If you can't buy it, build it

We believe we're unlikely to outgrow our house and - notwithstanding a windfall that makes a walk street suddenly within our means - we'll be happy here for a very long time. I still got itchy feet a couple of years after we moved in. We’ve been keeping half an eye on the market ever since, just to see if something comes up that would be worth the upheaval of a move.

Partly this is about future proofing. We'd like P's grandmama to move in with us, or at least spend long periods of time here, but have space for a little privacy. Which means a guest suite with a kitchen/dining/living area. And while I'm eyeing up real estate we can't quite afford, I might as well throw in a desire for a quieter street, one that's friendly for a child who's learning to ride a bike, say. I recently came across this wish list in an old notebook and it’s still a pretty accurate reflection of our wants and needs.

None of these were priorities when we bought our home. All we wanted then was a house, west of PCH. And none of is are urgent or critical now. But it's remarkable how easy it is to slip from idly browsing through DIGS magazine, to cruising by the odd Open House, to actually meeting with an architect and talking with city planning about the required length of a driveway.

Conversations with architects and city planning, by the way, are necessary because it turns out we can't comfortably afford to buy a 4 bedroom house with a guest suite and a yard on a quiet street, less than a mile from the beach, in a turnkey condition. Certainly not one that is to our taste.

To get what we now want we may have to move east, or downsize, or build, or all three. And so we find ourselves eyeing up this gem, and wondering about our appetite for a major project.