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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What happened to your old family home?

153 replies

MissCromwellatKingscote · 14/01/2019 11:00

My mum still lives in mine, but a few friends have had the sad job in recent years of having to sell the house they grew up in.

I'm just wondering what happened to your old family home? Has it been sold on a few times? Has it been changed drastically from how your parents used to have it etc.

OP posts:
Flibbitygibbit · 14/01/2019 12:57

We sold ours when my parents died. It broke my heart ☹️

LBOCS2 · 14/01/2019 13:03

DSis and I sold our family home last year, after DM died. We talked about buying her out and living there but DH didn't feel like it would be 'his' so decided he'd rather not.

The couple that bought it a) absolutely loved the house and b) were planning on doing a big renovation, and have invited us back in a few years to see what it's like. We found photographs of the house when our parents did a renovation the first time around and we left for them - it will create a nice history of the house for them. I'm glad that they are hoping to have a family there but I've been deliberately avoiding the area since as I think it would break my heart to see the house being pulled apart before it's renovated.

gwenneh · 14/01/2019 13:13

My parents still live in it. They've bought a plot of land about an hour away from it with hopes of building a more retirement-suitable property, so at some point in the not too distant future it will probably be sold.

I will be sad but not heartbroken; it's a lovely house but the floor plan doesn't suit me, the schools around the area are terrible so I wouldn't want DC growing up there, and there are no longer lots of young families in the area like there were when my parents built it.

Slippershoes · 14/01/2019 13:22

The house still looks pretty much the same as my dad probably did most of the extending that could be done, but the once isolated house is now in an almost street in the middle of nowhere.

holasoydora · 14/01/2019 13:25

My parents are still in mine. I love going home.

They stole my room so I sleep in my sister’s room when I go back. I’m still annoyed about that Grin

robynadair · 14/01/2019 13:33

I always think of the house I grew up in from the age of 7 to 18 when I left home to train as a nurse when people talk about their home. It's now let as a student house, has had a loft conversion is really run down and tatty looking. I had a look at it on right move when it was last for rent and the interior is still recognisable, still has the same home made fitted wardrobe in my old bedroom and a window seat in the bay window in the front room that my lovely dad made as storage for my toys when I was about 8 and when I was older became the video storage. That brought back so many memories & made me sad as he died a couple of years ago. The dining room is also a bedroom now with a fitted sink. The garden, which was always a small courtyard garden, which my mum had made beautiful with climbers around the walls etc (all gone) is now just a dumping ground with a large shed that takes up most of it presumably for bikes as the advert mentioned secure bike storage. Everything is battered, scruffy and unloved looking. I feel sad about this as my parents really scrimped and saved to buy it, the mortgage repayments were a real struggle and they always has it so smart with a bright red front door and hanging baskets. However, it allowed them to buy a bungalow by the sea in later years where they were really happy.

TheHorseyouRodeInOn · 14/01/2019 13:39

My lovely historic ex house in the country is now a B&B run by awful people. They colluded with the estate agent who was a friend of theirs to try and rip off my DM on the price. It was only after we stepped in and stopped them that she got what it was worth. I always tell myself I'll go and stay they but I can't bear to 😐

irregularegular · 14/01/2019 13:58

There is no "old family home" My parents lived in 9 different houses. I lived in 5 of them, 6 if you count when I was university.

I've made a conscious decision to give my children a bit more continuity. But now that I have to empty and sell my parents' last house after my father died a few months ago ( and my mum died 4 years ago) I am quite glad the emotional bonds to the house are not too strong. I'm also glad that they haven't accumulated too much stuff! Moving helped.

The house that is closest to being by true childhood home (lived there from 6/7 to 13/14) doesn't seem to have changed too much. Extended a bit. Other houses nearby also look similar. But there are a lot of new houses built at the start of the road where it used to be all cows!

jay55 · 14/01/2019 14:00

We moved a lot and I never lived in the house my dad lives in now.

Clearing out my grandmothers house for sale after she died was heartbreaking though.

MadisonAvenue · 14/01/2019 14:04

My parents still live there. They’ve been there since it was a new build 48 years ago when I was one.

SciFiScream · 14/01/2019 14:08

I don't have a home I consider my childhood home. My home now is my home and hopefully will be the home my children consider their childhood home.

My DD announced the other day though "that she'd like to experience moving home" I explained she would when she left home "I want to do it as our family though Mummy" was the reply!

Bbbbb27 · 14/01/2019 14:22

Our family home was a housing association flat, we moved when I was a teenager. Have lots of happy memories.

Have been back a few times recently and it’s now a very trendy place to live, completely changed. Some old neighbours still there.

Really nice to see and still feels like homeSmile

Fashionista101 · 14/01/2019 14:35

Mine was a converted Sunday school and is now luxury apartments 😩 they still have the pond me and my grandparent dug (we stopped digging because we hit a grave 😂)

Ladymargarethall · 14/01/2019 14:43

My parents split up after 25 years of marriage. The house was sold and they both moved away.
It never really felt like home. We went back and looked at the outside of it last year. I didn't feel sad at all.

Writingtrash · 14/01/2019 14:47

My parents are still in mine. We hope to keep it in the family. I would be very upset if we couldn't, it's an old house with lots of character and every corner is full of family memories. In some ways I wish it was a red brick semi, because it wouldn't be so upsetting to even think of losing it.

chemenger · 14/01/2019 14:49

My childhood home has been in our family since 1936 when my grandparents moved there. Before that it was owned by a great uncle I think but I don’t know how long for. My brother lives in it now. I hope we can somehow keep it in the family but he has no children and mine have no attachment to it so would probably sell, which is quite sad.

Iloveacurry · 14/01/2019 14:49

It was redeveloped and knocked down. Now there’s loads of flats.

MaMisled · 14/01/2019 14:51

I went back to look a few years ago but wish I hadn't. My proud fathers beautiful privet hedge, front lawn and rose bushes, lovingly tended for years, replaced by a concrete driveway and brick wall with stone lions on pillars!

Pk37 · 14/01/2019 15:00

We moved 4 times while I was growing up so don’t have an attachment to a family home

VictoriaBun · 14/01/2019 15:11

My parents house was ours for 52 years. My father died young, and my mother a few years ago. As I was an only child it fell to me to sort it all out and put it on the market. When the day came for it to be the last time I would be in there I walked around it saying goodbye to the memories, to the walls, to the garden. I even say on the back doorstep to remember the times I'd sat their with mum shelling peas, watching thunderstorms. I've seen the garden since it's been all uprooted and paved over.

Howyoualldoworkme · 14/01/2019 15:16

My father and stepmother live in my old home. My half brothers and sisters were brought up there and I imagine it will go to my stepmother and then to them.
I just feel like a visitor there now even though there's been no falling out.

Funnily enough I'm completely at home at my mother's house although I only lived there briefly.

scoobydoobydoooooh · 14/01/2019 15:48

I grew up on a new estate in the 70s. It was full of kids and we all played together and went to school together. We were always in and out of each other's houses. Our parents all knew each other and socialised together and our mums just went in and out of each other's back doors.

My mother still lives there but it has changed a lot. Many of the couples who bought the houses as new builds are now dead or are in homes and the houses have been sold. The new people moving in mainly work long hours and the children are at minders during the week so no one really knows each other that well. There's still a couple of people on the road that my mum knows and is friendly with, but years ago she knew practically everyone.

Most of the houses have been modernised with new front doors and windows, front gardens paved to fit two cars, garages converted etc. My mum's house hasn't changed that much, just a bit of updating inside.

FrenchyQ · 14/01/2019 15:50

My parents still live in the house i grew up in, they've been there since 1985, think its slightly too big for them now but they have no intention of moving.

yomellamoHelly · 14/01/2019 16:12

My parents moved lots, so was never attached to any particular place.
Their last place together was sold when they divorced and my mum crammed her favourite bits (and various random bits she was "saving" for us all - despite being told we didn't want it - ) in to her new flat.
Then when she went into a nursing home she again had her favourite bits and we all had a chance to take anything we wanted. The rest was sorted out by a house clearance company.
It made me realise why I can never pack a place like she did and am now quite concious of what possessions we're surrounded by. It's a burden to leave behind.

CMOTDibbler · 14/01/2019 16:26

My parents are still there. I feel nothing for it - I haven't lived there since 1990, and haven't stayed there overnight since 2007. The vibrant home it was as a child is nothing like the place it is now