Housing

My brother-in-law and his now 37-weeks-pregnant wife just bought a house. To our great disappointment it’s not in the little village in Sweden where we’ll be moving and where they’d wanted to live, too; unfortunately, no little old ladies died so nothing has been available (one got sick, so we got our hopes up, but alas). They found a place in the city. We’d had this whole fantasy worked up about our children running through the fields between our homes, exploring the forest together, attending the little village schools as a cousin-group…and it may still happen, but I think they think it’s easier to move house with kids than it is. I suspect they’ll be in that townhouse in a while. But I’m glad they found a place they like.

We still plan, of course, on living in that little village, population 700. But I’m starting to wonder about what we’ll do with all the space in the big country home. We are only bringing furniture for three rooms (dining room, living room, Little Girl’s room) but that leaves another living room, the kitchen, and the four other bedrooms empty, not to mention the full basement. (My mom keeps telling me not to get furniture, to wait until my grandparents die and she’ll send us their stuff. Uh…) I think I’m going to feel like an idiot knocking about in that huge place if I don’t have a bunch more kids. And I took this quiz online that said I would do best with just one child, and you know how authoritative internet quizzes are. You don’t want to question their findings.

Not only that, but I’m not even sure what rooms should be what. I’m starting to get why, in Sweden, they don’t say, “This is a three-bedroom house.” They say something like, “This is a seven-room house.” It’s up to you to figure out what goes where! So on the bottom floor you have four big rooms, all interconnected. Right now the kitchen is on the left when you come in, which is fine, I’m not crazy enough to move a kitchen, and then down a hall on the right is the dining room. The stairs to the upstairs go up from the dining room (???). The back right room is the formal living room (rarely used) and the back left is the library/guest room (even less-used). We had planned to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the library to make a bigger kitchen/family room thing, but now I’m thinking we should put the dining room there and have the other front room be the family room. Basically I don’t know that I want everybody stomping by my antique china cabinet filled with Limoges porcelain fifty times a day.

Upstairs are three rooms that are definitely bedrooms (uh, except right now one is the office, and one is the TV room), one little room off the main hall (currently a walk-in closet), and two other little rooms (with windows) off two of the bedrooms. What are these rooms? Are they closets? Kids’ bedrooms? Home offices? Gah. I just don’t know. In the past they’ve been all these things (my in-laws had three kids and a foster child to fill the house). I am having trouble imagining living there without nailing these details down. Which we do need to do since the renovation will be progressing apace.

Oh, I know, omigod, poor me, my delightful Swedish country home is too spacious. But just think of how long it will take to clean those floors!

The view from the kitchen window: