To move or not to move that is the bloody difficult question?!

[Worryworker]

Ok, so we currently live in a victorian terraced house within walking distance of town centre and dc's school. Also benefits from 3 good sized bedrooms and generally good space inside which we have taken several years to decorate and get just how we want it. The downside and reason we are contemplating moving is lack of outside space. Our garden is very small (although have made the most of what we have!) plus we live on quite a busy road so kids (aged 7 and 5) can't just go out a play on their bikes etc which they love to do. Currently we have to go round gp's to let them do this- quiet cul de sac location.

Which brings me onto the property we have seen! We were not necessarily thinking of moving, only if a property really caught our eye and this did! The house we have seen is a detached 1960's-70's build with a 'wrap around' beautiful garden. It's in a cul de sac location with plenty of space for kids to play out safely on their bikes etc. garden is amazing- lots of established plants, bushes, few trees and places kids can make dens. It is also a minutes walk from the gp's and kids already know other kids who live in the area. Downside is- house currently owned by elder couple so needs seriously updating/modernising and overall inside space is a lot smaller than current house. 3rd bedroom is tiny (6' by 8' sort of size) and has small kitchen/diner. Also currently heated by coal fired central heating which not sure is a good thing. Also would mean we'd have to drive kids to school which would be a bit of a PITA.

So am in complete dilemma as to what to do! Another plus to moving would be our mortgage would be cheaper! It's just we've put so much work into our current house- have it just how we want it and thought of starting again is a little overwhelming but also a little exciting as potential new house has lot of potential, including possibility of extending at sides and front (so can eventually make smaller 3rd bedroom bigger).

WWYD?

I would. I would, space is lovely. But is it a good thing to be that near the gps. Your parents I take it!?

Move!!!

Driving kids to school isn't much of a pain. I've done it for years..

I'd stay. Inside space is more important than outside space for me. In a few years your DCs won't play in the garden any more anyhow and you'll probably still be in the throws of a heavy renovation. Think about the effort to do up the place vs the effort to go over to the GPs for a few more years?

Unless you personally love gardening and want a bigger garden for yourself, I wouldn't move.

I would stay put. Inside space will be a lot more important than outside space when your kids are teens. Unless you have got a generous budget and can afford to extend as part of the refurbishment if you bought the other house?

Personally, I would never want to live anywhere where I had to drive the dc to school.

Stay put. But gardens are over rated

Many thanks for the replies. I have thought about inside space as kids get older, as you said Ruddyduck, when they're teenagers and won't want to be playing in the garden. Plus current house is nice and near town for when they're old enough to go out on their own etc. I like gardening but must admit garden in other house does seem a bit overwhelming.

We are only a 5 min drive from gp's currently maleducada (not my parents- IL's who are amazing) and kids rounds there after school on Wednesdays and most Sundays (we're all there for a roast!!).

Such a difficult decision. Currently veering towards staying!

We compromised on the 'walk to school' when buying. It is a pain when you have to arrange alternative transport, especially as they withdrew the public bus option. One thing we didn't factor was the cost of the school commute. I reckon it costs me about £30 - £40 a week in fuel.

What difference would the new address make to which secondary school your DC get into?

We have made the garden mistake. Bought a house with a lovely huge garden that takes a lot of time to just keep looking even half decent (mostly it looks terrible as we just don't have time).
DC now 11 and 13. They don't use the garden much at all, just the trampoline. We had been talking about a tree house for a year or two. This year we finally got round to building it - it is really very cool but DS (11) is not really interested now it's finished.

The "garden" period is much shorter than you think.

I'd move. It sounds ace.

Could you afford to extend do serious building work in the new house to create additional space? I'm thinking a loft conversion to give you an additional bedroom and maybe moving walls to utilise downstairs space better.

If this house doesn't tick all the boxes, wait for one that does. Get to know the roads you would consider in terms of location and check rightmove on a daily basis.

We made a similar move 5 yrs ago and at the point I found our house we had been looking for 4 years. I had whittled the search down to about 1/2 a square mile as walking to school was high on my list and culdesac, garden next.

Our outside space is so lovely to have. People tend to come to us now rather than us always going to theirs. Our kids play outside everyday and as other young families have moved in, there are always friends for them to play with. This would never have happened on our previously busy road.
In terms of inside space, we went from a house that was 'finished' to a DIY bad taste disaster. We did all the 'behind the scenes' things immediately; boiler, holes in the roof etc, but we haven't decorated a thing.

It's been great actually cos I haven't had to be precious about the house. The flooring is knackered anyway, so I'm fine about wet dirty feet running in and out etc.

Now the kids are a little older we're planning a modest extension to provide larger bedrooms (with study space) and a larger dining kitchen.

Interestingly, my parents made a similar move when I was 14. I left home 3 years later and so never 'played' in the garden as such, but used it much as you use your pils garden, which brought a lot of joy to them, until we got one of our own. My mums garden is still a lovely place to gather, and they use it everyday, even in winter, for entertaining or just by themselves.

Wow, long post, sorry.

I would probably move if you could afford to extend. You say that the house is cheaper than your current one. I love outside space and a quiet road - not just for the children, but for you too. But then I also like the idea of doing up a house too, as long as it isn't a complete ruin (which it sounds like it isn't)

The driving to school would put me off a bit personally. Is there any possibility of a suitable house with a garden within walking distance of school?

The cost of moving is very high these days, so you don't want to do it too often! I would think about where you want to live in 5/10/20 years time. If this is the right location and garden for the next 10-20 years and beyond then it will be worth moving, extending, doing it up, driving to primary school. If it's only for 3-5 years then probably not.

I wouldn't even consider moving to that house.

From the post it sounds like you have rose tinted glasses on that hinge everything around the garden.

The mortgage would be smaller for now, but where's the funding coming from for all the updating and modernising? It's not only the things you can see but the other stuff like re-wiring. And whose name would be down for the 6x8' box room?

You say you've got your house how you want it and that you've made the most of the garden you have. The kids playing out on bikes is a fairly short period of time in the lives of the house and when you factor in bad weather how much time do they really spent doing that? At 5 and 7 how they play with friends and what they like to spend their leisure time doing is going to undergo quite significant changes over the next year or so.

^ should say that elsewhere I advised someone that a smaller house in a better area would be better for them, but I genuinely don't think it sounds as though this particular house is going to suit you, sorry.

Thank you so much for the replies/opinions.
The school my dc's will go to when they're 11 is reasonably near their current primary school although at that stage I'm assuming they'll be able to take themselves to school?

Yes Hen15 perhaps I am thinking too much of the garden which although gorgeous, will need work to give us more 'ground/grass' space to consider a trampoline etc.

We wouldn't be able to do serious renovation/extending for a few years and funding for it would probably be thru a loan or possible money from relatives but this isn't definite. Unless we don't reduce our mortgage and keep the extra money specifically for thid purpose?

I am concerned about the coal fired central heating - anyone have any experience of this, cost and efficiency wise?

I do wonder about the attraction of the garden/outside space for the kids as they get older. The thought of moving interior walls etc as well as an extension seems a lot of work and money! But if we intend to stay in the house for the foreseeable (until can no longer climb stairs!) then perhaps that will be worth the time and money.

My Dc's love playing out - in all weathers! I would love to be able to allow them to do that whenever they wanted to rather than at the moment when they're restricted to our small garden or waiting to go round gp's but wonder if this is worth moving and all that that entails to get?

Both kids seemed keen to have the box room when we visited but seriously wonder if novelty would wear off after a while, once they realise there no space for even half of their stuff! At mo they have great size bedrooms (DD has double bed) which I imagine will be great for them as teenagers.

Stay put, unless you really love gardening, having a large garden is a huge effort. Your house sounds lovely .

I had coal fired central heating once - terrible (dirty as well) - I replaced it immediately which was very expensive.

Honestly, children only want to 'play out' for a few years - we used to have a lovely big garden but I still had to take DS to the park most days which was 'more fun'.

I have a friend who begged her DH to choose a particular house with coal fired central heating. He wasn't so keen but gave in on the promise that she'd be the one stoking the boiler. The novelty soon wore off.

We have a very large garden, it was 'designed' apparently to get us out there more (something gardeners always say) what that means is that it's a huge amount of work and little time to enjoy it.

From my own experience it doesn't take long for children to see injustice in differing sized rooms and as they grow and have friends round, their bedrooms are their havens.
Likewise, having lived in a cul de sac where children had grown to be teens, the amount of cars rapidly grew and parking/traffic became a bit of an issue, so it wasn't all that good for children to play out in the street, everyone used their back gardens - which inevitably meant some houses became a child magnet.

I'm not saying all that simply to put you off Worry but you can see that as you get old enough to worry about climbing the stairs, you probably won't want a very labour intensive garden and you really should consider the financial aspect because if you needed to keep the current mortgage amount or take on further borrowing to do work, then one of your reasons for buying this house goes out of the equation.

No I probably wouldn't move to that house because you have the compromise of smaller house, doing lots of work again and driving to school unless the smaller mortgage would make a big difference to your life.

If you don't have the money to extend and renovate I definitely wouldn't move. How much are you budgeting the extension and renovation will cost? As someone who has recently redone a house including ground floor extension and loft conversion, I can tell you its not cheap. If you need a brand new heating system, rewiring (which required replastering and repainting throughout), a new kitchen, new bathrooms, new flooring, new doors, new windows, rear extension and loft conversion for an additional bedroom, you won't see change out of 100k and potentially it will be much, much more. Taking that into account, would you still end up with a smaller mortgage at the end of it all?

To me it sounds like the cumulative work with the school drop off, the extra garden work and the major home renovation / extension seem like way more effort than going to the GPs and the park.

Again, only if you love doing home renovations and don't mind living in a building site and if you really are keen to garden a lot more than you do now does this sound like the right fit. Big gardens can be lovely but you should get it for yourself, not your DCs as they will outgrow playing in the garden very quickly.

That is true HenI5, the money we will need to spend on extending etc will cancel out money saved on cheaper mortgage.

You're probably right Chicken, the reduction in mortgage probably isn't significant enough to perhaps compromise size of house etc.

Thanks LondonGirl83 - think the extending/renovating will probably be more expensive than we think although we would have to do it gradually over several years which will create stress in itself - ongoing building work etc. I'm quite happy with our small garden now - enough for me to manage, pursue my interest in growing plants and veggies so bigger garden probably would be more for the dc's benefit. I think once we get around to extending the bedroom/s they won't be interested in playing out anymore as will be older and wanting to spend time in the their rooms which are great sizes in current house!

Thank you so much everyone for your opinions. Has been really helpful as I've been so confused - less so now but need to talk to DH about his views (think he'd secretly love to live near his dp's again, in area he grew up but that's not a reason to move there!)