People with a townhouse?

[redpickle]

It might just be last minute wobbles as we are about to exchange contracts any day. We are buying a townhouse in a nice village with good schools etc etc. Its the best thing we've seen (after 20+ viewings) BUT I'm just a bit worried. The layout goes like this ground floor: Study/Playroom, cloakroom, large kitchen diner french doors to garden. 1st Floor: en-suite double, living room, 2nd Floor: Master en-suite, bedroom 3 (single) family bathroom.

We have a 2.5 year old and a baby on the way and were thinking daughter who will be 3 when baby comes in bedroom three until new baby 6 months (in with us in master until then). I'm just wondering what other people would do - would you have a 3.5 -4 year old a floor below you or put children up top and take the smaller double until she's older?

Inspired to worry by the thread about having children on floor below/different floor plus scary fire scenes in Eastenders (what? its a fly on the wall documentary isn't it?). Also are we crazy to buy a house with a small townhouse garden with 2 kids. It is flat and 'workable' and we will put a playhouse out there but is that enough?

Please can people with townhouses reassure me that they make good family homes? Also that we will be able to sell it on in future in spite of 'untraditional layout' and small garden?

I had a thread like this when we were considering buying a townhouse a few months ago - got lots of useful opinions (some pro, some against). If you search "wigeon" and "townhouse" you'll find it! Roughly around Sept 09 I think.

We did put an offer in on the house but it fell through because the vendor, who had originally said he'd move straight out into rented, suddenly announced he was actually trying to buy, so we pulled out as we couldn't hang aroung.

Found it!

The bedrooms wouldn't bother me, it's having the living space over two floors that would annoy me, I had a house that had the kitchen at floor level, and the lounge, bedroom and bathroom were on the lower ground leading out to the garden.. was a PITA.

We used to have integral garage and garden room on ground floor, then converted ground floor to big open plan kitchen and family room opening onto garden. Converted old kitchen on 1st floor to an ensuite bedroom, along with large lounge/ dining room. 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on top floor.

Works really well now. ground floor for daily living, 1st floor for quiet TV watching reading.

Was a bit of a pain before we did the conversion though - you need to have some sort of living area on the ground floor with the kitchen.