I’ve been feeling super frustrated this week. I’m so ready to buy our new place and be going full steam ahead on all kinds of fun fixer-upper projects, but we still have a little while until we even start looking for that place {like at least four or five months}.

We also aren’t settled into our current {temporary} place either… while we might not be totally unpacking, there is still quite a bit that needs to get put away and organized so that the space feels good to be in and we can enjoy it… and I need to figure out how to get my temporary space feeling more like ‘home’ since we will be here for a good bit yet. I originally thought that I wasn’t going to change anything and was going to treat it kind of like a hotel or Airbnb, but we’ll see how that shakes out and how I feel about everything once we get everything put away {or just put out of sight neatly in the second bedroom}…

In an effort to start working on manifesting the new space, I started looking at inspiration images online and realized a few things… first, all of the images I’m drawn to are more the energy of what I’m wanting to turn our fixer upper into {which makes sense, who looks at before images for inspiration, lol}… but also, they are more the energy of a few fixer uppers down the road, once we get into a longer term house with some of the bigger dream house features…

I need to do some adjusting…

Where is my energy?! It’s not in my current place getting it squared away and feeling good… and clearly by my inspiration pics it’s not even in the smaller scale fixer upper on the horizon… it’s way off in the distance… nowhere close to present time or the dreams I’m trying to bring into being now!

Isn’t that how it always is… our attention and energy is on the 20 things on our to-do list, it’s in everything that’s going wrong and causing stress, it’s back in whatever annoying interaction we can’t stop thinking about and it’s way off in the distance, in our next vacation, or the dream house we are wanting, etc… anywhere and everywhere but here.

I have to get all that energy back into my space and where it belongs, here in present time, getting my current space feeling good, and working on the energy of the place we are buying in just a few short months {funny how in some ways four or five months feels like a long way away, and in others, it’s coming up quickly}.

Meditation and working on the energy of things are a big part of shifting how I’m feeling. And while I will have a little inspiration ‘board’ of what I will be creating in our fixer-upper, I think I have to get clarity another way to start to bring that into being. I really need to hone in on certain characteristics, and one thing that I think is really interesting is that in some ways, our must-have, and nice-to-have lists are similar to what I would tell a typical buyer to make. But in some others, since we are only planning on being in this house for two years, there are some very different characteristics.

So here’s my fixer-upper wish list, as I work on getting certainty and clarity, so that this place can come in and be ready for us when we are ready to buy it… with as little effort as possible:

1. The right kind of fixer upper ~ the space has to have a layout that works. Works as in – makes sense, no strange shaped rooms or reconfiguring/moving walls needed. It doesn’t have to be a layout that we love {open floor plan vs. separate rooms}, it just has to make sense and be usable and functional. It also has to be in decent shape but just be outdated. Give me that twenty year old kitchen and those laminate counters and bad tile, and we’re ready to refinish floors… but not rip apart walls to do big scale repairs.
2. Location ~ our new place can be in a prime spot for a great deal, or it can be in an up and coming location. Walking distance to public transportation is important, as a lot of people value this in a big city!
3. It has to be bright ~ you can compensate to some degree with paint, but no-one gets excited about a dark place that doesn’t get enough natural light. No matter what the window situation is or what floor it’s on, it has to get decent light.
4. No ugly buildings ~ this is a no brainer, but no buying ugly buildings ever. You don’t want any buyer to have to get over the hurdle of just walking in the front door. ‘Nuf said.
5. Parking ~ parking is a must. Parking in this town is gold, and a lot of people won’t even consider buying a property that doesn’t have parking. If we were flipping a lower end property it might matter less, but when you are up in the mid to high end spaces, this is a must-have {I’m so hesitant to give hard numbers, who wants to hear about actual amounts of money and who thinks it doesn’t matter, tell me your opinions and if you think that would be helpful!}
6. Price ~ The money has to make sense. When you’re looking at a fixer upper for a shorter term investment, you have to do the math. What does it cost, how much do you expect to put into it to make the improvements, what do you expect to be able to sell it for? Estimating pricing two years out is only an educated guess, but we’ll be able to get a sense. Does a fixer upper make sense if we are only going to make a few thousand dollars? Nope. It has to be able to make a good enough profit to be worth the time, work, and money.
7. Take the emotions out ~ I got a little lost in this area for a while. It’s so normal to want to find something that you love. But when you are only planning on being in a space for a few years, and you are buying it to fix it up and sell, it’s not about loving it. It’s about ~ does it work as a project. Is there enough potential. Will buyers love it once you’re done. I’m always telling buyers who are looking for their new house to be less analytical and let themselves be emotional and fall in love with something, but for us, I need to remind myself to be just the opposite. Don’t fall in love, be discerning and focused and analytical. This purchase is more of a business decision for us than a ‘dream house hunt’ and we have to treat it that way.
8. Stay Open ~ One reason I am purposefully not getting to specific about the physical characteristics of our new space is because sometimes great things show up that don’t look anything like what you had pictured… and we want to be as open as possible to a great opportunity showing up, even if it doesn’t look like what we had thought or planned…

I think writing down the must-have list, even though this one doesn’t look like what you might expect, goes a long way toward getting your energy into exactly what you are wanting to create, and helps it actually come into your life… now to get my current place unpacked and see if I’m going to make any changes to get the energy feeling good there for the next few months or leave it alone…. stay tuned for progress next week on that front!