Enough of the Big Dream Home !

On a related note, the heavy side gate on my ppor had a broken hinge (hinge rusted shut and door fallen off basically) for 3 or 4 months and I spent ages trying to wrestle with it to get the old hinge off so I could get a new one in. Anyway after one failed attempt a month ago (without the proper tools) I couldn't be bothered with it anymore and got a property maintenance guy around today to fix it. $55 and job done in 30 mins. BARGAIN! Time and time again I find it's cheaper to get the professionals in.
 
you learn there is no point mopping the tiles every week when 5 minutes later they are grubby
Oh yes, and choose your finishes not purely on how good they look in the showroom - but how good they'll look after you've lived on them. Having just had the opportunity (thanks, flood) to re-select all my fittings and fixtures, the primary emphasis has been on things that don't look filthy with a bit of "usage". ;)

Tiles - matt rather than gloss, medium tone rather than very dark or very light, mottled and/or textured rather than even-toned.

Carpet - textured rather than smooth, colour variation rather than even-toned. We've gone for this one, which I think will take a lot of usage without it showing.

Stainless steel / chrome - satin finish rather than high polish.

Cupboard doors - colour and/or texture variation rather than 2-pack.

I'm tempted to have a concrete house that we could just hose out once in a while! :D
Casserole Dish said:
Remember quality time with the wife and kids isn't all about trips out to zoos, parks and cafes (although that can make a nice 'once off' now and again). Its the daggy times at home when you are hosing them off on a 35 degree evening while they squeal with delight on the trampoline (using tank water ofcourse). This is how my hubby waters the grass (beer in hand as standard).
Fantastic point. I try hard to remember that one's life is made up of everyday moments, not just the "big events". Many of my best memories from childhood are simple things, like cooking meals with Mum, doing gardening with my parents, etc, not necessarily the holidays and big outings.

Since our life is primarily made up of everyday events, it's more important to try and learn to enjoy and savour those everyday events, than to fit in more outings. (I don't always achieve this, but it's a goal!)
Remember that you should never be a slave to your abode, it is somewhere to live and it is totally unnecessary to have everything in it's designated place at all times. You also do not need to disinfect the place every day. Relax, the only person concerned about whether your place looks as tidy as a show home is you. Mostly people will feel out of place in such a house because they would be worried about upsetting you by moving the cushions on the settee. Get a life, live in your home not for it!!:)

We have delivered three well adjusted and balanced children to advance Australia and they were bred and brought up and coached in a home not a house.
Spot on!
 
I am probably the worst housekeeper in Australia ( but my friends understand and love me anyway!) but and this is a biggie, all of my children's friends LOVE to come here. We have a big house on 5 acres and it is not unusual for us to have 15 or more kids here for a weekend. (I only gave birth to 3)

The benefits to us are that we know where our kids are....they are playing right here. We have an open door policy here that has worked well for us as our kids reach adulthood. If they drink here, they sleep here - no need to ask permission. There have been quite a few mornings I have stepped over sleeping bodies to get to the kitchen but at least they weren't drink driving!

I know your kids are much younger but that stage is SOOOO short. before you know it you will be hosting play overs and sleep overs and with a bigger house you actually might get some sleep! We are actually building a new shed (6x9) that we are going to fully line for the teen parties that happen here.( also DS is planning on taking up the drums:eek:)

Relax your standards a bit and if you can afford it get some help in. The benefits will be fabulous.
 
Wow ! Some excellent feedback thank you !

Lowering clean & tidy standards. This is more difficult than I thought. It's like been aware of something and then trying to switch if off. No matter how hard I try and not look at the floor I can help but thinking of when I can sneak the vacuum cleaner out to clean :eek:

I try and practice been in the 'now' and with so many things to catch up with sometimes it's challenging.

I like the idea of ripping out all the hedges ... they look great but are time consuming. I like the idea of investigating how I can minimising gardening too. Maybe a project I can run with a few volunteers here where we could do before and after photos ? :) :) :)
 
Maybe get some advice on how to set your place up to be low maintenance.


I am probably the worst housekeeper in Australia ( but my friends understand and love me anyway!) but and this is a biggie, all of my children's friends LOVE to come here. We have a big house on 5 acres and it is not unusual for us to have 15 or more kids here for a weekend. (I only gave birth to 3)

The benefits to us are that we know where our kids are....they are playing right here. We have an open door policy here that has worked well for us as our kids reach adulthood. If they drink here, they sleep here - no need to ask permission. There have been quite a few mornings I have stepped over sleeping bodies to get to the kitchen but at least they weren't drink driving!

I know your kids are much younger but that stage is SOOOO short. before you know it you will be hosting play overs and sleep overs and with a bigger house you actually might get some sleep! We are actually building a new shed (6x9) that we are going to fully line for the teen parties that happen here.( also DS is planning on taking up the drums:eek:)

Relax your standards a bit and if you can afford it get some help in. The benefits will be fabulous.

So very very true. This is how we have planned our situation to be. In this day and age far better to have the kids and their friends around rather than worrying where they are.
 
You think you have maintenance issues on a suburban block. Try living on acreage :D

Seriously, though, as others have suggested already, prioritising is the key. Chill about the little things, reduce the gardens to hedges and enjoy your family. Or else, do what I do and rope the kids into helping out (it's fun!). Life's too short :)
 
Remember quality time with the wife and kids isn't all about trips out to zoos, parks and cafes (although that can make a nice 'once off' now and again). Its the daggy times at home when you are hosing them off on a 35 degree evening while they squeal with delight on the trampoline (using tank water ofcourse). This is how my hubby waters the grass (beer in hand as standard).

ABSOLUTELY


I have to agree with some here who have said to relax your standards a little. We have a 3 year old and sometimes when she pulls out all the toys I have just put away during her nap, I think longingly of the "single years" where my time was my own and my house was spotless, (wouldn't go back though).

A few months ago hubbie was whinging how it seemed that our house was always a mess with toys strewn about and we got invited to a BBQ at an aquaintences house. The place was a mess and they had tidied up! As soon as we got in the car when we were leaving I said to hubbie "don't you ever say our house is untidy again" He just said "yep" with a stunned look on his face.

My point is what you consider to be slightly below standard could very well be what people generally consider to be OK.

Relax slightly, enjoy your children, before you know it they'll be teenagers who wouldn't want to be seen with their parents for fear of embarassment.:D
 
I have an older child who is borderline OCD - she randomly cleans and organises the house in a very spooky fashion. We pretty much never do it. The last time the mess got unbearably bad was the first time (she's read it several more times since and this is only in the last 2 months) she read Harry Potter and didn't really emerge from her room the entire time.

This child is having issues grappling with the fact the baby will just muddle around with blocks or play with toys instead of sorting them by size, subsorted by colour like she would. So you get this amusing situation where the baby just picks up a random block to taste and the older child snatches the blocks off the baby, rearranges them by colour and goes "no! I'm sure she meant to put them in *this* order" :confused:

When she was a toddler she used to break into my sock drawer and sort all my socks by colour and put them back in neatly. She sorts the books in the bookshelf by size and arranges rocks and junk in the backyard into rows, like some kind of bizarre crop circles. My new toddler is more likely to remove my socks and put them in the toilet, then steal the books and post them outside through the cat flap.
 
This child is having issues grappling with the fact the baby will just muddle around with blocks or play with toys instead of sorting them by size, subsorted by colour like she would. So you get this amusing situation where the baby just picks up a random block to taste and the older child snatches the blocks off the baby, rearranges them by colour and goes "no! I'm sure she meant to put them in *this* order" :confused:

Please never make them share a bedroom! :) I was like your 'OCD' daughter, and my sister was the COMPLETE opposite, an absolute SLOB! We shared a bedroom for a few years and it was absolute torture on my part! I loved the day I got my own bedroom, everything was perfect and you couldn't see the floor in my sisters room. Loved it even more when I moved out of home and have my absolutely perfectly tidy home. I can't even stand seeing a strand of my long dark hair on the floor and have to pick it up! Clearly, I don't have children. :D
 
Replying a bit late to this thread. I've been following it, but I can't reply from work.

We downsized from a $440K 4BR executive home in a regional town to a $255K modest, mostly original 3BR bungalow in a regional city. It was (a) to have a wider ranger of amenities and (b) to work our equity a bit better.

The maintenance was not directly a factor. We have about the same amount of land and neither garden is really high-maintenance. The smaller house is in some ways a bit harder to clean - there are tighter corners when going around with a vacuum, that sort of thing, and the modest house has two fireplaces so we do get a lot of dust buildup over time. So don't necessarily assume that a smaller house will be easier maintenance - that's a very individual thing that has less to do with size and more to do with features, finishes, layouts, and in the case of the garden, how it's engineered.

That said, having downsized and moved closer to amenities, I am really glad we did it. I wouldn't personally downsize to an apartment with kids, but a townhouse with a small garden? You betcha.

We didn't lose much amenity - we lost the fourth bedroom and the ensuite, and we also lost the biiiiig pantry (I do miss that). But we still have two living spaces and they're much more practical than at the old place. We still have the same furniture - the lounge room, for instance, is just a bit shorter (a bit less space between the lounge and the TV).

I will say that you won't have time in any home if you can't let go on the cleaning a bit. My husband is like that - his idea of cleaning the bathroom is spending an hour scrubbing with Gumption. Mine is dunking an old facewasher in disinfectant and wiping every surface. It takes 5-10 minutes, with a quick dose of Exit Mould and Jax every couple of months to take care of any icky buildup. And I have to tell you, the bathroom looks just as clean when I do it.

Same goes for vacuuming - he does every skirting board and corner. I just do the main traffic pathways and only do the corners when they really need it. I'll grant his way looks better in the vacuuming stakes, but only a mean in-law is going to check your skirtings for dust IMO.

Mopping? He boils water and puts it in a bucket (which quickly gets dirty), and mops wet and leaves it to dry for an hour and wrings the mop out and huffs and puffs. I carry disinfectant with me and sprinkle small amounts straight on the floor, no bucket needed. I mop it with a microfibre mop and then throw the microfibre thing in the washing machine. And because I use only the minimum liquid needed and mop with microfibre, it's dry in minutes. (He can't bring himself to do it my way, but he acknowledges that it's better and gets me to do it!)
 
your husband sounds like the "do it once, do it well" sort.

i can't do things by halves anymore. i get my wife to do a lot of things becaus ei know if i do it, i'll spend forever and obsess about it.

gold.
 
I like the idea of ripping out all the hedges ... they look great but are time consuming. I like the idea of investigating how I can minimising gardening too. Maybe a project I can run with a few volunteers here where we could do before and after photos ? :) :) :)

Just get an electric hedge trimmer. It's quick and easy...
 
Hi Everyone, after years of dreaming about a big place we finally achieved this 18mths ago after years of hard work. We have a good grip on our loan and quite comfortable with the repayments. :)

We bought our dream home. 4 bedroom+ study, 3 bathrooms, DLUG, inground pool, 1000 sq metre block, private yard backing onto reserve. It's a lovely home.

I am still in the corporate world and a decent income. Wife stays home and looks after our 2 kids (3yr old and new born) full time :)

After 18mths we are however fairly stressed out as the maintenance that goes with our dream home NEVER seems to end. Cleaning pool, vacuuming, hedges, lawn mowing, pruning and general maintenance. Whilst I enjoy doing these things it means I need to sacrifice quality family time and feel it's not doing the kids/ wife any good.

The Mrs and I are starting to realise that we are not in fact spending the quality time we need with our kids as we are always trying to catch up on some maintenance. Is it all really worth it ? :confused: Hmmm.

I have broken down maintenance and looked at outsourcing some of the tasks however it becomes fairly expensive and been quite particular about how things are done I am not sure it will work.

So ... we are considering renting out our PPOR (deductions would be a bonus) and finding a 3 bedder unit until the kids get a bit older. As crazy as this sounds this is the situation we have found ourselves in and just wandering if anyone else has made such a dramatic change going from a big home to a unit ? If so I would be interested in hearing thoughts here. After all life is too short !

Rip out hedge, change all the plants to drought resistant natives, set the lawnmower to a slightly higher cut to give it that slightly shaggy look and put in one of those self cleaning pool systems, and/or pay the kids some extra pocket money (which they have to give back to you for their investment account that you have set up for them ;)) to skim the pool every day when they get home from school. Takes 5 minutes. Or; do it yourself while sipping on a chardy/beer/gin and tonic and soaking in your great life so far....heaven.

You're obsessing too much. :D
 
Tracey - I really don't know how you do it!!

That's exactly why we are not ready for a Macmansion. Had a taste of it before..omigosh 700m2 block = 6 to 10 bags of mowing!! and up to 3 hours...the weeding omg..

the swimming pool...absolute nightmare

at home by myself - scared

and dusting all the timber blinds in a 2 storey house, cleaning the architraves, the stairs, the vacuuming, the mopping..........it's way too much work.

we now live in a very cosy house. It's only about 24sq but has 5 bedrooms. My house is absolutely spotless all the time and all the kids rooms are right nxt to our room. I have 7mth old twins and a 4year old. It has 2 living rooms, perfect as we don't have to fight over tv. Hardly any garden...yay! it's just very low maintenance. There's really enough housework already in a small house....

My friends with macmansions...the house doesn't look nice inside coz it's always messy and dirty. Unless you spend all day cleaning. in Brisbane, especially...it's ridiculously dusty..I have to mop the tiles everyday..otherwise it's sticky. Vacuum takes 10 mins, mopping takes 10 mins.

But I think we need a bigger place when the kids are older..but not until they are old enough to help out with chores.

My son who's 4y.o cleans up his toys and makes his bed every morn already.

For me, family time I have to get out of the house...since I'm a stay at home mum. We spend every weekend out and about...great quality of life and then get home to a very clena house..not have to worry about cleaning all the time.

Hubby takes about 1 hour to mow the lawn every 2 mths, weeds are done in 20 mins every mth..it's so much easier.

For the next house, we will probably buy a 500sqm block, build a 26sq+ house and concrete the whole backyard.

tracey - gloss tiles is so much easier to mop than mat tiles! I need to my house to really be clean, not just hide the dirt lol next time i'm definately getting gloss tiles
 
also, with your kids being so young, it's really important to keep the house clean.

We don't wear shoes in the house. I also find that being clean rubs off on the kids, taking care of yur things teaches your kids to respect their own things and also repect other ppl's thing. My son is really behaved at other people's houses too. I've been making his bed from day 1 and now he does it himself and he's so proud of it.

My friends (no kids yet) lives in a 2br apt and still devotes an entire saturday to cleaning.

I know I sound crazy clean but I don't actually spend that much time cleaning coz once your house is clean, well it's really easy to keep it clean. But i do get stressed out on mondays abit coz I have a policy that I do nothing all weekend and for some reason hubby thinks it applies to him too eventhough he does bare minimum during the week..except for work. but his job isn't stressful, he loves it. But then our house is small too.

anyone can show up unannounced.

also, hubby is terrible....he never put things back after he uses it..i'm always cleaning after him. even lil things that pushing the chair back in at the dining table. I would die of stress if we lived in a huge house with loads of furniture, 2 x dining rooms, 4 x living rooms and 4 x bathrooms. Until he ca be responsible for himself at the very least..we rae not moving to a bigger house.

I build macmansions as a living (finishing up a 42sq) for others/Ip but the idea of us living there is scary.
 
700sqm block isn't big, but then I think a 24square house is big ... since I have a vacant house I'm currently maintaining a 1800sqm block, a 1400sqm block, a 90sqm house and a 160sqm house. The 160sqm one is way bigger than we need, the 90sqm one is far too small. The house we are planning to build is about 120sqm, but that is as an investment property, I really want a 2000sqm SQUARE block, I refuse to get another long, thin property.

The dust collects something severe in the bigger house but with no power on the best I can do is sweep the place (including the carpets) every few weeks. We mow the unused part of the backyard once a year, just before fire season.

Mind you the property I'm currently eyeing off (which will probably sell to someone else while I'm ogling it) is really quite filthy - there's birds getting into the roof, so the 'kitchen' (which has cedar matchboard ceilings) has bird poop, nesting materials and dust dribbling out of it into the room below. And the toilets haven't been used for so long they have that delightful effect where you have a thick (1cm) layer of brown scum, half-dry, peeling off in an artistic fashion. I showed my daughter and she screamed :cool:
 
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