We have a nice house that we've lived in for about eight years. It has served us well but has a few problems--some of which we were just about to fix with a major remodeling. This was going to involve the kitchen, laundry room, mud room, adding an extra bedroon and redoing the master bedroom and bath. The architect has drawn up the plans and we have gone through the headache of zoning meetings so we could get approval for going slightly over the property setback so we are really close to moving ahaed with things.
So here's the dilemma--recently, a couple of my friends mentioned that it might be a better idea to just buy a new house. For some reason, this had never crossed my mind! So we looked at some houses over the weekend and found one that we really like. It's crazy expensive, so the only way it would work would be a really lowball offer--but you never know!
So the pros of doing the remodeling:
-I would have my dream kitchen (with a fireplace!)
-a nice laundry room with a dumbwaiter (this was my brilliant idea although the architect thinks I'm crazy!)
-mud room (much needed)
-nice new master bedroom and bath
-additional bedroom and new bath
The cons are:
-the hassle of remodeling (we'd have to move out and rent a place for a long time)
-unknown cost
-I hate making decisions about tiles, lighting, etc., etc.
-the old part of the house will look bad by comparison.
-our house will never have high ceilings or a grand staircase, etc.
The pros of the new house:
-it's a beautiful house with large rooms, high ceiling, gorgeous staircase, etc.
-it's a much "better" house than our current so would probably be a better investment
-I like it more!
Cons of new house:
-crazy expensive
-the kitchen would ultimately have to be redone but not right away.
-it doesn't have a family room, but has a "library" (smallish) that could act as a family room until we added one.
-it needs work--like a fence, a/c, paint, etc.
-the basement is unfinished.
So there are my ramblings--if anyone has a brillaint insight into this, I'd love to hear it! Thank you!
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