Living in the middle of nowhere - rural idyll or dull as...

[Rhubarbgarden]

Back again. So we've written off the house in the perfect location with the pants garden, and the house with the great garden but next door to a pub. This next one is the wild card, so some views would be really helpful. We'd actually already written it off for location reasons - we ideally want to be in a nice village or town that is commutable to London; and this house is very rural. Ok it's not really the middle of nowhere, it's in Kent, so we're not talking remote moorland or anything, but it is a drive from the nearest village, which has precious little in it except a small convenience store, the local pub has a sign on the door saying 'no children', and the nearest town, Maidstone, isn't very appealing at first glance (sorry Maidstonians - happy to be proved wrong).

BUT, the house, the house... DH appears to have really fallen in love with it. He keeps comparing everywhere else to it. He is ridiculously picky and would really like to stay where we are in London and not have to commute, so for him to like somewhere so much has got to mean something. And now it's just been reduced, so he's back to scrolling through photos of it all the time.

So to stop rambling and ask my actual question, has anyone made the jump from London living to rural living, and did it work out? Are you bored? Are you blissed out feeding your chickens and tramping around in wellies? What's it like for kids? Did you grow up somewhere like this?

Actually what the hell I'll put the link on so you can get a flavour of why I think This House is worth considering something so different from what we thought we wanted.

Help

Link doesn't work.

Oh sorry. I'm rubbish at links. Try this:

m.geeringandcolyer.co.uk/pages/property/details.aspx?pid=1161505

Only you can really answer this. I have always lived near the country and towns. Now I think I could quite happily live rurally in the future, I don't care for company most of the time and could happily fill my days with my animals and pottering around at home.

But if I were to consider it now - while I have a young family and we both need to work I'm not sure.

I think you need to write down how long DH's commute will be, inc delays and bad weather. Where is school - and is there a bus or would you be taking them. Where will they socialise - will you have to trail them a long way to see their friends, and when they are older will they be able to get to places like cinema etc easily.

And what about you? Do you work - and how will your commute work and affect times for picking up kids etc? Or will you be 'at home'. If so what would you like to do? And what will you have time for around the new commitments you will have (school run etc).

It might be worth looking into local events/organisations that you could join - gardening groups or whatever!

Also might be worth having a drive from the house to maidstone during the day to see how long it takes, and what is there. Will you be able to shop there etc.

I still can't see the link and I want to be nosey

I think this link should work? www.geeringandcolyer.co.uk/buy/property/property-ref-1161505 the other one was a mobile site version

I'm a professional gardener when I'm not being a sahm, so I'd be more than occupied with those gardens! The rest, yes there's so much to think about it's all rather overwhelming.

Why won't the link work for me? Why? Why?

again

What am I doing wrong? I'm doing the brackets, copypasting the thingy, aaargh! Ok if you can be bothered to do it the long way round, look up the Geering and Collyer website for Harrietsham, Kent, it's the second one on from the top, the Georgian moneypit with the Mr Darcy lake...

Does it need a lot of work?? I only ask because there are multiple outside shots and very few interior

Have you been to view??

here we go

Forget what I said about thinking about commutes - buy it and invite me to stay. I'll run the lawnmower up and down for a bit to earn my keep .

Is this it?

Oh wow, for that house (the one that Bela linked to) I'd live on the side of a motorway . It's beautiful, obviously, and I'd be happy living that rurally - we live in the middle of nowhere now, having moved out of central Bristol a year ago. We love it and don't miss being in the city.

We don't have a shop or a pub (our house is what used to be the pub!) and have to drive everywhere. You get used to it very very quickly and I don't really think anything of it anymore. I used to love the convenience of walking to school, shops, dentist, hairdresser, pubs and restaurants etc etc and thought I'd miss it. In all honesty I would prefer to have some of these things within walking distance, but they're not and our amazing house and garden makes up for this. For us, it was worth the trade off.

I think you'd be more occupied sorting out the interiors. Is it some kind of care home?

I guess it depends how rural you want. I'd be checking whether Ocado delivered!

On a serious note, if you are happy with gardening and pottering around at home then you won't be bored there, and I think you will never stop marvelling at the place. It is wonderful. And there is scope to do alot with it should you wish to in the future.

If your DH is happy with the commute then thats fine, so its just the DC to sort out.

If you find yourself bored and lonely up there you could turn an out building into a self contained holiday let or something.

OMG it is gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!
I live in a market town , the middle of nowhere would drive me nuts but I could be persuaded in that house.

I moved from London to rural Somerset and absolutely bloody hated it. It was a village with some nice people in it but not much going on- and over half an hour drive from the nearest city. I was bored out of my brain, had a toddler at home despite meeting people at toddler groups etc

I realised I love the buzz of cities, the relative anonymity and the sheer amount of possibilities. Once youve done the one nice walk to the shop- well you've done it. It was always raining it seemed ( maybe you don't notice it in a city), was bleak (despite being an area of outstanding natural beauty ) but mostly just boring.

We lasted a year

If you're going to do a massive move then rent first to see if you can hack the countryside.

It's a lovely house Rhubarb. :) I agree; think a lot depends on your DH and the kind of person he is. As you know, we recently pulled out of our move the country. One of the reasons for that was my sneaking suspicion that DH would do nothing but whinge complain about the commute. Took the rather grown-up decision that I should stop trying to force him to be the kind of husband I'd like and accept him for who he was. He doesn't like early mornings, and I fear would have hated driving to a station, competing for scarce parking spaces, and then the long journey in. I hope I'm wrong at some point because I don't want us to be here forever, but for now while our DCs are young I think it's the best thing for us to maximise time together. Recently his commute was 90 mins each way, while we stayed at my mother's in Surrey, and some weeks he didn't see the children from Monday to Friday.

If you think your DH is up to the commute, and that you can still build in lots of family time together, I think you should consider it!

OMG that's beautiful.

OMG that's close to the motorway. Is it as noisy as it looks?

TBH with that many bedrooms you could import your own company - your children could have friends to stay for weeks at a time, you'd barely notice!

I grew up somewhere pretty quiet in Kent. It was lovely in many ways, and I wouldn't change my rural childhood, but tbh when we moved into a town when iI was 16, liberation was not too strong a word. Just being able to get to places under my own steam was incredible to me.

I have to say though, that if you can afford that, maybe you could afford something a little further towards civilisation further west? e.g. this - not as beautiful by any means, not as big, but still rural, without a socking great motorway at the end of the grounds. Negative side is that you are a long way from a station - which is not the case with the house you linked to.

Thank you, thank you for putting the link on all of you!

Yes you see my problem. It's gorgeous. It's making us overlook things we thought were red lines, which is probably bad. It does need total renovation, which is fine, the bones are beautiful and I've all sorts of ideas of what we could do with the outbuildings. Dh isn't keen on the idea of holiday lets but I reckon it would at least be useful to have that option.

How it would be for the kids is my main concern I think. Apart from the fact that the lake is a toddler death trap (got a 20 month old and another on the way) I don't know what it would be like growing up potentially a long way from friends. And what about when they are teenagers? Would they be bored out of their brains? I'm hoping someone will come on who grew up somewhere like this and loved it...

m.geeringandcolyer.co.uk/pages/property/details.aspx?pid=1161505

hope this link works for you

Lovely house, really truly lovely. It would need a big revamp inside for me.

I moved from a large town to the country 5 years ago, day to day its fine. You soon adapt, but for going out ect we find it a real pain. With young children good babysitters are harder to find and getting a taxi home after a night out in town is awful. Taxi drivers seem to only want local runs after a certian time of night.

It will be a nightmare for teenagers!
Also you have a toddler and the lake???
The house Is amazing but how can you make it safe? 5 year olds drown in lakes...

Joan you can hear the motorway a bit, but not excessively. And compared to where we live now in south east London with sirens and bin lorries and everything else - well there's just no comparison. Good to know you had good childhood experiences, less good that you felt you needed liberating as a teen. The house you posted is nice, thanks, but DH is Mr Finickity about architecture, and only Georgian or certain kinds of Victorian will do.

Hi Lottie yes the commute - aargh - the thing with this house is that unlike with the Brighton house, where, like you, I felt I was pushing DH to do something he would hate, he LOVES this one, it's his Georgian dream, and he's the one who keeps saying 'could we do this?' so I wouldn't feel so responsible.

Staverton you are the voice of reason [puts hands over ears and shouts la la la]

Could the lake be walled off from an area where the DC would play. Or please don't shoot me, could the lake be drained for a few years? (disclaimer I have no idea if that is even possible or anything about lakes for that matter!)

I think you could work with the lake some how. Are all of your DC still young? - If they are a move to the country now, before they establish firm friendships or get used to 'city life' would probably be the best time.

Will you be able to cope with a newborn and the majority of the work (or at least supervision) needed on the house?

How bad will DH's commute be?

Another thought could you afford/would you want a nanny or an au pair which could help take the pressure off you running the DC around and be a babysitter when you need one.

One thing that kept coming back to me was an anecdote a friend once told me about living with her boyfriend in what she thought was her 'dream' apartment on the South Bank (ok ok, we were in our late twenties ). She was miserable there because they were miserable together, and she would look out over the glittering Thames, supposedly living the dream, but actually in tears much of the time.

It's very different to my/our lives now, but I feared that in our move to my dream home in Kent, I'd realise that a house can't make me happy. It's about my life, my connectedness to others, and the happiness of my partner. I am in a different situation to you because as you know, we've just moved back from abroad so London is looking fresher than it would otherwise . We weren't in the country in the UK, but we were in a different country, and I can say I am really enjoying the ease of everything, having not had it for a couple of years. Friends tell me that once you move to the country you never look back - I'm not sure how true that is. Truth for us would have been that had we made that move to the country, we never would have been able to afford to move back.

Did you say you've been to look at it? Is DH impulsive? Do you think he's brave enough to go for it?

Also Rhubarb - for that or similar money you could find somewhere else gorgeous, perhaps closer to a town you actually like, and closer to a village. I know you say DH is picky and he loves this, but as I say I don't think a house is enough in itself.