I don’t understand it

I honestly do not understand the regional differences. I did not think that there would be that big of difference between the Houston area and the Dallas area when it came to houses. We are only talking about 250 miles separating us after all.

Who am I kidding?

That is like an entire country as far as the home builders are concerned.

I am looking at houses online and I did not think that I was asking for a whole lot:

• Gas stove
• Gas dryer connection
• Gas heating
• Gas water heater

Those all seemed like pretty simple requests. At least they did in my mind. They are fairly standard down here in our area. At least I thought they were.

However, I have found that the standard thing in the Dallas area is to NOT put in gas throughout the house. I do not understand it. You are putting in gas to one part of the house that has a potentially gas appliance, why not run gas to the other potentially gas appliances? At least give the home owner the option to have gas or not.

The standard in the Dallas area appears to be gas heating, gas fire places, and gas hot water heaters. That is it. Nothing else.

If you are lucky, you will find the gas cooktop/stove in the kitchen.

The gas dryer hook-ups are far and few between.

I just do not understand it.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND!!!

I am so confused.

So I have been forced into making a decision that I really do not like. I have to choose between which appliance “option” is most important to me – kitchen or laundry room? How does one actually choose that? Really?!.

I will confess to not really wanting to go to a gas dryer when I bought my gas dryer. I did not see the point as it would just send up our gas bill. Now that we have had that gas dryer a couple of years or so, I LOVE IT! It is more efficient. That might be because it is just a more efficient dryer over all, but gas is more efficient as well. The most important thing is that my gas bill DID NOT take a huge hit. I noticed no impact on my overall gas bill in the long run. We might see some increase in the summer months and the winter months, however, that is because I am doing a LOT MORE WASHING AND DRYING and a lot more heating of the house. Overall there is zero impact in my opinion. I was SURPRISED to say the least that the impact was so small. It is so small, the gas company owes us money most months because we spend less on gas than our “set amount paid” every month.

With that, can you get a better picture why I am so confused?

I just do not understand why people would not want a gas dryer if natural gas was so cheap and it is being piped to their house already.

Maybe I have a skewed perspective because I have NEVER turned on my gas fire place? I do not really turn on my gas heater to an uncomfortable level – you have blankets, use them. I don’t know. Maybe I do have a skewed perspective.

I know it is not because we have never experienced another type of gas. We have. We used to live where we had a big propane tank out back. I still loved my gas stove then too. We had a gas hot water heater and gas heating then too. I still do not understand it.

Anyway….

So I am having a hard time looking at houses and really deciding what I like because they are all missing those important things – gas dryer hook-ups and/or gas stove.

Ben is easy to please this time around, he wants a room big enough for a king bed and a 3-car garage.

I am torn on the 3-car garage, personally. He wants a “shop” for woodworking tools. I can compromise on that if we have a yard big enough for a shed big enough to do the same purpose. I think he could as well. The reason that I say that is because while there are houses with 3 car garages out there and we found one that we did like (mostly), there are a lot of houses out there that have a lot of potential that do not. I figure if they have a big enough yard, we can build that 3rd garage somewhere and voila! That’s my thinking anyway.

For example, I stumbled upon a house yesterday that I will admit that I am not in love with it. It does have some admitted charm to it.

• It does not appear to have gas in the kitchen. Strike 1. 
• It does, however, have gas in the laundry room. Plus 1. 
• It is not a 3 car garage. Strike 2. 
• It does, however, have a boat/trailer pad in addition to its current driveway. Plus 2. 
• It has a pool. Strike 3. 
• It has a sun room/mud room in the laundry room. Plus 3? This is more of a plus if it could be closed off from the laundry room eventually.
• It is a 5 bedroom. Plus 4. That offers some flexibility for other things. 
• It has a large game room that will be converted to my craft room. Plus 5. 
• The game room appears to be separated from all the bedrooms. Plus 6. 
• The master bedroom appears to be upstairs from the pictures online. Strike 4. We would prefer to have the master bedroom downstairs away from the kids and everything else going on upstairs.
• It appears to be right at the entrance of a neighborhood. Strike 5. It is the corner lot as you come in so it is a firm strike. 
• It appears to have tall ceilings unless these pictures are totally deceptive, there is a good 2-3 feet above the doors in most of the pictures so that’s a good 9-10′ on the ceilings. Plus 7. Some of them are vaulted. I have this thing with the ceilings feeling like they are closing in on me. Tall ceilings are a firm plus. 
• Some of the bathrooms have carpet in them below the sinks, not fully carpeted but still partially carpeted. Strike 6. Who puts carpet in the bathroom? 
• The master shower while not hideous is dated and possibly could have problems. Strike 7. 
• The master shower appears to be in an area where it could be extended and become my door-less walk-in shower. Plus 8. 
• Many of the light fixtures and mirrors have already been updated. Plus 9. 
• It is older than we have been looking. Strike 8. It is a older but it appears they have done many updates so it still receives a strike, but it is a soft strike. 
• Lance would not be able to ride his bike to school most likely. Strike 9. It is not a distance thing. It is a safety thing due to the roads between the house and the school.
• The house feeds into a lower rated elementary school. Strike 10. Only an issue for the remainder of this year and then next school year.
• The price is up with the newer houses we are looking at. Strike 11? Is it a soft strike? 

I am just torn. I am not sure how to weigh the importance of some things. Then there is so much more that you cannot see in the pictures. For example, I do not remember seeing the pantry. I cannot tell that it is a walk-in pantry or not. Some of them seem not so important, but we do not want to not consider things. There are things that we did not consider in our current house that have bothered us mostly since we moved in. They are just little things but a lot of little things add up to be big things over time.

So how much do the things that I know will bother me weigh vs the things that really do not matter as much immediately?