Home is where the heart is. But, where is home?

Home is where the heart is.  But, where is home?

Written By:  Amy sitting in her bedroom on her bed in Bettystown

Where do you live if you can live anywhere in Ireland?  Do you live in a huge house in the country?  Or, how about an apartment in Dublin?  Do you want a detached home or one of the row houses?  What about the West coast or East coast?  We have all fantasized about where we would live if we didn’t have all the constraints life hands us.  But, with all the freedom comes a terrible indecisiveness.  How do you know if this place is better suited to you than some other place when you have no preconceived notions of what is optimal? How do you find out if the town/village you like on Google maps is still “right” for you in brick and mortar?  How do you decide what is “right” for you when you don’t know what “right” is over here?

When we started our house search we were startlingly lacking any parameters that would help us narrow down the location of a house.  Since Ker and the girls only need fast internet, that left an entire country for options.  In Oregon, we know how long it takes to get from one place to another.  We know what parts of town fit us and what parts of town would not be good for us.  But, here in Ireland, we have no idea.  Without those pre-conceived notions, the entire country is open to us. This is too much freedom for us!

That means that we have to find some other way of narrowing down the list of house options.  Being logical people, each of us separately came up with some suggestions. 

As a devoted urbanite, I wanted to be close to (or in!) Dublin.  I love the city and could see us making a life there.  The flats/apartments there are crammed next to each other so there would be people all around.  There’s always something to do in a large city.  Also, we wouldn’t need a car. However, Dublin is expensive.  Very expensive.  Everything, down to fly swatters is 60% higher than in Portland.  Even without the car, that’s a lot of money going out each month.  So, Dublin was ruled out for me.  Ker had different reasons for ruling Dublin out—he disliked how crammed in everyone was.

Ker’s ideal home was directly opposite (shocking!) from me in that he wanted a quiet house in the country (this shows you more than anything else that Ker and I are still the same people, right?).  So, his searches turned up mansions, farmhouses, and even a castle sometimes 3 hours away from Dublin or any “big” city.  These homes were very unique, but ultimately I ruled them out because of their distance from town.  You see, the girls need clubs and activities a town or city will offer.  They need other kids close by since they are not going to brick and mortar school.  Being shut away in the country would not be good for them socially.  Also, it is highly unlikely that good internet will be found living in the sticks no matter how technologically progressive this country is.

So, coming up with a list separately ruled out both city and country, which narrowed the search to zero. Starting a new search together, we decided that a radius of 45 minutes from Dublin would be a good compromise.  Then we were able to look houses in the counties that ring Dublin.  From there we put our maximum price, minimum bedroom constraint (we decided we needed at least a 4 bedroom), and voila’!  We had a workable list.

We ruled out some homes based on our first impressions of the closest towns.  Initially, I was not thrilled with Drogheda—our first choice.  It looked dingy, worn down and many of the businesses were closed.  However, I fell in love with Navan and Ker liked Trim.

But when the chips are down and the houses on your list are gone, the house choice was made based on which agent answered the phone and could get us in to look at a house the fastest.  When Stephan returned our calls promptly and said he could show us two houses that fit our criteria Tuesday afternoon, we were already half sold.  We chose the detached home over the duplex and here we are!