Heading into our home search, my fiancé Brian and I had a lot of goals: a fixer-upper with high ceilings, a good price, a small yard, and, most importantly, a three-car garage or a place in the back for a workspace. But at the end of the search, we got a grand total of two of those things. And one was not the garage space.
We got a garage, don’t get me wrong here. It’s a lovely, spacious two-car layout that our David Tracy describes as a “two-truck garage” since I live in Texas. We should have plenty of room for our cars and motorcycles to rest, but we’d need to back everything out of the garage if we wanted a shaded space to work.
We didn’t get the extra garage workspace, and there are so many windows that putting one in the back could look bad—that’s if the HOA would even let us. We haven’t read the papers yet, and I’m sure the captain of the homeowners’ committee is going to try to kick us out of the neighborhood anyway. We look like college kids whose parents bought the house.
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Anyway, we ultimately sat in the master closet and deliberated our decision while the realtor and homebuilder waited for us in the kitchen. We loved the house, and it was almost exactly what we’d envisioned doing ourselves had we remodeled an older home.
But the garage was a big deal. In our attempts to justify our love for the home, my fiancé called his father to ask how long his parents planned to stay in their house with a giant, detached garage to work in. His father said it would be a while, and we slowly became more accepting of our smaller garage.
So, at the end of the day, we walked out of the master closet and shook hands with the homebuilder to seal our fate in this home. We didn’t get one of our biggest items on the wish list for our first home, but you never really know what’s going to steal your heart until you get out there and find it.
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That’s why I ask you all: Did you ever fall in love with a home or place to live, but have your decision made or broken by the garage size? Or, did you do just like we did—and anyone on HGTV does, too—and make some sacrifices and justifications in order to get your dream home?
If you haven’t gotten to that point in your life yet, that’s OK. Spend your money on some Craigslist buys before you see it all drained away in the downpayment.
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