Life in the new house

It has been a while since I last posted. This diary has been about selling a house in Melbourne and buying in Canberra. That has been done and wrapped up with all its various problems.

Now I’m in a new phase: the aftermath. Having been here for a reasonably long time and yet I still feel unsettled. Our stuff has essentially been unpacked, but things are still in a mess. There is more stuff than we know what to do with. The passageway has a row of cardboard boxes, piled two or three high in places. The two spare bedrooms which we were going to use as studies still have so much stuff in there that you can barely move. It’s not good. There is a little homemade shed outside that is good to keep outdoor type stuff in, but it leaks when it rains. It’s not good. There is a double carport but there is so much stuff stored there that we can only get one car under it.

My house isn’t perfect by a long shot. It’s too small, is located on a busier street than I’d like, is a tad too cold in winter and is too hot in summer. There are some lovely things about its position, which is great with good views. Some reasonable renovations had been done before moving in, and it’s on a good sized block of land.

So what do you do when you find your house is not quite the ideal dream home? Sell it and get another place that is more likely to meet your needs. That’s an expensive project; particularly with the cost of Stamp Duty, real estate fees and other costs. Building on the extra rooms is another solution. That could work but what if you over capitalise in the renovations, or it doesn’t turn out the way you want. We might never be able to sell a place and be forced to live a place we hate.