During this first year of Emma’s life, we’re going to try to describe our decision-making process for the new house, as well as keep the world up-to-date on Emma’s progress.  Emma & the house are 2 of the biggest things going on  in our life, so they’ll likely be the 2 biggest topics this year on the Blog. 🙂

First off in our new house search:  location.  Emma (and her eventual school) is what got us started looking at new houses.  We were in an OK school district before (Waterford) but knew we wanted better for her if we could afford it.  Also, we wanted to limit commutes to 30 minutes.  That left Clarkston, Rochester, Troy, and the Bloomfields as our options.  We chose Clarkston because we preferred the feel of living on the outskirts of the metro area.  Not really the country, but it’s REALLY not the city.  It’s a good mix of easy access and open areas.

Next choice:  Which lot/neighborhood to choose in Clarkston?  And what’s important in location for a forever home?  Hint:  The map above shows some of the areas we wanted to avoid.

Basic things we chose to avoid:

• I-75.  I didn’t want to live close to the highway for noise & air pollution reasons
• DTE:  Traffic & noise during the summer.
• Waterford Hills:  Noise during the summer

We ended up finding a great location north of I-75 that met all of our criteria.  It’s out of the city, but plenty close to highway access when we want it.