Was Leaving Country Life Behind for In-Town Living the Right Move for Our Family?
THE FARMHOUSE
It’s been almost one year since we left our storybook Farmhouse on 3 quiet acres for a smaller fixer in town. At the time, we had lots of emotions around the move. Not surprising considering we were leaving behind a dream home that we spent years renovating, for a fixer in need of serious work. And you might be wondering, “Do we regret it?”. We wanted to answer that question today, as well as share our country living pros and cons list for anyone else considering a move from the city to the country (or vice versa). Let’s get into it…
*This post is sponsored by Opendoor, a partner to help you through life’s big changes with products that make selling and buying a home easier than ever. More on them in a minute…
I remember when I first saw the Farmhouse pop up on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) back in 2016. It was love at first sight…but the idea of country living felt so foreign. I googled “what is it like to live in the country?” and “do I belong in the country?” from my cubicle in downtown Seattle. But I couldn’t have imagined quite what it would be like back then.
We ended up living in the country for 7 years, tending chickens, baking sourdough, growing flowers, and wholeheartedly embracing country living. There was so much we loved about our time as country dwellers but also plenty we didn’t. I’ve tried to distill our experience into these 3 pros and 3 cons of country living…
Pros:
Space for everything
Our slice of country magic came with space for everything. Space for a garden (or two!), space for kids to roam and be wild, space to host large events, space for a treehouse, a fire pit, an outdoor kitchen, a pond, a forest, a clothesline, a tree swing, … There’s a real element of freedom when there’s space to pursue your interests and hobbies wherever they might lead. Need to park an RV? No problem. Want to start a flower farm? Plant seeds in the field next to the pond. Livestock? Add a fence behind the garden. Want fresh laid eggs on the daily? Build a coop. The possibilities feel endless.
Peace and quiet
If there’s one thing that the country does well, it’s the peace and quiet. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the city, country living can feel like a giant breath of fresh air. There’s no rush, no air pollution, no prying eyes when you walk out your front door. There’s just privacy and a calm I swear you can feel with your whole body. We often spent nights outside in the garden feeling like the only souls in the world, with the owls and crickets as our soundtrack and the string lights the only brightness in the night besides the stars. That good old fashioned peace and quiet is good for the soul.
Time outside
Being outside is part of the fabric of country living. Indoors and outdoors seem to blur together when you have so much space. At the Farmhouse, there were hours spent in the garden, tending and harvesting. Daily meals eaten al fresco in the garden. Frequent excursions with the kids through the creek and into the wild, forested area at the back of our property. Whole afternoons spent reading on a blanket in the yard or swinging on the tire swing or playing in the tree house. And of course, the constant yard work and maintenance we did outside year round. Being in nature has been shown to have all kinds of benefits, both mental and physical, and we felt really close to the natural world on our quasi-wild country property.
So those are the main pros of country living as we see it and before we get to our cons, we wanted to introduce you to Opendoor, a great resource for anyone making a big, life-changing move like ours. Opendoor is a real estate company with products that eliminate the hassles of the traditional real estate process, making selling and buying a home easier than ever. For sellers, that means you can get an all-cash offer from Opendoor in minutes (all online!), and close on the sale and get paid within days. There’s no listing or showing your home necessary. Let me repeat that - there’s no listing or showing your home necessary. As someone who recently sold a home the traditional way, I can only dream of the time and energy that would have saved us.
Opendoor’s buying process is also designed to be easy and online. From the app, you can view available homes, schedule self-guided tours, and unlock the front door from your phone. And there’s no bidding wars or haggling over price - the price you see listed is the price you pay.
Now for the negatives of country living, as we see it…
Cons:
Commute
One unsavory part of country living was how much driving we did. Our Farmhouse was 10 miles from our small town, a 30-minute round trip drive to all the things we did routinely like school and grocery shopping. And we found ourselves making that drive 2 or 3 times a day, sometimes more. It began to feel like all I did was load up the kids and shuttle them back and forth to elementary school drop-offs and pick-ups, sports practices, the grocery store, story time, events, the hardware store, etc. Every time I needed to get the kids to swim practice or buy infant tylenol, it required 30 minutes of my life and 4 gallons of diesel. Of course we tried to line up schedules to minimize commutes as best we could, but it can be hard to kill an hour in a small town that doesn't have a lot of amenities (especially in the winter). Garrett and I have always preferred walking and biking to driving, so all this commuting was a huge factor in our decision to move into town!
Never-ending maintenance
More acreage comes with a higher price tag and more work. That probably seems obvious, but we didn’t realize just how much yard work and maintenance would become part of daily life until we moved to the country. On our 3 peaceful and quiet acres, there was always grass to mow, weeds to pull, trees to thin, fence to repair, leaves to rake, and snow to shovel. We had to buy the machines and tools to keep that work up and then work to keep those machines and tools running. It didn’t take long for us to see that the constant and substantial effort it took to keep the property in shape (let alone improve it!) cut into the travels, adventures, and activities we wanted to be spending our time on.
Isolation
While the lack of neighbors and people around can be a big draw for moving to the country, we found ourselves missing the connections that come from living in a denser setting. There was essentially no chance we would randomly run into a friend on our dead-end road, 10 miles from town. Farmer’s markets, festivals, plays, community concerts, after-school programs - all of these things build community and strengthen social bonds and they all required 30 minutes of driving and 4 gallons of diesel to experience. We often found ourselves skipping these opportunities in favor of hanging at our wonderful home but at the cost of social connection. Living in the country can definitely feel isolating.
Do we regret our move into town?
So do we regret leaving the country and moving into town? The short answer: no. It was the right move for our family at this stage of life. With 3 young kids in school and activities, the cons of country living, especially the commute and isolation, just outweighed the positives of our beautiful Farmhouse and 3 quiet acres. Now that we live in town, we can bike and walk almost everywhere, including school and both sets of grandparents. Our kids spend their evenings running back and forth between the neighbors’ houses playing with friends and snagging popsicles from freezers. This is how we want to live right now. We do miss our beautiful Farmhouse and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s been hard to move from a finished home to a fixer in need of serious work. But all in all, this was definitely the right move for us. We’ll never regret our time in the country, but living in town feels right for this next chapter.
What about you? Do you like country living or in-town living?
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