criteria for family home

[anna345]

Hello mumsnet !

I am not yet a mum although am really hoping to be soon and need your advice.

My husband and are I looking to move house from Bath as he is currently working in Newbury and the commute is killing him every day. We are hoping to get pregnant soon and with that in mind are a looking for a family home in the country. The problem is I am not a mum ( and only a few of my friends are) so am struggling to think what our criteria should be. At the moment we live in a flat with bars and restaurants on our doorstep but I imagine these things will be less important when we have a baby / toddler. But it's really hard judging whether a house is right for a life you don't yet have so I'm getting swayed by the things that are right for my life now !

So .. the bit I need help with is getting a criteria that I can use to help me. So of the following ( and any others) which are the top three most important for a family home ?

Near good / outstanding rated school
Near amenities ( or is hoping in a car for 5 mins to get milk an issue??)
Open plan kitchen diner
Good safe area
Nice pub in walking distance ( or am I am in dream land here?!)
short drive / walk to mother and baby groups ??

THANK YOU !!

Hi Anna,

We have 2 children; almost 5yo and a 21mo. House-wise, you need to consider how manu children you'd ideally like to have: would you like them to have a bedroom each or are you happy for them to share?

Storage space is CRUCIAL. Think garage. Think understairs cupboards. Think of a spare room/spare bedroom/attic/other secure outbuidlings.

Parking: a driveway is ideal. Allocated parking in a space close to your house is a close second. Imagine carrying a sleeping tot further than necessary and you get the picture

Nice sized lounge.

En suite for you, if possible, but not essential.

Nice sized garden, again ideal but not essential.

Extra room to use as a playroom (possibly an extension or conservatory): it's nice to have somewhere for the children to play so that your lounge doesn't turn into a double of The Entertainer!

...

Kitchen diner or a kitchen plus a dining room.

I don't think you can chose just 3 as they are all so important if you have a family. I'd add a good size 3rd bedroom too, the schools is a major one, decent garden, off road parking, local amenities. I could go on....!

For me the most important thing when looking for a house when pregnant with my second dc was a large kitchen/dining/family room. We spend all our time in this room and rarely use our sitting room.
Most of our neighbours are extending their kitchens to allow for tv,couch and dining table.
I love it and it was essential when they were toddlers.

Schools: don't be swayed by
Ofsted 'outstanding' ratings. House prices in those catchment areas are often inflated for that reason and they're not necessarily the best school.

Primarily, I want my dds to be happy, so look at the breakdown marks on Ofsted reports. The 'personal and social development' bit and how the staff and children relate are my key areas, not the overall grade.

Myself, I would not send my children to anyyhing less of a 'Good' school (2 overall).

Pubs, etc, are nice; having toddler groups/play groups nearby is good - not essential for raising a family (this sounds like a village scenario. Great if you can afford it ) but not vital.

Having a shop within walking distance is necessary for me. I don't want to have to get the children into the car all the time, especially to buy just a small item like bread or milk.

A park nearby (swings, slides, etc,) is lovely. Good exercise to get there, letsthem blow off steam, a walk back and then they're often easier to settle at bedtime!

HTH

Oh yeah, and a good safe area is a given. I'd rather take a smaller house in a good area than a bigger house in a not-so-good area.

We moved when I was expecting my first and I looked for a village with good school, large garden and off road parking, a nice local pub. The house had to have storage, a large utility, kitchen diner, bedroom for each child and if affordable a playroom.

Downstairs loo - brilliant fir kids, especially when potty training
En suite bathroom/ shower as well as family bathroom. - sometimes the only room without toys in
Garden - to run about without having to go out
Playroom - I wish we had one!
Spare bedroom - now we have 2 dc we gave nowhere for coding grandparents or as an office
Affordable on one salary - this is my (modest and a bit small) house's best feature.

what they all said and I'll add: a downstairs loo, and somewhere to park a not collapsed buggy - Ie porch or hall.

I guess you won't get everything on this list but some bits would be good!

Also, we are (inadvertently) 2 mins walk from an Outstanding primary school, that feeds into an Outstanding high school. I love that we can walk to school.

If going v rural - mains gas. Our LPG bills used to cripple us.

Easy walking distance to a good local park, open space, playground etc. Plenty of safe footpaths for riding bikes and scooters.
Schools within walking distance.
Storage for outdoor stuff (garage or shed).
A big enough kitchen to eat in - and do messy painting/sticking safe in the knowledge that you can easily wipe up afterwards.
Space for homework/access to computers in a downstairs family room.

Thank you so much everyone this is already really helpful.

We saw a house this weekend that ticked a lot of these boxes ( en suite, garden, parking, downstairs loo, open plan family space, enough bedrooms for two children and to have a spare for guests, attic that could be storage / playroom, space for buggy in hall, catchment area for good school, utility) BUT is in rural village so although you have amazing walks and lovely safe area on doorstep you'd need to get in car for 5 mins to go to shop, school pub. I can't work out if this should be a deal breaker given all the other boxes that are ticked !

Personally, I'd keep looking.

Being in a village is lovely as long as you have pavements. I really liked being able to walk to school, park, corner shop and play group. Trying to bundle the children into the car and out, twice to leave the house would have been a shame. A friend who does that is really envious of how well my berserker of a toddler held my hand to walk but it's practice.

If you need to get in the car for that think you'll quickly organise yourself so you don't run out of essentials. Keep milk and bread in the freezer and use online shopping when your babies are tiny.

You know,I live 2 mins walk from an ok pub and I think I've been twice since we had children. I wouldn't prioritise pub proximity.

Although close to a doctors surgery is very handy with pregnancy and children.

As a teacher, I'd say that moving near to a good school is not at important. It'll be 5 years until you need a primary and 12 until you need a secondary at least. I work at a school which was outstanding for 12 year and has just been moved to 'requires improvement'. Another local school which has always been regarded as the poor one is now the 'good' school. The likelihood of the school STILL being good when you want it is minimal as schools tend to go in cycles. It would be sad for you to pay a premium for a house because of the schools, to then find that they are not so great when you need them!

Country living full stop involves quite a bit of driving- I've got used to it and don't think that should put you off if you are happy driving.
The two things I didn't consider when we purchased out house before pregnancy was:
Flat garden (got a slopey, pretty one- disaster)
Downstairs loo/lack of

Some of it depends on how long you see yourself staying in a house. This one has been great up until now, but not for much longer. What's been good:

• Walking distance of nursery - I used to come home, dump the car and walk to get DD, which was great for decompressing after the day at work. It was also handy when I put her in nursery and took the day off work!
• Walking distance of school - no horrendous parking stresses, enough said.
• Easy walking distance of basic shops - I refuse to live anywhere I can't walk somewhere for a pint of milk.
• Reasonable distance of really good local shops (we're dreadfully spoilt actually, we're a mile away from a brilliant mini high street), and walkable distance of town (at a push).
• Downstairs loo - useful in the potty training days, and a second loo is essential IMO if you've got more than two people living in a house!
• Conservatory which we use as a utility room - space for washer and dryer outside of the (small) kitchen, and space to hang clothes to dry outside of living space.
• The conservatory has also been useful for toy storage, but not for playing as the temperature's a bit variable.
• Enclosed garden which has fitted various paddling pools, a small playhouse, a slide, and a swing over the years, and a trampoline now.
• Same number of bedrooms as people - that's three. In theory we'd fit in a two-bed, but the spare is useful for storage, when DH or I is snoring, sick, or sulking, and for guests.

What's not been so good:

• Small kitchen and separate dining room - if I had my time here again I'd knock them through.

What we need to find now:

• Bigger kitchen or kitchen/diner - various reasons, but in part because with DD nearly 10 now I figure she has a few years yet of really needing supervision with her homework before she vanishes into her bedroom for good.
• Second bath- or shower-room. I am NOT going to share my bathroom with a teenage girl. There will be ructions.
• A fourth bedroom, or a study, probably a room doubling up as both. I want worky stuff out of the living areas, and at a push to have two rooms for guests (eg for friends with kids).

We also need to be nearer one of the secondary schools - chances are DD will get into the one, but it's not a nice journey on foot or bike from here. So mostly we're moving for things which are related to DD getting older, rather than intrinsic problems with the house - we probably could have bought the perfect house first time round, but you need to be pretty far-sighted to do that, and you need to know the area well.

Most people will prioritise being able to walk to things. I also was fanatical about this for year until we moved somewhere a pint of milk = car. Now I don't even think about it (we have two under 5s) - being able to walk is better but you get used to either pretty quickly - or we did at least. And there tend to be other compensations if you can't walk - at least some of: house size, garden size, privacy, scenery, walks, wildlife, lack of traffic.

I do (currently) think I would like to live somewhere they can have travel independence once they hit their teenage years.

Rural is safe and peaceful in many ways but remember most pavement-less rural lanes are lethal.

I guess we're lucky in that we've lived in both (city and rural) and enjoy both. Many will be one or the other.

I focused on the travel bit, but besides that, we value:

• bedroom per person + one for guests
• downstairs loo
• ideally a second sitting room to combat toy-take-over
• enclosed garden
• not on a main road for when they want to start plodding solo/riding bikes
• off-road parking
• baths as well as showers
• garage or big shed for toys/bikes/ride-ons/junk

My advice is pick somewhere you'd be happy living whether you have children or not. It might take you five years to conceive and it will only make you more miserable if you're in a place that only really works for families. If you like living in a flat in a city centre, buy one. They work fine with kids too!

That's a good point. People assume conception will happen when they want. We stayed in a city centre flat until our first was 14 months. Was fine really.

The downsides were firstly that we suddenly got v irritated by neighbours coming home wrecked and waking the baby up, and secondly that we lived in the city but with none of the benefits - you can still go out and eat until a bedtime routine kicks in, but after that (sans babysitters) you don't get the benefits of city pubs, restaurants, theatres, gigs etc

In response your later post OP, you may well find that the premium you pay for a village with amenities means you compromise elsewhere... Our village has no amenities at all and is probably £60k cheaper than the next village 1mile away AND has more motorway noise) which has the shop, school and pub.

For me, and if it's a forever family home, I'd go worth plot size and location. All the rest you can fix - adding extensions, downstairs loos, ensuites etc

You could also go for the happy medium- moving to a smaller family home in a small town as a stepping stone, especially as your needs will change as the children grow. How about Marlborough?