What Are YOUR New Home Must Haves?

[Imma]

We haven't gotten quotes for a renovation yet (still working on that) but when we had our home inspected when we bought our house, the inspector basically told us that demolishing and rebuilding would be cheaper than renovating it.

That is sounding likely with crumbling masonry walls and rotting superstructure.

I guess from your description the problem isn't water falling on things stored there due to a leaky roof, but the humidity gets high enough that you get condensation on things stored there.

Sounds like it might need better venting, or gutters. These are both cheap. Or, you might have a drainage issue that would be more involved to correct. If you post some photos (maybe in a new thread) I bet you'd get all kinds of useful advice on how it might be made more useful.

If you decide to replace it strongly consider a shed design that has a bigger roof overhang than the sheds pictured in the link upthread and definitely put gutters on it with a downspout that directs water away from the shed. I don't know why so many sheds are built without gutters; it just causes the walls to rot from the bottom up.

The shed actually has gutters and a roof overhang and water is already directed away from the shed. So I have no idea what's wrong with it. I was going to follow your advice and start a thread, but we've made a different decision. We're selling and moving!

Our new home must have is a neighbour who is not a lunatic.

We've had issues with the neighbour before, usually one or two serious conflicts every year (he starts them, we are easy going people, he fights with everyone) and the police have been involved quite a few times. Yesterday it escalated again and threats were made and he was arrested again. I'm not afraid of him, I know after all those years the threats are empty, but he has made it extremely clear he's never going to change his behaviour and he is never going to move. Until now he at least made promises but he was very clear yesterday that he's going to "fuck with our lives forever and I only care about one thing and that's myself" in his words. I'm just *done*  with him. And we are finally in the situation where moving is an option financially. So we are going to look for a new house! 75% of the time it's fine, but 25% of the time he's trying to actively make our lives as miserable as possible because there's something wrong with him. Seriously, it's like we're living next to Eric Cartman.

[Linea_Norway]

We haven't gotten quotes for a renovation yet (still working on that) but when we had our home inspected when we bought our house, the inspector basically told us that demolishing and rebuilding would be cheaper than renovating it.

That is sounding likely with crumbling masonry walls and rotting superstructure.

I guess from your description the problem isn't water falling on things stored there due to a leaky roof, but the humidity gets high enough that you get condensation on things stored there.

Sounds like it might need better venting, or gutters. These are both cheap. Or, you might have a drainage issue that would be more involved to correct. If you post some photos (maybe in a new thread) I bet you'd get all kinds of useful advice on how it might be made more useful.

If you decide to replace it strongly consider a shed design that has a bigger roof overhang than the sheds pictured in the link upthread and definitely put gutters on it with a downspout that directs water away from the shed. I don't know why so many sheds are built without gutters; it just causes the walls to rot from the bottom up.

The shed actually has gutters and a roof overhang and water is already directed away from the shed. So I have no idea what's wrong with it. I was going to follow your advice and start a thread, but we've made a different decision. We're selling and moving!

Our new home must have is a neighbour who is not a lunatic.

We've had issues with the neighbour before, usually one or two serious conflicts every year (he starts them, we are easy going people, he fights with everyone) and the police have been involved quite a few times. Yesterday it escalated again and threats were made and he was arrested again. I'm not afraid of him, I know after all those years the threats are empty, but he has made it extremely clear he's never going to change his behaviour and he is never going to move. Until now he at least made promises but he was very clear yesterday that he's going to "fuck with our lives forever and I only care about one thing and that's myself" in his words. I'm just *done*  with him. And we are finally in the situation where moving is an option financially. So we are going to look for a new house! 75% of the time it's fine, but 25% of the time he's trying to actively make our lives as miserable as possible because there's something wrong with him. Seriously, it's like we're living next to Eric Cartman.

That sounds like a very good decision, to move away from an annoying neighbour. Good luck. I hope your new place has better storage options.

[Imma]

We are not going to flee to a random new place just to get away from him. We've lived with him for 6 years, we'll survive another year if we have to.

We have made a list of requirements:
- normal neighbours
- garage attached to the house. We don't have a car, but Mr Imma's business requires big heavy stuff to be carried in and out of the house all the time and that's not very practical through the front door. We can park the bikes there, put in a workbench, hook up the washing machine and build a closet for camping gear. Maybe even a bike hoist because that would make fixing the bike just that little bit easier.
- the kitchen needs to be a good size with a good view, we spend a lot of time there. How it looks is unimportant, that can be fixed
- we need one bedroom and two seperate "office corners" to work from home from. They can be seperate rooms but it's not necessary, they just need to be out of earshot from each other.
- the bedroom needs to be big enough for a proper wardrobe
- walking / cycling distance from everywhere we need to go
 
We've found a new build project in our area that's well within our budget, in a good location, with two bedrooms, good sized living space and kitchen and an indoor garage. So we've written that one down as a potential option, it "only" has two bedrooms so it may be less popular than larger homes.