Which house would you choose?

[MerryMarigold]

House A. Nicely done up but too small for us. Most of our furniture won't fit as a lot of built in (but nice) cupboards. Need to convert garage into a bedroom and do an extension across the back to create decent sized kitchen -diner. No houses at the back, but not a huge garden. Good schools both close by (walking).

House B. In really bad nick. Needs new kitchen and bathroom but most of other work is done. A little bit bigger than house A (even when A is extended). Potential for loft to be done one day but it is not a straightforward job. All rooms have wallpaper everywhere including on the ceiling! Bathroom and kitchen are tiled horribly also floor to ceiling so redecoration is a major job, but it is still basically redecoration, not building work. Nice primary catchment, and only slightly further walk to secondary (maybe 10mins further). Nearer to forest (couple of mins walk as opposed to other one is about 15 mins walk to forest).

House A is 50 grand less so there is a building budget.

I might be wrong but it would be easy to find out with a general enquiry call to the planning office.

Not B because you don't actually like it.

I liked house A. It looks lovely.

I love house A, as the presentation is lovely, but I'd probably go for house B as, although it looks a bit unloved, I reckon most of the work would be cosmetic.

Oooh thanks for these helpful comments! Hadn't thought about shade and sun. I am not worried about the building work on House A, but need some ammo for dh.

B. The big stuff is done. It looks nicer at the back.

Isn't the back of house B SW facing?

I was going to say about the aspect.
I wouldn't go for either of them to be honest. I think B's a better looking house, particularly at the back, but A has a better garden.
I'd be a bit concerned with young DCs about having the master on a second floor and them below.

I think it'll probably take more money and effort to bring either house up to what you're looking for and you'd always be trying to tweak things that weren't quite right.

My youngest DC are 6, so well able to be on another floor. Ds1 (9) will go on the ground floor!

Yes, cheap is definitely ammo. So sun would be coming in the kitchen extension - fab.

Thanks Callooh. How do you figure out the bearings of the houses? Does it say on Google maps? Yes, have earmarked a small area for downstairs loo and utility room when we extend as there really is no 'dead' space in House A for drying clothes (our current house has lots of places to dry stuff!). That would make 3 toilets to clean, but it really is so much easier with visitors.

I really like A

Just look at the Streetview section on the webpage and it shows the front of the house A in shadow and there's a compass in the top left of the shot, it's just slightly past the number six on a clockface for North directly ahead of the front aspect.

With regard to family spread over two or three floors it's just a safety thing with me. I prefer to have everyone where you could gather quickly for a sharp exit in the event of fire at night and for us to be between any potential burglar and our DCs. Not that we've ever needed to, but we all have our own 'things' It's the first thing I always check whenever we stay somewhere new. How would we get out in a hurry if we needed to.

I wouldn't go for either - you don't like House B and, the risk with extending on House A is that while you get the kitchen you want, the rest of the rooms won't 'match' that feeling unless you can play around with them - or that's what we found anyway - had great space in the extension, and the rest of the place felt out of proportion as a result.

If you want to check sun for houses/gardens www.suncalc.net is a great site - you can even run it by time of day.