Home(s)

[featherynscale]

Been thinking a lot about homes lately, a home for me (as my lease comes up soon) and a home for Gaia Community (as we will one day soon have too many people to fit in our current space comfortably). When I came here two years ago, I thought that this was probably going to be a short stay, a year, maybe two, and then I'd keep going west.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case. Against all intention, I like it in Kansas City. I like the city itself, I like the friends I have made here, I like being here. I hate the weather, but unfortunately, I'm born and bred to hate the weather anywhere with a winter, so that's a kind of just-deal-with-it thing. So I may stick around awhile.

Which means I need to start looking for a better place to stay. Or at least, a less expensive and better-located place to stay. Something actually in the city, instead of out north of the river a million miles from everywhere else I need or want to be. It's hard to say you're a conservationist and in favor of reducing dependency on petro-fuels when you drive 30 miles one-way to work everyday. Definite area for improvement.

For Gaia, kcwitch has a house we're going to look at soon(ish - maybe next weekend) and there are other possibilities in the air - more excuses for me to use my new camera (yay).

Anyway, I'd been focused on ideas of home for awhile, and I thought I'd take on diermuid's friday five about homes... keep reading if you're not bored to death already.


1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?

Grandma's House - Lakeland, FL
Tiny Clapboard Duplex - Lakeland, FL
La Mirada Apartments - Jacksonville, FL (I don't know what La Mirada means, but if it isn't 'cockroach', there's a false advertising suit in it somewhere)
Praver Drive - Jacksonville, FL (Rental House with psycho landlord #1)
The Big Pink and Green House - Fruit Cove, FL (Rental House with fruit orchard- it was a two-story house, and the landlord had painted the top story shell pink and the bottom story pea green. A gay couple lived there after us, and the first thing they did was paint the house an entirely more acceptable off-white.)
Pheasant Court - Switzerland, FL (Mom and Dad's first real house)
University of North Florida Dorms - Jacksonville, FL (5 people in a 10x10 square. fun)
Beach apartments - Jacksonville Beach, FL (bummed out here with my boyfriend)
Little Adobe Apts - Jacksonville, FL (concrete block studio in the ghetto - not entirely unlike a bunker)
Yucky Mold House - Jacksonville, FL (rental house with psycho landlord #2)
Bennington Ridge Apts - Kansas City, MO

So only 11. But I'm young.

2. Which was your favorite and why?

Where I live now - though I doubt that's a function of the apartments. This is the first place I have ever lived alone.

3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?
Exciting - it's a good opportunity to shake things up and get rid of what you don't need.

4. What's more important, location or price?
Price is more important because there's a definite upper limit on it. I can live anywhere.

5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?
My dream home would be an earth-sheltered dome. I'd build it as sustainably as possible (which is pretty damned - a spraycrete dome has huge advantages in energy-efficiency over most other structures, and earth-sheltering it only adds. I'd like a grey-water system, but I'm not sure how to make that up to code here.) There would be several guest/multi-purpose rooms for doing projects in, and a big-ass kitchen. That would do :)

Comments

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

i haven't gotten over to that house but plan to go tomorrow before church to grab that number. sorry been out of town and ultra busy. apartments...there are 1 bedrooms apartments for 350.00 a month just down the street from my house (on the raytown side) :) let me know if are interested in them and i'll get you that number too. :)