I thought we'd be at an extended-stay hotel for 2 weeks. We stayed for 3 months while house-hunting.

The author and her family stayed in an extended-stay hotel for nearly three months while looking for a rental.

Courtesy of Tonya Russell We wanted to find a rental to live in while building a new house.

It took nearly three months, and we stayed in an extended-stay hotel during our search.

I felt cramped at times, but I missed some things about it when we moved.

After eight years in the same home, my family needed a change.

We planned to rent while we built a new house , imagining a brief transition between the two.

Instead, the rental market had other plans.

Apparently, it was a very popular time to be looking for a new place to live.

With multiple families vying for each house, landlords could be choosy.

Being self-employed with dogs put us near the bottom of the list.

In the meantime, we were living in an extended-stay hotel .

Still, I wasn't discouraged because…well, how long could it take to find a match? What I thought would be a two-week hotel stay stretched into nearly three months.

During that time, my husband, our 1-year-old daughter, Talia, two dogs, and our cat learned what it meant to live with little space .

More surprisingly, hotel living changed how I parented — and eventually, my views on home.