Just bought a house...
 

It isn't really big (as it turns out, homes cost a lot in California).

We like it, but we have an issue we are debating about. Right when you walk into the front room you enter the living room. It is walled off on 3 sides, so you can either turn right into the living room or continue down the hall to the kitchen/dining room (which is also walled in on 3 sides).

The kitchen/dining room are the same size together as the living room (the kitchen/dining room is really just one room with no dividing walls, but we use some kitchen space as our dining room).

I would like to tear out a 5 foot section of the wall separating the kitchen and the living room. That would make the home feel a bit bigger. If we do that, though, we lose some cabinet space in the kitchen which we can't really make up because the dining room is in the way. So, my solution is to make our current living room a formal dining room and then expand the kitchen into a really nice kitchen.

My wife hates the idea because that would mean people would enter into our formal dining room and there wouldn't be a sitting area for people on the main floor. Sure, it would be odd. But I think the value of the house would shoot way up with a really nice kitchen and I think it is simply a better use of our space. We don't have any furniture in the current living room anyways because we are too poor to buy any.

Thoughts? Would eliminating the living room lower the value of our home? Would any decrease in value be offset by having a great kitchen? We have a big family room on the lower level that would act as a living room.

remember when I told you to move to Texas? the advantage of Texas is that you don't have to make these kinds of decisions.

eventually everyone will live in Texas.

Don't be so pessimistic; some of us will surely make it to heaven.

God forbid. We would all become insufferable proponents of our lame state. Who would be left to annoy?

I say that mostly about the other Texans I have known.

Yeah, everytime we look at housing costs on the west coast my eyes fall out of my head. Our house and lot out there would cost 4x what it does here.

anyway, Cali, to answer your question, I'd ask your realtor, he/she'd have the best idea on how the renovation would impact resale.

Texas would be a great place ...

... if it weren't for all the Texans.

I don't think your plans would create more equity in your home. I don't know of many people who would take a formal dining room over a living room.

Well, if I could convince my wife to move to Texas, I would do it in a heartbeat based on a friend's experience there. He recently moved to Odessa (I hope I spelled that correctly) and bought a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 3000 sq. foot home on a 3/4 acre lot with a swimming pool for $160,000.

Is Real estate really that much of a bargain in Texas? Or is Odessa a dive? I also understand that Texas sticks you with higher property taxes, but still, that sounds like a heckuva deal to me.

I could sell my house right now and pay cash for his place and have plenty left over for other things.

texas has no income tax. So they get you in other ways.

In general houses are a lot cheaper in Texas. In my neighborhood a 4bedroom, 2bath, ~1900sqft goes for about $150,000. I am about 6 miles from downtown.

It's definitely cheaper than SLC and Provo/Orem. Not to mention California.

Odessa is not a destination that one probably voluntarily chooses. So prices will be even lower in places like that.

Understood. Where is Odessa anyway?

I could be happy in Texas. I loved San Antonio when I was there for the Final Four in '98. I was impressed with the Dallas-Ft. Worth area when I went to a Rangers game in Arlington, but that was before the Ballpark was built. Houston seemed awfully humid, but nice. Never been to Austin but from what I've seen of it in the shows my wife watches on HGTV, it looks like a decent place.