DH, DD14 and I live in a 3 bedroom 1990s-ish semi in a small village. We are tied to this area due to schools, jobs and families for the foreseeable future.
Because it's a modern house the rooms are very small e.g. the third bedroom can literally only fit a bed, no other furniture, and storage is a real problem.
We'd desperately like a bit more space and a more practical layout, plus due to the age of the house there are starting to be lots of things that need doing - e.g. kitchen and bathroom are both very shabby. We can't decide on our best option though - we're not sure we want to stay in this area (although we may have to due to the constraints above) so in some ways are loathe to spend money on the place, but I'm now wondering if it would be a good investment that would help if we sold in a few years time.
Options as far as I can see are:
- A full-on extension (either single or double height), creating the extra room and improved layout we want plus new kitchen, bathroom etc. Downsides: expensive obviously, plus stressful and disruptive. Would give us the house we want (more or less, there are some things that can't be changed like the fact it's a semi with shared driveway which I hate) though in an area that's practical if not exactly where we want to be.
- Decorating, patching up, improving where we can but basically living with the house as it is until we can move. Downsides: still costs money which could be better spent elsewhere and wouldn't really improve that much. We'd still be living in a cramped impractical space. If we decided to sell, not having done the kitchen, bathroom etc may be an issue but at least we wouldn't have spent thousands.
- Selling up and either buying in the same area (even though we may not want to stay here long term) or looking at renting. Downsides: not sure as moving is so expensive plus there's very little in our price range here that'd be better than what we've got. We'd need to change areas which we're happy to do one day but it's not possible at the moment.
I'd really welcome any advice on the different options or any we might not have thought of.