So as you know if you read my bio, my husband is a general contractor.  I am obviously biased, being married to him and all, but also from an architectural designer standpoint, he’s a damn good one. Good husband too, but in this post, I am talking about his builder skills.  Recently, he completed a ground-up build for our dear old friends.  They aren’t “old” as they are our age, just that we have known them for a long ass time.  So they are old friends.  The house is in our beloved city of Redondo Beach, tucked in the rear of a cul de sac.  It is over 5,000 square feet with a front yard AND a huge backyard.  The envy of all in this area where yards are scarce because houses are built-out to the max along all property lines.  The compound is gorgeous.  I call it the McMansion: coastal plantation style with everything a young family could dream of.  And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING.  Dreamy, state of the art  kitchen, wine cellar, butler’s pantry, indoor/outdoor entertainment spaces, 5 bedrooms, bathrooms that would make you swoon, a master closet just for her that feels bigger than my house…  I mean, the works. And people, I am jealous.  This family deserves this house like no other.  Mom and dad both work their tails off and this house is the culmination of their labors.  Years went into this house and now, as they move in, the fruits of their time and occasional tears are all coming together in a beautiful fashion.  The architect husband and interior designer wife team that they hired did an incredible job.  And my husband, though the friendship may have felt some strain at times, has walked away with another stunning build under his belt.

I did a walk-through of this house a few weeks back.  I took in the spaces with joy and anticipation for our friends and walked away with the biggest smile on my face.  They are going to LOVE their new house!  I could not be more happy for them!  I felt invigorated and inspired and with this renewed sense of awe, I drove home.  But those feelings fell away to a slight depression by the time I reached my own driveway.  I looked around… at my shack.  My home… and I felt the jealousy set in.  I couldn’t pinpoint it at first, but after a few days, I fully understood what it was.  It was house envy.  I fell into a selfish, me, me, me attitude trap and it felt icky.  “I want a new home.”  “I want to entertain with ease.”  “I want a walk-in closet just for me.”

How immature am I?  Why couldn’t I just be grateful for what I have?  Grumble grumble…

A week ago or so, I did a similar walk through of another beautiful house of another family friend.  This house was smaller, done by a reputable design/build firm in the area. It boasted thoughtful design features, gorgeous materials, a smaller but lovely backyard and it was modern, (my favored style) and the family moved in last October.  It was then that it hit me.  Envy struck again!  WTF?  But this time, it was home envy.

And here it is…  House Envy vs. Home Envy.

Let me explain.  The bigger house, the monster one which my husband built, was still devoid of life when I did the walk-through.  The smaller house, which was different but equally beautiful had been lived in and it felt like a home.  Both were new houses but the smaller one was where my heart actually fluttered.  I saw how the family functioned within the spaces,  I saw the rooms being used and how they were filled with the stylish personal touches of the family that lived there.  It was perfection.  Functional, organized, and styled to a tee.

That was my “AHA!” moment.

I will get my new house eventually.  I’m in the thick of our Building Department re-submittal so it will be a while yet, but it’s coming along.  In the next year we too will go through our own trials and tribulations of building a new house.  I don’t have house envy, I have home envy.  Because I do not desire a 5,000+ square foot house.  (I can’t afford to fill one that large, let alone clean that shit!)  But what I do want is a home. Period.  A place to decorate.  A place to style.  I want a place for everything my family owns to be just where it needs to be.  I want to organize the crap out of my life in hopes that my crazy organizing will create a home.  A home that my family can live in comfortably and chaotically happily in.  It wasn’t the walk-in closet and all the bells and whistles that got to me, it was the pang of anticipation.  Once that McMansion has haphazard toys lying about and unfolded laundry in it, that’s when it will evolve into a true home.  Making breakfasts but alas eating on the run.  Helping the children with homework and sweeping away the eraser crumbs from the countertop…  You do all those lame and mundane things in a home.  So yeah, I have home envy.  I want a home to call my own.

But wait a second…  I already have a home.  Now.  And I am grateful.  Do I need a new designer couch to make me feel complete?  No.  It would make me happy for a beat I suppose, but I look around my home as it is today and I am proud; contented in what we have here.  I sit on my unidentified food stained IKEA couch and I am already happy.  My family has already created a home of sorts here in this shoe-box and we will do it again in our new house once it’s built.  Maybe yet again somewhere else in the future?  We’ll take whatever house we end up with and create a home within it with the hopes of living in comfort and the many chaotic happinesses that are yet to come.

Keep dreaming friends, and keep creating your home everyday.

-K

Apologies for the hiatus.  Life happened… a 200 hr. Yoga Teacher Training happened, a quick consulting job for me, plus mini vacations and school transitions…

But I think I’m ready to get back on track!

I suppose I should have written this post first before anything else.  A little glimpse into my life with a family of four in a 1,200 SF house.  Here’s how we have been living in the “shoe-box” for the past 10+ years.

Our house was first constructed in the 1920’s.  There were some illegal additions and renovations in the 1970’s, mainly the living unit above the garage.  For the first 5 years or so, (waaaay before children were even a figment of our imaginations) we had tenants in the rear illegal unit.  First, a nice single guy in the aerospace industry who “came with” the property when we bought the place in November of 2003.  When he got married and moved out, we rented it to a newly-wed couple with whom we are friends with ’til this day.  After our renter friends moved into their new house, my husband used the 2 room space as his home office.  To this day, it’s still his home office with a few modifications.

When our second son arrived in March of 2015, we moved all our beds up into this space. It’s a weird scenario because the unit is completely detached from the main house at the rear of the property.  Great as a rental or an office, but majorly awkward when you try to use it as an integral part of everyday living…  Therefore rain or shine, our nighttime ritual looks a bit like this: bathe the children, go outside through a converted closet, climb a flight of rickety stairs, and put the kids to bed.  It’s annoying as $h–, but it works for now.  This arrangement also frees up the back room in our 2-room “main” house for the kids.  “What? An entire half of your already tiny hole-in-the-wall is dedicated to the children?!?!”  Yes.  Yes it is…  I admit it’s pathetic that an entire 1/2 of the main structure is devoted to the children and their comfort, but such is life at the moment.

It’s tight and super awkward right?  Now you can plainly see exactly why building a new house is such an exciting prospect for us.  3 floors of space.  It’s still going to be small, but so much more than what we currently live with.

Basically, I am constantly giddy because I am constantly thinking about the new house. With all of the hurdles we have endured thus far and despite knowing full well there will be countless challenges yet to overcome, I can’t wait.  We started the City submittal process around July-September of 2016.  It is now July of 2018 and we have yet to acquire a building permit.  Don’t ask…  It’s been a f-ing process.  If you have ever submitted a set of plans in any jurisdiction, you already know that an approval on the 1st pass does not exist.  There are corrections, then more corrections.  Hoops to jump through, etc. etc.  I’m hoping for an approval by the end of this year?  It’s laughable to think that when we first started the process, our unattainable hopes of demo-ing our shoe-box was by the summer of 2018.  HAHAHA!!!  A whole 2 years of jumping through said hoops and here we are, still twiddling our thumbs.  It’s not all the City’s fault either.  We had to get our finances in line, and I admit to procrastinating on some of the corrections due to… you know,  life happening.   It’s akin to running a marathon.  Slow and steady to the finish. With several blisters, cramped muscles and painful chaffing guaranteed before crossing the finish line to retrieve our medals.  We’ll get there eventually.  We may be crawling across the finish line after all the other participants have already gone to the beer garden for their celebratory drinks, but it will all come to an end someday.

So until demo-day is scheduled, we will continue to live our lives as we know it today. Devoting 1/2 of a house to kids’ crap, and strangely plodding up a rickety set of termite ridden steps to our beds.  Laughing and cuddling as we go.

-K

I recently posted on lighting in a house.  A key portion of any building set includes a detailed electrical plan.  In a nutshell, these sheets show the reflected ceiling plan of all floors (if you have multiple) as well as locations of plugs, switch locations and their associated switch legs.  Some fancy homes these days may have separate plans for home automation, security, and other electrified things.  Your architect will draw these up preferably with the help from an electrical engineer or consultant.  This post is a bit of a warning.  If you are building a custom home, decipher and understand these electrical sheets!  If they look like a foreign language to you, set a meeting with whomever drew them and get to know exactly what you are getting and where things are located.  Don’t be shy about letting the designer know your daily electrical needs.

In this age of technology, you need to understand where things will be plugged in and how your family will function with the myriad of electronics throughout the home.  Your designer will not be living in your house and get annoyed that the switch to your bathroom light is behind the door swing and you’ll have to reach around, or close the door just check if you have spinach between your teeth.  Nor will they ever know the dire necessity of a plug specifically for a phone charging station is missing in the foyer because it was not specified.  Don’t let them get away with putting just the code required bare minimum in willy nilly.  Because believe me, it’s  enough.

Every plug and every light switch in my new house is designed to be in its exact location for a reason.  My furniture is laid out, I have inventoried all my family’s vital electronics, and I know where my lights, switches and plugs need to go.

Example: I’m Japanese and I have a plug specifically for my 10 cup rice cooker because well, rice happens at least 5 days a week in my house…

Coordinate with your interior designer if you have one.  He/She will give you invaluable insight into things you didn’t even know you needed.  1/2 hot switched in bedrooms for one.  The ones that turn on the bedside table lamp from a switch on the wall.  How about where your Christmas tree will live in your living room or that tangle of exterior lights you put up every year if that’s something you do?  No one wants to trip over a 20 foot extension cord every day during holiday season!  If home automation is in your future, get to know your keypad locations like the back of your hand.  Which reminds me that that can be a whole other post for another day.

The bigger the house, the more complicated electricity can get.  So don’t pass over the electrical plans because they don’t look like much initially.  They are actually packed full of information that can have grave consequences down the line.  We are blessed to have illumination with a flick of a switch or a touch of a button.  Our electrical components should make life flow effortlessly, not create frustrations!

-K