DP has recently inherited his mum’s house. It is a beautiful house, the DCs love it and whilst it’s 30 mins away from where we live now, with a bit more planning/ organisation it shouldn’t impact too much on our daily routines of driving the DCs to/ from school and us getting to work. I WFH 95% of the time and DP will be going back to work more of a hybrid model when he eventually returns.
Our house is too small for our needs now and at various points over the years, we’ve thought about moving and did have the house on the market for a while, but DP’s mum’s diagnosis (and Liz Truss’s mini-budget) put a stop to those plans pretty sharpish.
The house is the only family home he has ever known. He’s had every Xmas there since the age of two and it will be a huge wrench to sell it and move on. That said, he has often talked about selling it and our house and buying an amazing house for us all so he’s not 100% against the idea.
We’ve been spending quite a bit of time there since his mum died and despite my thinking the opposite, the DCs have loved it and never want to leave when we are there. They talk about how living there would mean they could have their own rooms (younger two currently share) and it’s safe enough for us to let our cats out and we could get a dog and generally I think enjoy a better quality of life.
We wouldn’t want to change schools so until the youngest leaves primary in 6 years time it will be a bit of a bind getting to/ from school each day. Where we are now we manage without child care as I finish work at 3pm but I wouldn’t make it in time for pick up if we moved 30 mins away. We would have to use a childminder for school pick up each day. DC1 starts secondary school next week and there is a train she can get, so once they are all there it will be fine.
So overall it feels like a good plan but the house needs a lot of work, definitely a new kitchen (DP agrees on this) and the bathrooms need sorting out (I think he agrees on this too). IMO all the bedrooms need new carpets, and given that all the downstairs carpets are cream I’d be inclined to change them too. BUT anytime I start a conversation along these lines DP gets defensive and thinks I want to change everything, which I don’t. I don’t think it’s because it’s too soon either, as we’ve talked about it in the past and it always end up with us agreeing to disagree, and the conversation never concludes. His parents had lovely taste in furniture overall. The only thing I’d like to change are the sofas as they are very traditional (and also cream). Our sofas at home are knackered so it would involve buying new ones which DP says is a waste of money. I’d also like to keep my dining table, I bought it for myself for my 40th birthday. Had it made especially to fit my kitchen with reclaimed oak and a matching bench and I saved up for months to get it. If we designed the kitchen right it would look amazing but again, DP wants to keep both the dining tables and chairs (there is one in the dining room and one in the kitchen currently). I agree that the dining room one is lovely but the kitchen one, whilst a quality piece of furniture is not really to my taste…
I suppose I’m asking how do I navigate all this? I’ve longed for a nice big family home for so long (DP has had to be dragged along to house viewings and has always said he’s happy where we are). I want to host Christmases with my family, I want the kids to be able to have friends over and sleep overs, and host their birthday parties at home, etc. etc. and also do some entertaining of our own - we always go to our friends houses and never invite them to ours as it’s so small and cluttered.
I’m also nervous about having no real stake in the house either? If we sell ours and pay off the mortgage then any left over will just go into the family pot so essentially I’ll have no assets to call my own, etc. what if our relationship ends - he could just kick me out?!
I do at least 90% of the household chores too so part of me is worried that unless I can find a way to be able to talk to DP about making some small changes/ improvements to his DP’s house, I’d essentially be living in his house, decorated to his (ie his DM’s) liking, doing all the housework with nothing to show for it at the end. We’re not married so unless he specifies in his will, it’d all pass to DC1 on his death as well.
Does anyone have and advice on this? Has anyone else been in a similar position?