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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Big ugly house or small pretty house?

87 replies

FattyFatCakes · 06/05/2021 13:21

AIBU to ask you to decide for me?!
I’m going round and round in circles and can’t make up my mind.
Currently live in a lovely chocolate box cottage. We have just enough room for our family of four and associated pets.
5 mins away there is a large, modern house for sale. House and garden are twice the size but it’s an ugly lump and surrounded by industrial buildings rather than green fields.
We love our house but think we might have outgrown it. When our two ds are teens they won’t be able to stand upright in their current rooms or have a double bed.
Should we sacrifice the look and feel of a house for space and practicality? Hmm

OP posts:
LakeShoreD · 06/05/2021 14:34

Your house versus the potential new one sound like absolute polar opposites. Ugly would be fine, after all it’s subjective, especially if it gets you more space but surrounded by industrial buildings sounds really grim. Keep looking! And teens are fine in single beds, if they go to uni they will have singles in halls.

Original poster
FattyFatCakes · 06/05/2021 14:44

They are opposites but weirdly only a few miles apart. Ours is 5 mins drive away from a small, slightly grotty town in an AONB and feels very rural. The other house is on the edge of town and feels much more built up

OP posts:
SwimBaby · 06/05/2021 14:47

Is the ugly house in a good catchment area for secondary school?

IliveonCoffee · 06/05/2021 14:48

You can decorate ugly but you can't grow space. I mean extensions exist but there's a limit...

You can't change the view out the window but unless you like curling up on a window seat, or gaze out while washing up, how often you do you really look out the window further than your own garden?

Moondust001 · 06/05/2021 14:59

Bit of an off the wall suggestion here, and it would depend on the strength of your finances. But could you rent out the cottage and keep it for when the kids leave home (I know you say they aren't, but they will you know!) - so your retirement place. Then live somewhere else until it's time to move back in the future. Then you have the best of both worlds, and the ugly house will provide a nest egg for you/ the boys in the future.

PattyPan · 06/05/2021 15:00

I’d keep looking as your sons are still young enough to stand up so it doesn’t seem urgent enough to make that compromise now.
And no, teens don’t need double beds. Doubles and singles are the same length. DP (5’11) and I used to sleep in a single bed together at uni!

ScatteredMama82 · 06/05/2021 15:03

Large house. We did the same OP, we had a lovely 200 year old cottage with a tiny garden, but when we had our second baby it became impractical. We moved to the next village, a much bigger house (UGLY) modern house with a huge garden and it was absolutely the right thing to do. The kids love the garden, we've space for a big trampoline, swings and a big pool in summer. We've never looked back.

Original poster
FattyFatCakes · 06/05/2021 15:06

The houses are only 5-10 mins apart so same schools.

From the house / garden you can’t see any industrial buildings. The view is just garden and mature trees all along the boundary. But it’s definitely a more urban environment compared to the rolling green hills we have now and there are no footpaths from the house etc.

@Moondust001 that is my dream! Sadly we couldn’t afford that but it would be the perfect solution [sigh]

OP posts:
SwimBaby · 06/05/2021 15:08

I think if you really wanted to live in the ugly house you wouldn’t be asking this question?

SempreSuiGeneris · 06/05/2021 15:26

You sound like you want to move so go with your heart.

However I assume your DP is tall, hence why the DC will be tall? My DH is well over 6 ft. We discounted lots of modern houses on the basis the children's bedrooms were in the eaves. If you as parents don't struggle with current set up hard to work out why you envisage it being a problem for DC.

Even tall boys don't tend to reach the heady heights till about 15. I would prefer a couple of cramped years to decades of hanging on "just in case of boomerangs" to an empty nest I only bought to be practical.

Very personal decision though dependent on how much you actually are already compromising in your current home.

AtLeastThreeDrinks · 06/05/2021 16:00

Is there no way to extend the cottage? Raise the ceilings into the loft space?

Once you've spent money on solicitors' fees, stamp duty etc I wonder if there's a better option for your current place. I remember a thread on here about how little people's kids were using their gardens during lockdown/the lovely weather last spring, so unless you're absolutely sure the bigger garden will see lots of use I'm not sure I'd factor that in.

There's loads of 'tiny home' inspiration online if you want to maximise the space you do have, but obviously that's a project in itself.

PhantomErik · 06/05/2021 16:02

Moondust that's what we'd love to do but in reverse.

Neither of us have a brilliant pension (working on it) so would love to buy a small beautiful cottage, rent it out until we could retire & move into it, then rent our current house out to generate an income.

Not sure morally that's the right thing to do though & wouldn't do it unless we'd cleared our existing mortgage.

Lovely daydreams though!

N0tfinished · 06/05/2021 16:47

6'2" DS1 manages in a single bed just fine. I can't imagine he'd enjoy whacking his head off ceilings and door jams though...

Janegrey333 · 06/05/2021 16:50

jamb

Voomster953 · 06/05/2021 16:52

Just look at other houses. Confused

finallymightbehappening · 06/05/2021 16:55

Neither sound right for you.

Dishwashersaurous · 06/05/2021 16:59

Don’t buy the industrial estate house. Keep an eye out for bigger houses that are in a location that you like and then move like the wind!

Original poster
FattyFatCakes · 06/05/2021 17:07

@ScatteredMama82 well done for making the jump! My boys would love all that space for sure.
Still so undecided. Agent just called me saying we need to offer before the weekend as they have an offer on the table. Arrrrgh!

OP posts:
Saz12 · 06/05/2021 17:11

I’d definitely not buy ugly house. If you love your Cottage partly because of its character / charm then moving to a concrete box in an industrial estate will make you sad every time - unlikely to be offset by the advantage of size.

Original poster
FattyFatCakes · 06/05/2021 17:13

@Voomster953 we’ve been looking for 6 months but we don’t want to leave this area (schools, family etc) and v v little has come up

OP posts:
BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 06/05/2021 17:17

[quote FattyFatCakes]@ScatteredMama82 well done for making the jump! My boys would love all that space for sure.
Still so undecided. Agent just called me saying we need to offer before the weekend as they have an offer on the table. Arrrrgh![/quote]
Urgh. Dont feel rushed. You can offer whenever you like - even if the vendor accept this "other offer".

getsomehelp · 06/05/2021 17:17

Teenagers do not need a double bed

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 06/05/2021 17:17

Is yours on the market with a buyer in place? If not they will likely reject your offer.

Lindy2 · 06/05/2021 17:21

You can do things to make an ugly house pretty. However, you can't change its location or the buildings around it.

It does sound like you need something bigger but a house that's not in a pleasant area doesn't sound like its right for you. Keep looking.

NeedATan · 06/05/2021 17:23

Pictures?

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