Fuckety arse biscuits. Bought the wrong house.

[SeanPencil]

We bought our house in the summer, it's 10 years old, and I've never liked old houses, but it's unusual and in a lovely area, plus only really needed cosmetic stuff doing to it, so we went for it. We wanted to play it safe as our mortgage would be quite a bit higher and we were scared of the unknowns of older houses. At the time the only houses in the area we wanted in the price we could pay were the one we bought and an old one where the survey was too scary.

Well, a house for two thirds of the price has now come onto the market. It's an old cottage that needs work but had it been for sale at the time we'd have bought it. I'm sure the house we bought will appreciate more and have broader resale (better parking, more mass market appeal as a family house), but I WANT THE COTTAGE!

Fuck.

I am normally the one to say "if you don't feel settle then move", talking from experience. However having lived in an old house for 5 years, I am longing to move to a newer (not new) build!! I anticipate my life would be so much easier. I love DIY but DIY in a Victorian house is almost impossible as everything seems to need professional repairs/decoration. If I was richer.... then maybe.. but as I live day by day, it takes lots of money to afford an old house.
They are beautiful to look at.. charming I agree... but I'd rather not have rats, sloping floors, wall cracks, rising damp, and crumbling plaster.

I grew up in a very old cottage. My first house was a old Victorian house.
Never again- newish or new build now.

20k for a new kitchen , bathroom and knock through? Would you be doing the work yourselves? if not I can't see you coming in within this. If its an old house you need to factor in the plastering, potentially re-wiring. Don't forget to add in things like flooring, tiling etc.

I couldn't live in a new house. I'd feel miserable. It has to be old for me. Sorry if that's not at all helpful.

What about having a plan to move in a year or twos time when your finances are more stable. There will be other older properties coming on the market, this won't be the only one.

I think I could do it for 20K worm, the kitchen and bathroom that we put into our previous place cost about 2.5K for the bathroom and about 4.5K for the kitchen (both including tiles and labour), and they were both lovely. I'm a good bargain hunter and my builder is cheap.

I think it's important that I don't get negative about this house. It has lots going for it eg lovely views, good insulation, it's well laid out, it's an unusual design and definitely not a Barratt type box. It doesn't at the moment warm my soul, but maybe it will when it's finished. And if not, we will have made money, which is good.

I've kept a bit of an eye on the market, and the cottage is the only thing that has come up that I've had regret about, just last week we were saying how pleased we are that we'd bought our place, as we'd have missed the boat otherwise as prices are climbing here.

I think you could do it for £20k too - we're in London and we did a knock through and new kitchen for £12.5, and you don't have to spend thousands on a new bathroom - £7.5 is a not unreasonable budget.

It's the unexpected things that get you - the re-wire you don't realise you needed doing; the slow leak from the water main under the kitchen floor, the breached DPC you only find out about when you pull out the cabinets...

Don't even think about it. Stop looking at the cottage and get yourself onto Pinterest and looking at ways to make your current house look cosy.

We have a bog-standard 3 bed ex-council house and it is very welcoming and cosy. No bats in the belfry, or issues with subsidence.

Do you do pinterest? I'm an old house person, living in a 20 year old box. We sold a beautiful cottage we'd renovated from the floor up (proper rebuild stripped back to three walls and bare walls, wired, plumbed, plastered, fitted etc).we had the gardens hard landscaped, overhauled the orchard and terraced it, levelled large sections of back garden, removed some trees and planted lots more. I thought we'd be there for life.

Our box is 1/3 size, tiny town garden, in town rather than beautiful countryside, characterless by design.

BUT...its getting to be ours. We've landscaped the garden and fitted an amazing amount in with careful design. The chickens are in a small corner pen rather than a 1/4 acre one (but we've three rather than lots), the children have a climbing frame that doubles as a pergola, a play cottage with slide from the upper floor and we have seating and eating areas. Inside we've fitted a country style hand made kitchen off ebay and its really nice, we've knocked the kitchen partially through to dining room to open up the space, rewired, redone bathroom and ensuite, divided a bedroom so the children each have their own cosy space. We have got out eldest into specialist education and our youngest is getting support. Family are for the first time in my adult life in walking distance.

I did get a bit of post move depression when it felt like we had all the negatives and work (cost) ahead of us. 17 months now since we moved in and its finally feeling like a home, not just a practical space to live in.

Pinterest helped me enormously with getting the homely feel. I created boards for each room and just pinned everything I liked on them. I knew from the images i'd repeatedly selected that i really wanted a painted dresser and throws on my furniture in my lounge, i knew the colour scheme I wanted to achieve. Budget was very tight but I managed to eBay our old furniture and buy replacements, again from ebay and charity shops, for the same amounts so it was an effort cost rather than financial one.

It really does sound that financially you are going to be in a strong position if the market is improving in your area, the gap between your bigger house and the smaller cottage will grow which can only leave you with more money for making it just the way you want/ having less debt. Play the long game.

lol at the xpost Pinterest-obsessives !

Back common/share access would be a nightmare --

"Makes the place far more sociable and we know all the neighbours." - there are many other ways to socialize - might be nice now - neighbours might change and could be nosy or threatening -- would NOT want some stranger looking in my back windows - where is the privacy??

The dcs can play in the entry without being in any one person's garden and all can be seen by parents just by popping head out the back door. The can go up and down on bikes and scooters which they cant in gardens as too small. .... what a nightmare - other peoples kids skidding around outside your back door....

Agree about bringing character and warmth to a new home...a friend of mine build her new home but used reclaimed materials through-out - ie skirting boards, architrave, flooring to give it depth - looks great.

I have a new-build home - 10ish years old. We moved from a 150 yr old home - 'twas beautiful, beautiful ... But we are now WARM!!!

Warm, warm warm!

And at a fraction of the cost. Practicality has won out!

Back common/share access would be a nightmare

For you.

For others its great.

Surely its a compromise - it is not something your would actively choose or seek - glad it works for you atm.

This happened to us when we had bought the extended cottage we had many years ago.
We stuck with it and made quite a bit of profit when we sold on 5 years later.

We finally reasoned that if the other house had meant to be for us it would have been for sale when we were looking.

The house we have now we lost at one point, due to a bigger offer, when that fell through we offered our original offer which was really very low and got the house.

There is a reason for everything and I agree they can be money oits however cheap your builder. Dh did most of ours except boiler and electrics and we spent a fortune. There are always hidden costs, and each job you do seems to create another you hadn't anticipated.

A house with listing or in a conservation can cost more for repairs too and has to be done with the same/similar materials. We couldn't have double glazing in one of our houses, at all.

Every home is a compromise on something though isnt it? Unless you are loaded you cant have everything you desire in a home. My house is small and old, bits always going wrong or needing repaired but the location? You couldnt beat it with a mallet! And it is so easy to heat as a mid terrace and smaller makes it easy to keep clean. Also the freedom the DCs have is better than we had in either of the new build developments as no cars fly around our shared access, and fewer familes means fewer (well none actually) older DC that mine would want to be venturing further than the entry with. I really do feel so safe here despite it being on a busy road with on street parking. I really wasnt happy about moving here at first but it has worked out far better than i expected.

Why, I agree about the compromise. I've always preferred older houses but we actually bought our modern house (30 years old) because

a) you seem to get more space for your money with modern houses compared to character ones
b) our house had a fireplace suitable for a woodburner and I think fireplaces can instantly add character
c) we have a drive big enough for 4 cars. After living in a terraced house for a couple of years with parked cars down either side of the road and having to reverse in a straight line for about 150 m to get out onto the main road I love love love off road parking and just being able to drive home and not worry about whether or not I will have to park 3 streets away! And if I have friends round I don't have to worry about pissing off the neighbours by using up those valuable street parking spaces.

Yep i do miss my own parking space. My house is right beside a primary school (which is a big plus for me but a nightmare traffic wise) if i could take my new build with off street parking, ensuite batroom an spacious bedrooms and living room and put it where my current house is (still in the terrace with the benefits of low heating costs and net to school, play park, youth club and shops i would never complain about anything ever again