Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?

@mimico_polak to move or not is always a tough choice IMO.

As for costs you highlighted the much higher ongoing expenses, the simple move itself will likely be a sunk 100K or close to it, land transfer tax on the buy, lawyer fees, moving costs, real estate fees on your sell, storage, etc.....

What can you do to your current house to make it better by lighting 100K on fire? Or, as noted, a nearby condo for the MIL taking advantage of the market conditions and that 100K as a down payment... In her name, no capital gains when it comes time to sell it...
It's like buying a car and you want one extra option but that means a model upgrade so you pay thousands to get the one $100 option you really want.

I don't want a bigger house, just a bigger garage but that can only come with the bigger house.
 
It's like buying a car and you want one extra option but that means a model upgrade so you pay thousands to get the one $100 option you really want.

I don't want a bigger house, just a bigger garage but that can only come with the bigger house.
I have seen a few houses with stacked garages that I like. Main garage from the driveway for two or three vehicles. Second garage the same size below the first accessed from back of house. Not nearly as ugly as a huge main garage. Lots of room for workshop/toys/storage.

At some point, I will probably build a toy garage. The only place that makes sense to put it means a less than ideal shape (to put it mildly) is necessary to comply with zoning. It would be roughly 10x50x15' tall. Sadly, even if I build it, cost will be six figures as I want it to look nice. My initial concept had a storage loft, we'll see when I eventually pull the trigger, I may decide an ADU upstairs makes more sense. Obviously that is a crapton more work and money as I need to tie in water and sewer. Until passive cash flow exceeds my needs in life, the garage will remain a dream.
 
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I assume the basement is fully finished and fully utilized?
Ours? yes...but it's only half a basement because of the side split layout as @GreyGhost (he's been to my place a few time to help me out) pointed out.

I would love nothing more than have a full basement.

The place we are considering has a FULL basement, with a living room, dining room, kitchenette, and 2 bedrooms....plus a small workshop.

For our house to meet our CURRENT/FUTURE needs I would like an extra bedroom, and a pool.

Our girls are in the same bedroom currently (6 and 3) and my son has his own room.

The new place has 4 bedrooms upstairs, effectively 3 in the basement, and oodles of space on the main floor (large kitchen, large dining room, and 2 living rooms).
 
Buy the bigger house and send the MIL to the end of the driveway with a perogy stand to help pay the bigger mortgage.
A friend's mom loved baking pies. She'd make at least one a day, sometimes up to five. They put a pie shack at the end of their driveway to try to get them eaten as fast as she was making them. No orders, no idea what flavors would be there but they were delicious.
 
When I replaced my furnace, I downsized it a lot. Iirc 125k btu single stage down to 72k btu 2 stage. Old one had over 100 degree temp rise and would short cycle. With the new furnace, typically stage 2 is only triggered if you raise the temp 3 degrees or more, stage one fires ~7-12 hours per day. Today, it's cold enough that it went to stage 2 on its own as it had been firing stage 1 for a while without making progress. It caught up and turned off. So if I didn't care how long it took to change house temp, I could have gone even smaller. At-26, it can easily maintain temp.

As the garage doesn't normally freeze, I have gotten lazy and don't prepare everything in the garage to freeze. Normally I have no heat on and it is 1-4 inside.i flipped the heat on low last night as I suspect it would drop below freezing with this weather.
 
One option we didn’t consider (dad mentioned it today) was to basically eliminate the 2 car garage and convert it to a bedroom….

Panel is in there so I can install heated floors, remove the door and replace with windows, and also have the HVAC running through so it has all the requirements necessary for living space….with a small investment.

Thoughts?
 
What's in the garage? Maybe make it 1 car temporarily and build a cell for the mil in there.

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Like most garages, it's more than half full of stuff/tools and his bike/lift etc. If he used the open space to make a bedroom, it would be a prison cell.

I agree about leaving the garage door. The conversions look weird. Black out any windows and frame behind the door and it looks like a garage from outside and a room from inside. If he wants light in the room, I'd probably replace the exterior man door with one with a full window. It probably needs upgraded anyway for thermal reasons. That keeps the fire escape intact for the bedroom.

I would not tie into house hvac. That makes it a nightmare to return to a garage. I would use a mini-split for the room and heated floors as aux heat.
 
Son of a *****….Code E64 from Electrolux dryer.

And here I was happy for a week with no unexpected expenses.

FML
 
Son of a *****….Code E64 from Electrolux dryer.

And here I was happy for a week with no unexpected expenses.

FML
Heating element is easy to change I did the main control board in ours a little while ago. 18 years old and still going. Was going to replace the dryer but the control board is cheap and easy to change.

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Heating element is easy to change I did the main control board in ours a little while ago. 18 years old and still going. Was going to replace the dryer but the control board is cheap and easy to change.

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Will look and open it up tomorrow.

Tonight I’m getting drunk.
 
Heating element is easy to change I did the main control board in ours a little while ago. 18 years old and still going. Was going to replace the dryer but the control board is cheap and easy to change.

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Could also be a build up of lint.
Fun story about control boards: Our new Electrolux sucked in a sock because of a manufacturing issue and was making a bit of a noise but working. When the warranty tech came he walked out and said "Good news is I got the sock. Bad news is I shorted out the control board taking the front off so it'll be out of commission for a few weeks until it arrives". Friggin idiot.
 
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