AIBU to refuse a bungalow when downsizing for our forever home?

[Opie1]

We live in a 4 bed detached house on a new build estate (30 years old now but you know what I mean).

im 45. DH is 55. We have no kids at home now so have been talking about downsizing. We want to live out in the countryside and I was thinking cottage/farmhouse … however DH seems to have it in his head that we need to move into a bungalow. I hate bungalows, I think they’re for the elderly. Every one he’s shown me has been grannyish inside and 60s/70s vibe on the outside. Not how I had envisioned our forever home at all.

AIBU to refuse to move to a bungalow?

We moved to a bungalow in our 30s with a toddler. We love it still, 30 years later.

Neither of you are being unreasonable- it's just a difference in opinion. Maybe you should go and see a selection of both bungalows and cottages and see if you can find one you both like?

No, but living rurally in the countryside isn't practical for a forever home. I think you will need to move again.

DH and I are a little older. Our final home will be within 5/10 mins or in the middle of a market town with good shops, doctors, hospitals. Mindful we may have to give up driving at some stage.

This
moving is expensive too I wouldn’t move somewhere if I knew I would have to move again especially not for a “forever home”!

I agree that bungalows before you need one can seem very much for the elderly. But if you're not planning to move again, it's worth buying something that will suit your needs in later life. At least make sure it has things like a downstairs loo, a staircase you could put a stair lift in, an easy garden, etc.

Please don’t move rurally without doing proper research into public transport links and GPs/hospitals. My mum lived in terror that she’d lose her driving license in her final years (long term issues linked to diabetes) as she’d basically have been stuck at home.

Is a forever home not a home you grow old in though?

Know what you mean…and I live in a bungalow : ) maybe the problem isn’t a bungalow, the problem is that there a lot of ugly/boring bungalows out there?
I love ours but it’s a more modern design with vaunted ceilings etc., not typical. You both need to love the house, that’s what counts.
We’re in our 50s & I find moving home very stressful. So it’s a just bonus that we wouldn’t have to move if one of us developed mobility issues, it’s not at all why we bought it.

My parents moved into a bungalow by the coast when they were in their early 50s. There is absolutely nothing grannified about it! They've done a lot of work on it, and it's been decorated to my mum's (impeccable) taste. It's like any home really, it will look dated if that's how the previous owner decorated it, but then you move in and change it to how you want it.

Surely you’d just have to modernise it and make it to your taste

On average those who relocate to a bungalow earlier have problems with climbing stairs earlier. There is a silly name for it: "bungalow legs" or something.
So whereas it might make sense in some ways, it might also mean that your fitness levels go down quicker than you want.

I bought a bungalow in my 30s, for my first home, and intend it to be my only home. I renovated and extended it and there’s nothing ‘grannyish’ about it.

If you want a forever home then surely a bungalow makes more sense as you wouldn’t need to move if you started to struggle with stairs.

and as for decor, well you’ll be able to fix all of that yourself and make it modern

YABU. I'm 45 and hopefully my next house (within the next 10 years) will be a bungalow.

Wouldn’t be my choice but my parents had a lovely one in a large village in the new forest. Had been beautifully renovated in a modern way.

We live rurally and are planning on moving to a town when we get older, if we loose our licensee or can’t drive we are screwed so I’d maybe choose somewhere with bus links and a community.

How the inside looks is entirely within your control, surely?

And you may not need it now but if it is going to be your "forever home", remember that forever includes when you might not be able to get around so easily.

We brought up our children in a bungalow and it was fabulous,all our neighbours were families barring one . We downsized to a house and I really miss the space and light we had in the bungalow.

We're hoping to move soon. I'm 40s, DH is 50s, and I will specifically be looking for (or building) a single storey house.

I help to care for my elderly parents at the moment and there is absolutely no way they'd be able to manage stairs. It's made me realise I need to be more future ready.

I‘m currently planning to move to a seaside town (I’m late 50s), in order to be settled before retirement and am intending for it to be my final move, so I have to think practically about the future, being less mobile as I get older, etc. I am considering both houses and bungalows. My sister is opposed to me buying a bungalow as she thinks it doesn’t feel safe to sleep downstairs… it wasn’t something I really thought about before. The town I am moving to seems to have a lot of ‘dormer’ bungalows, as in, most of the accommodation is on the ground floor but one or two bedrooms and a bathroom are on the first floor in the eaves. That might be a good compromise for you and your DH.

Don't get a bungalow (the stair exercise is good for you) and buy in town, unless you want to drive everywhere all the time.

As pp said, a former or chalet bungalow is a good compromise.
also, try and visualuse eg wood cladding, large apex windows etc - you can make a bungalow look cool.

Yes. Bungalow legs is a real problem

Slight aside, it always makes me smile when I see ‘house’ being used to mean a 2 storey or townhouse etc, but not a bungalow. I mean, a bungalow is a house, surely? It’s something I’ve only heard in the last few years, before that I assumed the word house covered all types of houses. I think to myself ‘well, what the hell am I living in, if not a house?’ I would think of bungalow as a descriptor, similar to cottage, 2 storey, townhouse etc.

Especially combined with living a car dependent rural life.