A Tip For Those Buying a House

These days it seems that most people are swiftly vacating their houses, not buying new ones, but if you happen to be swimming upstream (and probably grabbing a great deal) and are looking to buy a house and you’ve got kids (or expect kids to someday grow up in the house you're buying), there’s lots of extra things to think about. Most of the things that are helpful with kids are things that everyone knows: is there a good school system, a bedroom for each kid; finished basement or family room; eat-in kitchen; a separate bathroom for kids and parents; decent-sized back yard; are you off a busy street; is it a kid-friendly neighborhood; close to a park?; is their space for a third car in the driveway (thinking way down the road)? No one gets all these, but you do your best and try to get as many as you can while still buying a house that you actually like.

From a child-centric perspective, however, there is one thing that’s easily as important as these things, and that is: Is there a way to run through the house without re-tracing your steps?

I spent my formative years growing up in a “dead end” house. If you were in one part of the first floor of the house and some one chased you, you could run from the living room, through the hall, through the dining room, through the kitchen and into the family room. And there the house stopped. You were caught. This absolutely sucked. I mean, it was a nice house and all overall, but that aspect of it sucked.

If you played hide and seek there was no way to get behind the seeker into the other side of the house without them hearing you. Sock wars -- y’know, you divide into teams, you throw socks at the other team, if you’re hit with a sock you’re "dead," there's a capture the flag type goal --invariably devolved into World War I-style wars of attrition, with the teams camping out and fortifying their respective sides, with occasional skirmishes in the Thermopylae-esque hallway. There was absolutely no hope of ambushing from the opposite side. And not only did chasing games stink (since you were caught in 15 seconds), when you really had to run from someone (i.e., your mother, wielding a wooden spoon), you were also screwed.

So when I was house hunting, a key thing I was looking for was a “circle house.” (any of you architecture types want to tell me what this is actually called?) I wanted a house with a way to walk around the main floor so you weren't re-tracing your steps. I was not going to resign my children to the ghetto dead end house

But we did one better. While house hunting, we found the holy grail: a figure-eight house. It was heaven . Our daughter, when 2 or 3, used to just run for 15 or 20 minutes a couple nights a week. Chasing games were so fun even the wife got into it. It was awesome. We even had a small circle path on the third floor. I haven't unveiled sock wars yet -- I've got that one stashed in my back pocket, but that's coming out some day as well.

Just a little something to keep it in mind if you’re house hunting.

Note: Other things to think about that are cool for kids: A large fir or evergreen tree, possibly bordering a fence or a house, that can be trimmed low to the ground to form a hidden fort-type area; a back staircase (or an outside entry into the basement); laundry chutes (a game of catch in a laundry chute is a great way to kill 20 minutes)!

Kids dig all this shit and, frankly, since you’re gonna have to act like you’re a child and play with them every now and again, you’ll dig it too.