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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:
missingdadd · 14/01/2019 16:27

Currently in the process of sorting out my parents home to sell.
Mum is still alive and in a nursing home, so made even more difficult/weird

northernmonkey1010 · 14/01/2019 16:36

My delightful mother and dickhead of a step father stopped paying the mortgage and lost the house they both came out of work due to illness and hadn't got the right insurance or something on those lines because they re mortgages to fund my sisters business that closed after 2 years! They are a waste of space the lot of them and I no longer talk to them as they owe me thousands

MaisyMary77 · 14/01/2019 16:39

My childhood home was turned into holiday flats. I was so sad when I saw what they had done to it-it was a huge, rambling old house with lots of corridors, stairwells and secret(ish) rooms. It’s unrecognisable now.

partinor · 14/01/2019 16:39

It was a council house. A different family now live in it.
DPs was a rented house, someone new lives in it.

Never really got the angst about selling a family house.

sue51 · 14/01/2019 16:44

The family home we lived in London has bern divided into 4 flats. It was a beautiful 3 story victorian town house in Chiswick and I have many mostly happy memories of our time there. One flat sold a year ago for over £700,000. I wish we had bought it from my parents when we had the chance.

ALongHardWinter · 14/01/2019 16:47

The house that I was born in,55 yeas ago,is now part of a hotel,together with the houses on either side of it.

Oogle · 14/01/2019 16:49

I own it now. I renovated it about 10yrs ago and it’s rented out to other relatives. I don’t feel an emotional connection to it. I’ll sell it when the relatives move on.

DramaAlpaca · 14/01/2019 16:50

My parents still live in it. I can't say I'll be too bothered when the time comes to sell it really.

bellinisurge · 14/01/2019 16:55

After my mum died a couple of years ago, we sold it. It's been done up with extensions etc. I can't bear to go near it. My mum lived there since the late 1960s. It's a lovely little place. I hope they are really happy there.

treeogal · 14/01/2019 17:05

Great topic. My parents home was already sold and it's been a huge source of regret. The area has become very upmarket due to a massive influx of Russians and very wealthy families from the middle east, so their friends have mostly all moved on, and it's got a very different feel - the small independent stores are mostly gone now. But there is a big wish that it hadn't been sold and instead had stayed in the family and been passed on. It was well laid out that there could have been a granny flat easily added, so it could have actually worked long term.

I have a child that's quite sentimental in a good way and already listening to Granny talk about how sad she is it was sold, has told me she plans to keep my own family home. It need lots of work to be the type of space to better accommodate a growing family, and that is well outside of my means, but If you had a spare 100K to throw at it, it could be made very lovely with an additional bedroom, bathroom and little second lounge. The area we live in I could never afford to move into now, so I also worry if I sell I will massively regret and feel I made the same mistake as my parents. My parents shed a lot of tears every time we drove past the old family home. Huge emotional connection as they worked very hard from grim circumstances to afford it, and after they sold it, it then went on to double in value within about 4/5 years.

allfurcoatnoknickers · 14/01/2019 17:12

My parents still live in it. But they do a crap job of looking after it, and are slowly filling it with clutter and junk. I'm dreading having to deal with it one day Sad . DH and I live 3000 miles away and have agreed to stop visiting the house (not the parents though!) because it's such a depressing experience.

peppersaunt · 14/01/2019 17:17

When we sold the family home after my father died we were afraid to pass by as we assumed it would be torn down and replaced by a McMansion (as had most others in their road). Instead they rejigged the layout and renovated (we sent a friend to drive by!)

longwayoff · 14/01/2019 17:22

Grew up in rented house. Offered to me for £8k in 1979. Thought that was a but much so didn't buy. Currently up for £1.35 million. Sigh.

Underhisi · 14/01/2019 17:32

My parents still live in the house they bought in 1976 as do two of my siblings.

The house before that is still there but the road has a different atmosphere. I always remember it as being full of children playing but I don't see that now and the grass we used to play on has been built on.

xJessica · 14/01/2019 17:33

My parents moved from ours when I was 24. I still miss it. If it ever comes up for sale I'm going to go and view it.

elephantinstripeysocks · 14/01/2019 17:48

a footballer bought it around 8 years ago from my mum and stepfather. last i heard whenever his wife is away he has all night pool parties with scantily clad young ladies leaving at all times and the neighbours HATE him.

Also (according to ex neighbour) footballer and his friends got extremely "merry" over Christmas and went squirrel hunting in the nearby red squirrel reserve, armed with nerf guns.

SagelyNodding · 14/01/2019 17:49

My parents sold it years ago, but they were quite friendly with the buyers... Went for a visit when we found out that they were selling it, and it was beautifully done up (and about 150000 more expensive!) They always called my old bedroom 'Sagely's room' which touched me greatly. It was a great house though Smile I miss it still.

SilverySurfer · 14/01/2019 18:02

As far as I know, Windsor Castle is still standing.

Just kidding Grin My parents moved from what I would consider my family home after my sister and I left home so no idea if it still exists, I presume so. I recall them telling me it cost £350 - I'm assuming its value has risen a bit since then Smile

FoulMouthedMotherFigure · 14/01/2019 18:44

I just looked up the house I was born in, on Google Streetview.

It's become the offices of a home care agency, with a huge blue-and-white logo on the low wall of the tiny patch of front garden. I could actually see into the front room where my brother and I were both born in the 1960s.

We moved out in 1970, but when we were still very small kids, Dad chalked the house number - 105 - on the brickwork inside the front door arch. For decades after he died, it remained there - the only permanent mark he ever made on the world. The care agency have had a new door fitted and the number's been wiped off the wall. Sad

cannotfindanickname · 14/01/2019 18:56

I own it since mum died. It is rented out as I don’t live in the same town. I don’t want to sell it just now but not sure what I will do in the long term. It doesn’t feel like the same house now that there is a different family there.

AnotherPidgey · 14/01/2019 20:07

I had two. The earlier one was gradually "modernised" and extended. The frontage has certainly lost a lot of its original Edwardian charm such as its leaded windows. (I also miss it's quirky 70s colour scheme Grin) I hope features such as the panelling and tiles in the hall survived, but I wouldn't lay money on it. There was a row of them built by the same architect, but all slightly different; a few houses down, they still had functional servants bells in the 80s. The garden was like something out of Tom's Midnight Garden and still thrives in my imagination.

DM is still in the second one. It's a glorious house, a listed building, but very unsuitable for growing old in on your own, and it's filled with her hoard. I've detached from it to some extent because staying and sitting on decrepit 70s furniture is uncomfortable. Clearing the hoard will be a major, emotional chore not helped by me being sentimental and battling my own inner hoarder!

I just hope that in the future it is bought by someone who falls in love with its history and sympathetically restores it. It has some original features such as beams and sash windows and a little detail on some window frames. Sadly after derilection in the 70s and an early 80s modernisation, a lot of features were lost. Unfortunately that work has aged along with DM. Hopefully being grade 2 listed should provide enough practical barriers against too many crimes against the structure of the building. I dearly hope that unlike so many large, beautiful period homes in the area, it doesn't fall victim to developers and their dull "luxury" appartments. Hopefully the garden size should impede too many aspirations of that ilk.

OublietteBravo · 14/01/2019 20:12

My parents still live in it. They’ve been there since 1975 - I can’t see them moving any time soon.

feska5 · 14/01/2019 22:35

Sadly my family home was compulsory purchased and demolished as the council planned to widen a main road into the city. About 70 beautiful houses were demolished. Unfortunately the road was never widened and now there is just a wide grass verge alongside the said road. Criminal given that we are so short of housing, They were lovely, substantial family homes that housed generations over a very long time. Makes me very sad when I drive past there now.

DonDrapersOldFashioned · 15/01/2019 11:07

That is absolutely awful, feska Sad

tmh88 · 15/01/2019 11:15

My parents are mid process selling theirs. It made me a lot more emotional than I thought it would, they’re downsizing but feels bizzare that I won’t be going back to the “family home” I have so many lovely memories in it!