Those leaves are work but at least they’re beautiful work, right? More on our home ‘upsize’ and how we’re managing our minimalist goals with more space.
Houses are a lot of work.
I’ve mentioned my house fear here on the blog, and talked about it a lot with people in person, over the years. Houses scare me. My fears about home ownership are two-fold: they take a lot of time to maintain and clean and they attract a lot of stuff. Admittedly home maintenance and cleaning is not something I enjoy so I come from a place of negativity around the work of home ownership. Cleaning three bathrooms and vacuuming 2500 square feet of floor sounds like a stolen Saturday to me. The annoyance/pain of raking leaves or other yard maintenance makes me anxious. I know this is not the case for everyone because I know people that live in houses and have enjoyable and relaxed lives and aren’t crying to me about day(s) lost to the work of home ownership.
That said, a few weeks in and my husband and I both feel that owning a home has been just as much work as we expected and not any less. We’re in a 1400 square foot rancher with a decent sized fenced back yard, a garage and a basement that has a suite in it and a large unfinished room. Coming from our two bedroom 1100 square foot condo, the one that required no yard work and had a gym and indoor swimming pool for our use, the change has been severe. Of course, one of the reasons we moved here was to have more time and a more relaxed schedule. We knew some of that time would be used for home maintenance.
Condo life is easy.
Condo life really is easy. I can’t say that enough for people that are looking to downsize or shift something to get more time. Sure, you pay a monthly maintenance fee but you don’t have to own and maintain any lawn and garden equipment. We’ve been at the local hardware store a half dozen times since moving in getting the basics to keep the house and yard in shape. The backyard of our home came with not one but two sheds that the previous owners had filled with home and yard maintenance equipment. We won’t be going that far but yes, we’ve invested a hefty sum to mow the lawn, be able to clear gutters and trim trees. In a condo that’s all not your problem. You’re also unlikely to get a surprise maintenance bill in a condo. Furnaces age out, water heaters break and you could face an immediate bill of several thousand dollars just to keep your house liveable. In a condo you make a monthly payment to take care of those big expenses – it’s great for budgeting. And in Vancouver condo boards now have to get a depreciation report for their building each year to guide how they allocate funds for current and future maintenance and replacement projects. Home owners on the other hand have to do this planning and budgeting themselves. And let’s face it, most of us aren’t going to start saving now for getting the roof replaced in the next five to ten years.
Yes, I moved to a house and I’m still raving about the beauty, ease, savings and simplicity of apartment life. I loved it. We loved it. I know it’s not for everyone, many of you enjoy the space a house affords and are happy to trade in some time to have that. But in the busy exhausting days of having young kids, especially for working parents with long commutes, I highly recommend exploring apartment life as an avenue to gain more time. I’ve been writing about the challenges and benefits of living in an urban centre with kids for years. But I don’t detail a lot of the day to day here or document specific activities that we do. For a full picture on living in downtown Vancouver with kids, I love the blog Apartment Baby. Andrea’s been blogging since 2008 and now has three children and a wonderful downtown lifestyle (she’s also a labour and delivery RN and has a wealth of information for new parents). If want to explore the good and the challenges of living in an apartment with kids, check out Andrea’s blog. It’s actually where I have gone to in the past for new ideas on where to take my kids!
I don’t know how parents of young children maintain large homes. Do they just strap the newborn to them and get to work? Are they mowing the lawn with the baby monitor hooked to their belt so they know if the toddler wakes up from their nap? Do they have a lot of budget wiggle room to outsource all of it? I would have been completely overwhelmed at the amount of work a house requires when we had newborns and toddlers. They’re older now, almost 3, almost 5 and 8, and more independent and sometimes even helpful compared to those early years. And we’ve gained more time with my husband moving from a job that had him travelling three weeks of the month to a job that has him working from home. Maintaining this modestly sized home feels manageable at this stage in our life.
Finding pleasure in the work of home maintenance.
Of course, it would be sad if all we did was grumble about the increased workload from buying a house. Instead, we’re trying to get into it and enjoy the work. My husband apparently likes mowing the lawn. I’m trying to get into a routine with the new recycling system, one that requires a lot more work on our part than just taking the elevator to the garbage and recycling room in our condo building. There’s something quite satisfying about stacking all of our cardboard, sorting what can go to curb-side recycling and organizing all the items that have to be driven out to the waste disposal site just out of town to be recycled.
We’re also trying to get the kids into the extra work. They’ve been bagging leaves and I’m trying to get them interested in sweeping pine needles off the driveway. They want to plant strawberry bushes in the small garden beds next spring. Hopefully the end game on all this house maintenance is that our kids learn the skills to maintain a house and then can a) take over the work! and b) they have a better idea if that’s the lifestyle they want for themselves.
If you live in a house, do you find the maintenance and cleaning to be a chore? Do you enjoy the work? Are you ready to be done with it?
We just moved from a townhouse (1500 sq ft) with an HOA to a single family home (2500 sq ft) without an HOA. The house is more work but I wouldn’t trade it. We lived in the townhouse for ten years, five years without kids and five years with (2 boys). We were climbing the walls by the time we moved and I was too OCD for the quality of the service we received from the HOA. We love our new neighborhood and yard (3/4 acre in town). The boys have the space they need both inside and out. Everyone in the neighborhood outsources their mowing to a local company that is quite reasonable, so that has helped. There is regular maintenance but I’ve also just learned to accept that I won’t get it all done all the time. I might be able to keep the main areas clean for company but not my bedroom/bathroom or the laundry room. I just shut the doors and get to it when I get to it. 🙂
I just saw this post, and I have to say: thank you for writing about this! We moved into our first home (that we own) a few months ago, and I find the whole thing OVERWHELMING. Then I feel guilty for complaining or grumbling because I have a beautiful home in a lovely place, and I don’t seem grateful. I am grateful, daily, for the blessings of my life. But cleaning over 3000 square feet (4 full bathrooms) on the daily is overwhelming. I have days of total hustle, and this place is still never clean. We have to buy a shed to store the lawnmower and yard accoutrement. The shed will cost $3500. I have to buy blinds or shutters or drapes or whatever, and doing only half the house in bare-minimum stuff will cost over $4000. I feel like I can’t keep up. The only thing I can think to do is minimize, declutter and make a schedule. Even then, I feel like my life has now become about maintenance and upkeep rather than travel, time with friends or even taking a nap. Okay…I’ll stop the rant. In the end, if I do the above-mentioned things (minimalism, declutter, organization), I think I can wrap my mind (and schedule) around things. But it’s nice to hear from someone on the same side of the fence, even as grateful as we are for these blessings.
I grew up in a big house, in which now I live with my fiance, and we’ve been taking care of it for 10 years on our own. It’s hard work, especially because we focus on our full-time jobs and we don’t really have time to maintain our house. Many times it was nothing but frustration. Most of our days off we spent repairing broken things, cleaning the house, and maintaining the back yard. At this stage in our lives an apartment is the best option and that’s why we will be moving to one next year.
On the other hand we’ve got a lot of privacy in our house, we can listen to loud music and make renovations at any time of the day or night without annoying neighbors. We don’t have to worry about parking space. We can spend time outside barbecuing, we’ve got our own fruits and vegetables and living in a countryside is just simply very calming and I feel closer to the nature. That’s why I know eventually we’ll live in a house again some day.
While I (mostly) don’t mind the yard work and maintenance of living in a house, what I loath is the mental burden and costs that come with home ownership. I’m always worried something is going to break and/or trying to save up to do expensive maintenance/necessary improvements. I really miss the freedom of renting. To me, minimalism isn’t just about less stuff, it’s also about less stress. I know condo owners just as stressed out as house owners – just with less yard work. Though I love our home and location, I often wish we were in a position to sell and go back to renting.
Sid, so true about the reduced mental load of being a renter. Dishwasher breaks and someone else is going to fix it for you and foot the bill. We enjoyed being renters for our four years overseas (though we were also landlords at the time for our Vancouver home -ugh!).
I agree, minimalism for me is also about less stress. While we’ve upped how much work we have to do for our home with our move, it’s also given us a lot of financial freedom. So we can outsource work as we like and aren’t too stressed about some of those bills that we know are in our future.
Are you in an area with a stable rental market? That’s one aspect of renting I don’t like – being at the whim of a landlord that could sell the property at any time. It is a huge issue in Vancouver. The vacancy rate there is also under 1% and rents are very high. I know a lot of stressed out renters waiting for that call from their landlord that either rent is going up or that their home is going up for sale.
We are a family of 5 with two parents who work full time plus and three kiddos (twin 6 year old boys and 8 year old daughter). We live in a modest home with 5 acres a horse, donkey, and 3 dogs. We love the country life! While the house may take more upkeep technically, no one ever pops in to visit so I don’t feel the pressure to keep it perfect. We have a pool and my famous quote is “the party’s outside kids, what are you doing in my house?”. We make Home as fun as possible and spend lots of time with friends and neighbors enjoying outside. We do outsource many of the chores when time gets short and our kids all have age appropriate chores to help out. We know our neighbors and my kids can ride a bike in our drive and we take family bike rides down the street. There is a trade off for home ownership, but knowing your neighbors and the sense of community is well worth the cost. We live the old school country values and Jtsjust perfect for our little family. I agree it’s not for everyone, but some of you might be surprised how much fun hard work can be. Thanks for an inspiring blog.
That sounds idyllic! We’re enjoying the new freedoms our kids have here vs. in the city like just rolling their bikes out from the garage or heading into the backyard to play on their own with a soccer ball. We’re on 1/4 of an acre, an average size lot for our neighbourhood which is considered to be ‘in town’ for the area. I think right now it’s more than enough space as we all adjust to living in a house.
hahah how do parents maintain their yards? With great difficulty, very rarely and imperfectly. it’s very very hard! I would love to live in an apartment but we now have two dogs
I’ll be joining the imperfect yards club 🙂 We have a lot of retired people in our neighbourhood and I see them out ALL THE TIME working on their yards. They seem to really enjoy it. Maybe great looking yards are for retirement??
I think so Rachel, my parents in law are always commenting that such a tree or plant needs water and that it needs to be pruned, and I’m always like ‘helloooooo, do you not remember how impossible it is to do anything with a small child???’. And ours is atypical too so even more difficult. I do what I can but perfect garden is not on my to do list (certainly something I’d dream of but dreams are dreams!
I’ve been thinking that we’ve bit off a bit more than we can chew at the moment going from a 795 square foot big city home (read: small house on a small plot) to an 1177 square foot smaller city home (read: smallish house on a largish lot). I have a 21 month old, a part-time job and a husband who travels six months of the year. No family within 4000 km.
But I genuinely enjoy home ownership and the work that goes into making a home into your own. I tackle it all with the baby monitor on while my daughter sleeps. It’s slow going, especially the back/front/side yards, which we’re left unattended for the last decade or so by elderly owners. It’s probably going to be at least five years before the house and yard are “what we want” and that’s a long time to put off enjoying your property — so I try to enjoy the process and celebrate every little thing we get done. I think I need to put that reminder on the fridge (which is dying, btw) because it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by everything left on the list. But, yes, sometimes I daydream about the condos we considered buying instead. Our next house will definitely be a condo.
Kendal – I really enjoy following along on your progress with the bungalow. It reminds me a) how you can transform a space with paint and some sweat and b) I’m not ready for that yet!! I think I’m like a lot of people in that I’ve always loved the idea of renovating a home myself to make it my own. But this really isn’t the season for it with three young kids (one who has a lot of extra needs). Our house is only 25 years old and was well maintained by the last owners. A good fit for us house owning newbs without any skills. I’m hoping to learn a bit more about gardening and at some point change some of the yard to be lower upkeep with more native plants (we live in a semi-desert area).
Enjoy the process!! I’ll be cheering you on over on Instagram.
We live in Australia in a 1330 square foot house with a reasonable garden and have 3 kids aged 9, 5 and 6 months. Even though our house is not huge, there are times when I feel completely overwhelmed with the work. It’s an older house, built in 1928, so things seem to be breaking “all the time” (well, it feels like it). My husband works from home and I work full time, so we have had to outsource a fair bit (cleaning and garden service) and there were times when we just gave up. There was a period of about a year after my first child was born where on the weekends we would just get out of the house for the whole day saturday and sunday because it was too depressing. Since becoming more minimalist, things have gotten easier and I am way more organised these days. We have considered moving to an apartment, which I would love. But I have to admit, the kids do use the garden all the time. They do crafts outside, paint, ride their scooters and bikes. The garden is fully fenced and secure, so we don’t have to watch over them every second and can just leave them to play. So as with everything, there are pros and cons 🙂
Hi! I have been reading your posts for a few years and have yet to comment. I had a hard time relating to your lifestyle, but a part of me longed to sell most of our things and move to a new place, so I kept reading. I must say I was surprised to learn of your intended move, and now I’m reading about your new lifestyle that sounds similar to mine. I live in a rural area 3 miles from a town of about 500. My husband and I have 4 children and various farm animals. While we enjoy the space and enjoy the small farm, I get overwhelmed with the time and money necessary to keep it up. Our oldest two children are 11 and 9 and they help clean bathrooms and vacuum, which is a big help. My youngest two are 5 and 1. And yes, I often carry my 1 year old in a wrap while I work inside or outside. And yes, we have used a monitor when our babies are napping while we worked outside. I can’t speak for others, but we don’t budget for outsourcing the work, but at times I think it would be nice not to have to spend so much time maintaining our home. Good luck to you. I hope the positives outweigh the negatives.
I also recently just “upsized” from a 2 bedroom, 11oo square foot condo to a 3 bedroom (really 4, but one is not a legal bedroom) 1600 square foot house. There are definitely things that are more work, but in my case, there’s a lot that seems like less work too.
For one, I am not wasting any time on HOA board nonsense. This is probably unique to my situation, but I lived in a small condo association of 20 units, and the buildings were depreciating more than we had money for. It always seemed like there was some kind of drama, meetings, emails back and forth, and of course the special assessments. I hated how every time I went to take my kids out to play in the front yard/culdesac of the buildings, neighbors would come by and talk to me about condo business. One of my favorite things about living in a house is that we call the shots. If we want to do something, we don’t need approval, we don’t need to talk to the board and submit three bids, etc., we just do it.
There is definitely more yard work, but we bought a small city house with a pretty manageable yard, and I find I am not schlepping as much: taking the trash out doesn’t require going down a flight of stairs and traversing to the dumpster across the parking lot. Getting kids in and out of a 2 car garage is way easier than the super tight 1 car garage we had at the condo.
I totally agree on the how do people have small kids and live in a house question, though! I am thankful for raising our kids through those small years in a condo. The winter we got totally dumped on with snow I spent inside, snuggling my newborn baby instead of out shoveling. Now they are older, and while I’m not excited about shoveling snow, it won’t be nearly as tough as when they were little.
Anyway, I’m enjoying your posts on this upsizing topic, being in a similar situation and life stage myself.
Very true: you really can do what you like with a house (within building codes) and you can’t say the same with a condo. We never did a big renovation on our condo but most people that did told me it was very stressful to manage having tradespeople come and go and materials delivered. Everything has to go up in an elevator, the elevator has to be locked out and padded, tradespeople need parking and there is limited availability. Our HOA/strata was very pro-active and for a big concrete tower I feel that it ran quite smoothly.
I would always choose inside maintenance work over outside. Yard work is not my jam. A friend of mine, conversely, loves to garden and work outside. We’re trading time with each other so I can help her tame her clutter and purge a ton of stuff, and she can help me take dominion back over my yard.
We have a push mower, which does not mow as well as a gas mower, but I can do it while the kids play outside with me. I am also getting more stringent about the kids pulling their own weight with inside chores. They have daily chores (in addition to the everyday setting the table, clearing, emptying the dishwasher, etc) that help keep the mess from accumulating.
Lastly- I think I will have someone come clean once a month. I did that when I was homeschooling my second and had the two younger ones at home as well, and it was a game-changer.
Lovely to hear about an informal trading of skills and services between friends. 🙂
And yes, having kids pull their weight really helps. My kids are definitely getting better at that and I can see they are much more capable than I give them credit for.
Getting a cleaner: yessss!!
Hmmm… Well, I’ve been in my house 22 years, and it’s just me maintaining it all. I guess my main advice would be that it’s all about attitude and priorities. You don’t have to have a show home, it just has to be safe and somewhat socially acceptable. To that end, I deal with things that really need to be dealt with, and I try to find ways to work around the rest. I’m not a big fan of lawn care, so I’ve been slowly converting the yard to garden and xeriscape (that’s low water landscaping – since water is at a premium here in arid Colorado.)
But there’s also a more subtle thing, and that’s attitude. Years ago I stopped saying that I was “working” on my yard or house, and redefined it as “playing.” Calling it that helps me to keep things in perspective, and to realize that the vast majority of it really is optional. Think of it this way, you’ve traded a gym and a pool for a yard and a house. If you adjust your attitude a bit, both really can fulfil the same role in your life. 🙂
I’m in a very large home which is very much the “Kiwi dream” however I recently made the decision to sell up and will move into an apartment that I can fit 5 or 6 of into my current home! I agree that we need to adjust our living situation as our needs and priorities change – I’m a single woman and whilst I enjoy gardening, and taking pride in my property, at this point I feel my time can be better spent serving others. That will no doubt change in the future as I settle down, and I will find myself in a similar position to you, upsizing again!
I’m a long time reader, but not sure if I’ve commented before 😉 I’m finding this so interesting to read because we’ve been on exactly the opposite path over the past few years. This is the short (very condensed) story…..We lived in a small northern BC community and owned an absolutely overwhelming house and yard. I was really into gardening so we had a separate shop filled with lawn and garden equipment, and a basement filled with stuff we just kind of stashed there instead of dealing with it. I ended up with an injury that turned chronic and my husband travels about once a month for work, so we decided to downsize. Gave away more than half of our stuff and went from 2800 sq. feet of living space plus unfinished basement and shop, to 1100 sq. feet. We have four kids.
Renovated and sold the house, and then moved to the Okanagan for the milder climate. We’re living in a 1400 sq ft townhouse walking distance to a lake, park land, and playground. All the yard work is done by the strata. My husband has access to a much better airport, and teenagers have more opportunities in a community that is three times the size of where we used to live. Housing is a lot more expensive here but downsizing has made it possible to afford. When the kids move out we’d like to be in a condo with an indoor pool!
🙂 Love reading this. And I hope we don’t upsize to a huge yard and bigger house!!! We’re feeling good in this space and it gives us lots of options like having my mom live with us.
Townhouse with strata sounds great. I could see us doing something like that in the future too. Nice to hear you are enjoying the change and that your teenagers enjoy it too.
cleaning doesn’t bother me as much, but house maintenance? Definitely a chore and sometimes literally a pain! I have an old house, so there’s not just yardwork and cleaning, I’ve scraped, painted, repaired and glazed windows, in fact I’ve painted everything inside at least once and after 12 years, some of it needs it again. But there are advantages. We could never have 4 cats in an apartment. I was tired of landlords doing shoddy or no repairs and not being able to update things as I wanted. And I like having an outdoor space and being able to garden. There are times that maintenance and repairs are a real pain, but I often leave it for certain weeks so it’s not taking up all of my time. And you get used to things never ever being done.
I remember when I started house shopping and I naively thought “I have some free time, I can handle some more maintenance.” I had no idea, none, how much time is really involved. I’m glad to see someone talking about this because I think it’s often glossed over.
since you aren’t spending money on HOA fees in a condo can you use that money instead to pay someone to do yard and house maintenance that you don’t enjoy?
I try to be frugal and do everything I can without paying someone else, but if there is something outside my scope of knowledge or enjoyment or if it is going to eat up a TON of my time where a professional could do it faster I will opt to pay to get it done right.
It will get easier once the kids are older, but I think encouraging them to help with the new chores and yard work is a great idea!
I LOVE yard work and maintaining our garden…there is something about the fairly instant reward of it and being close to nature seems rejuvenating…house work…not so much…but we, too, have intentionally kept our house “small” at only 1700 square feet for our family of six. It is plenty of space since we keep it fairly simple but others often comment about us “out-growing” it or if we have plans to add on. It’s ok if they don’t get it 🙂 …and I like your new profile picture!!! Looks great!
This is nice to hear. I think we could enjoy the outdoor work – I really like being outside. And it seems a lot more manageable now that the kids are older.
Thanks re: the profile pic 🙂 Just updated a few things. I started this blog in 2009. I barely recognize myself in some of the older photos!!!
I had to chuckle at this post because it’s all about perspective! I am leaving a 6 acre piece of property, with a small farmhouse, to move to a house that sits on a small lot, but the home has 3128 sq. feet!
I can’t wait to leave this acreage, where we are constantly fixing fences, mowing acres of grass, having to take care of horses and spending a fortune to keep up with tractors and mowers and other tools. Uggg!
On the contrast, in our new “city” home, we have a nice, fenced in back yard, which I can see from corner to corner, so it doesn’t intimidate me like the land did. And, even though my new house is about 2 1/2 times the size of my farmhouse, I’m actually looking forward to having a schedule, where I know everything has been touched at least once a week. Here in my little box of a house, I can’t keep a good schedule because we use all the rooms constantly, and there is no empty (or barely used) spaces to keep nicely done.
Anyway, I think it’s interesting to listen to different perspectives of people who move, so thanks for letting me leave a comment 🙂
Hahah! Yes I met someone in our town that recently moved from an apartment to an 8 acre farm. It was good to hear her perspective on the lifestyle change. Enjoy your new digs 🙂
Yes! I bought into the ‘American Dream’…get married, buy a house, have kids, get a dog, husband has long commute….I want the condo/apartment now that my kids are leaving the nest and I’ve been reflecting a lot on all the ‘lost’ time and money that this house took from us. I’ve lived this house and the life we created here, but I do wonder how much richer our every day living would’ve been without it.
Thanks for sharing here, Kris. It’s good to hear from people that are years out from this lifestyle and can reflect a bit more on it. I see us downsizing back to a condo when the kids are out of the house too. For now, we’re trying to enjoy all that outdoor time together picking up leaves 🙂
I outsourced the cleaning. Growing veggies and fruit in the back yard is what I grew up with with my grandma. Gardening is my joy and my workout. Plus my toddler learns where food comes from. Seeing him romp through the backyard snacking on tomatoes, lettuce and berries makes growing food fun. We also have a chicken coop, where he learns how to take care ofanimals and collects fresh eggs.
Maintenance work in the house is not quite as exciting, but since I sit in front of a PC all day it is a good change of pace. I like that my kid will learn how to use tools and fix things by himself. Tinkering with tools and building things ican be very creative.
This is great to hear. Appreciate your positive perspective about the work involved. I did rake some leaves the other day before dinner… after a 5 hour work day in front of a computer. You’re right – it was a really nice change of pace.
I think you are forgetting an option–not giving a f*ck lol! That’s the method a lot of my mom friends prescribe to–allowing a lot of messiness during this stage of life and not caring what others think about it. A lot of my friends felt ashamed/nervous/embarrassed when they came to our house because it was always clean. The difference is that I KNEW they were coming, so I invited them to just show up. We all now feel better that we can show up to each other’s houses with un-mowed lawns, dirty dishes covering the counters, and mounds of laundry covering all surfaces. It’s awesome. I no longer feel the pressure to keep a constantly tidy and clean home and neither do my friends. We can just enjoy each other’s company without that pressure 🙂
Megyn, you nailed it. That’s how we survive!! Condos are so insanely priced where we live–it would be twice our house value plus the monthly condo fee. So the extra work is the only real option for our budget. Or, I should say, doing the extra work at least occasionally. . . We have had a big remodel/replace project once a year. Try to feel the immense satisfaction of demolishing something terrible and replacing it.
Hahaha! Yes, I know that option well. It’s how I survived three young kids while my husband traveled a lot for work.
We have a largish home and an acre and a half of land that is pretty neglected, tbh. It helps that our house is brand new, so not a ton of repairs, but lots of projects that we want to complete.
We homeschool four kids and I absolutely love the freedom of being able to send them outside to run around, jump on the trampoline, ride bikes, etc. It is what saves my sanity on a daily basis. But aside from that, it’s definitely a time and money suck and I tell that to my renting friends all the time whenever they express any envy.
We’re enjoying that easy outdoor access here too. This house is 25 years old and in pretty good shape so that helps. I love all the old character homes in this town but knew we didn’t have the bandwidth/time/skills to own one of them!
We had a half acre of mostly lawn when our girl were babies 21 months old and a newborn. I mowed the lawn myself with an electric mower! I was only 23 and full of energy…literally I was moving from 5 am until 10 pm every day for years. Big house too. Yes it was a lot of work but great exercise.
I think you will adjust and find it quite manageable. If it becomes too much their always teens and others looking for work.
I only hear horror stories about condo ownership. Glad it worked for you.When we sell our house we will rent!
How are you finding grocery shopping? Do,you have much choice? Are the prices higher than Vancouver? Would love a log post about that side of your small town adjustment.
Yes some of my perspective is from a fairly tired almost 40 mum of three young kids. At 23 I had LOADS of energy!
Grocery shopping is fine. Similar prices to Vancouver. Produce in the grocery stores isn’t great but there are some local options. And we bought a 40lb box of apples – something we didn’t have room for in our condo – and starting to realize some savings from being able to buy in bulk. The real savings though is we almost never eat out here. The plethora of nice cafes in our old neighbourhood was very tempting! I’ll post more about that once we’ve put a couple months in and can compare costs.
Condo ownership: I’ve heard terrible stories too. We lived in a concrete building – I would never live in a wood build condo. We had a great building manager, nice amenities and mostly good neighbours (huge issues with AirBnB though).
I absolutely resonate with this! I have six young kids (ages 1-8), and we homeschool, so I don’t have a lot of time to devote to our house and yard. I have visions of a well-manicured, beautiful yard, but that’s not my reality, nor will it be for quite some time! For now, I usually spend several days in the spring cleaning out flower beds and the garden, then maybe a couple of afternoons every month or so giving them a bit of maintenance. I’m actually in the process of planting grass in a couple of my beds to minimize the weeding I have to do! My husband does the mowing, but it doesn’t happen as often as I (or the neighbors, probably) would prefer. Our house is old and needs a fair amount of work, and for the past several years we seem to have taken on one “larger” project each year. Our budget requires us to do the work ourselves, and that us the most we can handle (and the process is sloooow). I think the main thing, as with most other parts of life, is to decide what is important to you, and do those things, and let the rest go. Like the commenter above, I look forward someday to having a well-cared-for house and yard, but for now I’m trying to have a well-cared-for family, which means that the house and yard is not the top of my priority list, and for now I’m (mostly) okay with that.
Retirement = beautiful garden, right? 🙂
We, too, have more projects to complete than time allows. “People before things” is my goal, and I like to think that the neighbors just want to see that we’re trying. Also, happy playing children must add something to property values, right? (PS we’re homeschoolers, too)
Haha, we own a largerish home (2600sq ft) and an acre. I would have liked a smaller home but homes with land where I live are few and far between so we had to take what we can get. But my kids are 5.5, 3.5, 2, and newborn, and yes, that’s exactly what I do. Strap the kid to me in a carrier or put them in their car seat to nap outside while I work. Or bring the baby monitor out. Working definitely takes longer as I usually have the kids “help” or they are outside, which sometimes takes more attention, but I love it! That may be the difference. I love doing outside work and making our little spot beautiful and functional (garden, animals, yard, etc). I do not like indoor housework and pay a cleaner every two weeks. If hat means I get to do more outside and not have to worry about house cleaning, it is more than worth it!
Oh Jenna – love your candidness about hiring a cleaner so you can focus on the work you enjoy. I love being outside so so far the little bits of work I have done with the kids around has been enjoyable. And we’ve got the time for it here. If I’m doing something outside my husband is making dinner and vice versa.
The short answer is yes, I did/do it all with a baby strapped to my chest or back. My husband unexpectedly needed back surgery when the baby was nine months old, so I mowed, raked and used the snow blower all with the little one in tow. And your transition sounds familiar – we spent 8+ years in an apartment with two kids before buying a house (the littlest one arrived after the move). It’s a ton of work. It never stops and it’s rough on the budget. It’s not for everyone, but pleasure can be found in the responsibility, and I hope you feel confident in your decision.
#supermom. I feel that we will get used to it – and get the kids even more involved over time. Our lot is a 1/4 acre which is plenty for us and has a big flat grassy backyard with a few tress on the perimeter. Not too much work. I think right now our bigger hurdle is ignorance – we really just don’t know what has to be done and how to do it. My brother is coaching us 🙂
Thank you, but no – moms just do what needs to be done. Your yard sounds just right. We have several beautiful mature trees that I love, but they are work to mow around and so much to rake (oaks take a LONG time to lose their leaves). It’s been almost three years and my dad is still coaching us. It’s amazing what goes into maintaining these homes.
We have a small garden at each side of the house- one has a chicken in it and a run for the rabbit- he keeps the moss/grass in check! I occasionally hack the bushes back but other than that I just sweep the patio every few weeks.
The front garden is quite messy and overgrown.. I could spend ages keeping them neat, but I’m not that bothered and messy is better for wildlife!
I don’t mind the housework, mainly because I enjoy the house much more when everything is neat! As for maintenance, I’d never really considered that a flat would be less maintenance- it wasn’t really an option for us in any case. In a flat we’d still have a boiler/appliances to break and need replacing…and the window cleaner clears out the gutters for us once a year! (Window cleaning is about £13 every couple of months).
I think my main conclusion with cleaning is that I do the minimum in order to feel comfortable in the house, and not force myself to spend all my time cleaning! I try and do some each day, rather than spending a whole day. (For example, we vacuum the house every morning as we have a lot of pets, but that only takes about 10 mins). It feels less like a chore if it is just part of the every day routine, I think.
You’ve figured out how to be Zen about home and yard work 🙂
Most flats/apartments/condos where I am from have central hot water heating that is piped in to your unit – no hot water tank/boiler for you to maintain. And our heating was electric so no furnace to worry about. Anything inside the walls is the responsibility of the strata of the building. For instance when a unit above us had a leak that came into our bathroom the strata arranged and paid for all the clean up and repair. They also maintained and cleaned the pool downstairs and the gym. It was a much different life than here! Although we are a very short walk to the pool in this town.
Personally, I’m looking forward to retirement, when I will have ample time to beat the yard into submission. I love growing things, but a yard is the black hole of time.
Thank you for saying this! I see all these lovely gardens and yards in our new neighbourhood and… all the owners are retired. For now we plan to just keep things tidy and doing some planting and gardening with the kids.