Prioritizing Wants
In today’s post over at 2000 Dollar Wedding, I delineate our financial goals for both the short- and long-term (and mention a financial blog that I have started reading from start to finish–thanks to a suggestion in the comments!). One of our long-term goals is to live in an eco-friendly, comfortable, and fun house. We’re homebodies much of the time, and we want to create a home that feels like a retreat, a sanctuary. We want to create the home that Henry (and hopeful his sibling) bring their friends to. We want to have casual parties and impromptu gatherings. I want our home to be the center of our lives in many ways, which is why I’m fine making it a financial priority both in the short- and long-term.
I’ve talked some about what kind of yard we want to have. It includes:
- A large deck for eating, relaxing, reading, entertaining. We will need to purchase patio furniture (a table for guests, as well as loungers), procure some plants or build some kind of beds with benches to make the space feel more intimate and not too expansive, and likely hang some sun shades to mitigate the intense Central Texas sun.
- A swimming pool for nearly seven months of water fun. This will be expensive! I wish, wish, wish we could fold it into our mortgage, but there’s no way we could afford it.
- Raised beds for growing food
- Fruit trees
- A chicken coop
- An herb garden (maybe this could go in planters on the deck?)
- A fire pit
- A grassy area for playing
- A large fence around the perimeter so Hoss and the kids can roam freely
- A welcoming path to the front door
- A zero-scaped front yard
- Rain barrels
- Solar panels
- Potentially steps down to the creek with a cleared out area for hanging out and relaxing
- Maybe a Bocce ball court (I know we could just play on grass, but it’s easier to take care of a rectangle of crushed granite rather than grass!)
- Maybe a wood-working studio some day
- Hmm…what if we build a studio apartment in the back and rent it out to someone who is interested in community?
Inside we’re going to need:
- A king-sized bed
- Bedside tables
- Closet shelves for every closet
- Bar stools
- Sectional couch
- Giant rug for the living room
- Tiled backsplash in the kitchen
- Washer/dryer
We’re definitely going to have to purchase these things in stages, since we won’t be able to afford it all at once. We’ll have to make a prioritized list, so that we purchase the most important things first. There’s a lot to think about!
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REMINDER: The next Purposeful Conception Course: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy starts September 16. Register today! We’d love to have you join us!
3 Comments
Sarah
Hi Sara,
I can totally relate to this post. We built a new home last year (moved in just over one year ago), and it's a home that we are growing into, since we plan to stay in it for good. We have a long list of purchases/improvements we'd like to make (which keeps growing). We try to decide what's next on the priority list that we're currently saving for and work from there. I also try to just enjoy our lovely home instead of always thinking/talking about how we want to change it. It's still definitely better (for us) than anywhere else we've lived or would have been able to find already built.
Good luck!
saracotner
Thank you for the reminder to enjoy it while we're always working to improve it, Sarah!
Katina
Hello
I would suggest creating a pallet garden. We've made a few now for our balcony and the place they create for us is lovely. We used this as a tutorial –
http://lifeonthebalcony.com/how-to-turn-a-pallet-into-a-garden/