The Fickle Granny

Some days I look at myself and think about the things I say and do and I wonder . . am I nuts? The answer is almost always a resounding YES but at least I have fun, even though Vince is probably afraid to come home every day because he has no idea what weird idea I may have concocted as my brain works overtime.

You know how I feel about moving closer to Chad. Always in my mind is the thought that we could move back to Missouri and Chad could move away from Missouri . . hopefully not because we moved there but I would never want him to limit his choices or opportunities because we had moved there to be closer to him.

We really need to stay here 2 more years because Vince would love to work at least until I turn 65. If things are going well, he could work longer . . maybe . . but doubtful.

We’ve done so much here. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to leave. If I had to say, I’d probably say my feeling is 60/40 leave/stay. Texas is not a bad place to be .. it’s hot and we have bugs and snakes but every place has some problems.

When I think about moving back to MO, we would probably be paying for water, for sewer, for trash pickup (none of those things we pay for now) plus we have the solar panels so we would go from paying almost nothing for electricity to paying $200 to $400 per month for electricity. Missouri taxes pensions and social security so that’s another big chunk we would be paying. Honestly, if you look at the finances of it all, Texas is definitely the place to be.

Besides wanting to be closer to Chad, the house here has issues that really bother me.

1. We need 2-1/2 baths. Vince and I don’t use the same bathroom. I use the extra bathroom so any time someone comes over, they use the bathroom I use. I have to keep it clean . . toothbrush put away. I got rid of my electric toothbrush because I had no place to put it when not in use.
2. Both bathrooms have tub/shower combinations. With my knee, I really need a walk in shower. We’ve talked about having the master bathroom re-done. There’s room with a little re-arranging to add a shower and keep a tub but re-doing plumbing on a concrete foundation isn’t easy or inexpensive. But, then we would have to use the same bathroom.  Hmmmm . . NO!
3. There is no pantry and no coat closet and no place to put the vacuum cleaner. Right now I have the washer/dryer stacked, and have shelves in the laundry room for storing the kitchen gadgets I use all the time but don’t have room in the kitchen.
4. We have absolutely no place to put a treadmill or any exercise equipment.
5. We don’t have a garage. Vince won’t buy a car without a garage. My car is 10 years old. Nothing wrong with it but it isn’t going to last forever.

I suppose the biggest problem is this:  Too much stuff!

Also, now that Vince has more than one (more than two actually) 3-D printers and he wants to play with those, there’s no place to do that.

So, today, another idea popped into my head. What if we built another metal building, made part of it a garage, part of it a sewing room . . not attached to the house but just off the porch . . like 10 steps off the porch? The current sewing room could be used for Vince’s “office/playroom”. We could put exercise equipment in there. We could use it for playing games and working puzzles.

Right now (subject to change), the building would be 16 x 55. There are some pre-fab sizes so I doubt it would stay 16 x 55. Here’s my plan:  

1. Drive into the garage part where you see the “driveway”. The garage would be the south side and the sewing room would be the north side.
2. There would be a bathroom between the sewing room and garage and you could get to it from the outside or through the sewing room. It would have a toilet, a small vanity and a walk in shower . . big enough that I don’t have to have doors or a shower curtain.
3. The washer/dryer would be in the garage .. just sitting there! I don’t care that they’re not in the air conditioned part of the building. The plumbing would be on the bathroom side so it wouldn’t freeze and we could have turn off valves that would drain on those rare occasions when we felt that the temp might drop too low in there. All I would do is take clothes from the house to the washer/dryer and then bring the back. It wouldn’t be any farther than going up or down stairs in most two story houses. And, the hookups would still be in the house if the next owner wanted them inside or if we decided they needed to be inside.
4. The sewing room would be 16′ x 25′, and also have  an 8 x 10 closet not included in those main measurements. The studio would be a little smaller than my current sewing room but since I’m not quilting much, I don’t think I would have the big ironing board in there, I wouldn’t have the work bench that I bought in MO when I didn’t have room for my regular cutting table. I think the current sewing room is about 19′ x 30′ but that doesn’t include the 8 x 16 and 8 x 8 closets. I think it would work and, if we build it and I still don’t start sewing more, I will probably sell the long arm.
5. We may go ahead and put a concrete safe room in there and that would give us a place to go during a storm.

I think it could work quite nicely. Vince would have a nice room where he could work and escape. It would put his “inside” room right there by his shop.

The deciding factor will be how much it costs.