespa (yes!). He’s not down with that.

I’m fine w/ a fixer-upper: not structural changes, but maybe hardwoods, and new kitchen countertops. Possibly having to frame in a carport. He’s worried we’ll over-commit, and get a house that needs far too much fixing up. I like Mission & Craftsman bungalows; he’s fine w/ almost anything.

The point to this is we carry around all kinds of unexamined attachments — to smaller houses, to our childhood homes, to work spaces. But also to far less tangible desires: success, pride, bias. Even if some are ‘positive’ — a work ethic is desirable at work, but may well interfere w/ home life if pursued slavishly.

So I’m letting go — as much as I can — of my attachments to a certain kind of house, hoping I can instead create a home. And that will — I hope! — be enough for both of us. Whatever our initial attachments.