I think I hate my new house

[Tobermory]

We've been here for two weeks and I think we've made a very expensive mistake. I wish wen we viewed the house we'd run like the wind. I'm terrified that we've gone through all this upheaval and cost and stress and that we got it wrong.

It still fells like I'm living in a hotel, it doesn't feel like home-I know this is normal, but I cant imagine ever feeling at home here or enjoying this house.
why?
a. I don't like the road. I hate the road. I went for a walk earlier on the gorgeous sunny evening to get milk. The walk wasn't enjoyable at all. I feel foolish for not realising the road would bother me so much. I thought I'd get over it and that the house would make me not bothered about the road-not so.
b. There is soso much to do. The plasterers are in now, 2 days in, prob another 2/3 to go and the plumber is in this weekend. Then more stuff in the pipeline.
C.the garden. It's so overgrown. I can't see how I'll ever get it nice. Overgrown trees and plants. Very soggy lawn in places so obv drainage is an issue.
D. No spaces in local schools so my chn are currently commuting to their old school 25 mins away.
E. I feel like we've bought a house that's going to b really hard work, a house that might well consume all our time (and money). I don't think I had realised that.
F. Even to get it back on the market (which I know we can't do straight away) feels me with terror. Would anyone else want it? How much would we have to/should we do to get it sellable?

We moved into ours 6 months ago and I feel the same. We threw all of our savings at purchasing the house so we could have a 3 bed in a nice area. However, the road is noiser than we thought it would be and it needs so much doing to it - It doesn't feel like home living in an outdated ex-rental with pink bathroom suite and granny decor. Worse still - the heating needed completely installing from scratch as had storage heaters. We have spent all our money buying it so not much left to spend on improvements! I think a mental adjustment is needed to realise things WILL get accomplished, just slower than you thought. We just finished the heating installation this week and saving for the next thing - window replacements. Its already starting to feel better. Sometimes we want everything straight away, and it can be a bit frustrating living with something not quite 'right'. But ull get there. The road may require some creative thinking though. But if you didnt notice it when you viewed the house, the next buyer probably wont either!

Firstly I want to say to Anderson 78 "Don't do It!"......

I'm another one who wishes she hadn't bought her current house.....and DH feels the same, if not worse about it!

We bought this place - a very pretty, detached, four-storey, period four-bed with established (if very overgrown when we took possession) garden - last December and within a few weeks we both knew it was a mistake. Trouble is I hated our last two houses too - the last one was an idyllic thatched house with vast garden on a busy road and I not only hated the road noise and the way the three-storey house shook when traffic raced by, but I didn't love the thatch or property style (georgian) and the one before that was in a less-than-desirable part of Essex with a very bad rep, although again it was a very attractive character house.

This time we both fell in love with the character features (it has an Arts & Crafts extension - our favourite style) and interesting partly walled garden, in fact it would be a dream house for many. What we didn't take into account - naively, considering a) we've made the same mistake before and b) this was our seventh house purchase so we should know better - was how much we'd feel cut off from friends/family by moving 150 miles away.

We have a grown up DS and it takes up to four hours to drive to his flat on the South Coast :@(

Why we didn't think of this, but instead thought 'oh, it's a lovely house with a potentially lovely garden in a (reasonably) good village with some great shops etc'! We could have moved anywhere too as we work from home.....

Not only that, but the nearest city is a shit hole and property here - despite our immediate location being considered desirable - takes an age to sell. Our house was on the market for nearly two years before we bought it and we have a neighbour who bought last Summer and is now selling at auction at a huge loss - although he was letting it out, it's trashed and in need of thousands spending on it.

That said, ours needs work too - it's currently languishing under acres of woodchip and needs rewiring, new kitchen etc.

We went ahead and bought new kitchen units even though we realised we'd made a mistake in buying the house and plan to fit them as well as doing some other work before selling up.

Fortunately we're seasoned restorers/renovators and had already decided - before seeing this thread - to treat this like a project (as suggested by another poster) and have come to the conclusion that if we do the work to our usual high standards, but minimising outlay (I'm exceptionally good at seeking out ebay bargains, lol!) we can come out of this without losing too much money......

Our target is next Spring and work has already begun - who knows, by then we might have a change of heart.....don't think so though!

{{{Hugs}}} to everyone else that's going through this x

I also hated my new house when we moved in. 9 months on, my anxieties have lessened. but, I'm still not 100% happy. My anxieties started from putting my daughter to bed on the first night in our new house and suddenly noticing the view from her bedroom window was an enormous pylon (which we hadn't noticed on any of our veiwings- we were too busy looking at the house and gardens). Then I notced we were surrounded by pylons all obscured by trees. The link with pylons and childhood luekemia was on my mind- I know it hasn't been proven. And the pylons arent even that close. Unfortunately, the previous owners had also left a note telling us our new house had been owned by a minor celebrity in the 1960s. When I googled this minor celeb, he had died of Luekemia!!! I still can't get past this and worry about my children's health in our new house. The house really works for us as a family and we've had some great times here already but I just can't enjoy it completely! I hope you enjoy your new house completely, eventually.x

We moved into our new house in March and I have shed many a tear because I hate it.

It needs so much work, the mortgage scares the crap out of me (huge compared to our almost old one). The house feels soulless and I just cant see me liking it let alone loving it. DH and the DC's adore it, but my heart sinks every time I come home. I am welling up now just thinking about it.

Anderson. I wish I had had the guts to walk away. Don't do something you will ultimately regret.

Thank you to those who have offered advice to me too. Annie1919, the pylons are exactly why I've had second thoughts about my house. I hadn't noticed until a recent viewing that you can see them from 2 of the bedroom windows. They are not immediately close, but knowing they are their makes me feel uneasy for the health related risks. (And also they are so ugly!) DH thinks I'm being silly, and I will forget about then after a while.
The reason I'm finding it difficult to pull out of the sale, is that it a private sale and we know the family we are buying off. They are not in a good situation at the moment and I would feel so guilty to pull out at this late stage, for something I should've noticed before.

anderson there is NO proven link between pylons and illness. You are subject to far stronger e-fields in the house from your wi-fi, your mobile, your microwave, even the electrical wiring in the walls. If you are concerned about risks from pylons you should be concerned about all those things. Are you? (you don't need to be of course)

read this and make an informed decision:

www.ipem.ac.uk/Portals/0/Images/Sense%20about%20Science.pdf

(and if anyone is going to come up with the old chestnut about 'but people used to think smoking wasn't harmful', that isn't true. Either)

So many people who don't love they're new homes, it's sad (but also quite reassuring for me. )

Our plasteres have done for now (they've been here all weekend) and the plumbers has drilled through the side of the house and will be back on Thursday to plumb in two new toilets. I've done lots of sorting in the garden and going to start cleaning the rooms where they plastered today.

I let DH read the thread. He wanted to and I wanted him to know. He doesn't get it though,the road isn't a biggie for him, he just adores the house.

....Their new homes

I would think it's normal not to like your new home.

Usually they are a bit grubby (because it's someone else's grub not yours), a bit worn (your furniture doesn't sit in the same places as theirs), and decorated in their taste, which isn't yours.

Only answer is to buy brand new (but then you find all the faults the builders didn't finish properly which is prob even more annoying).

My husband hated our house when we first bought it. We've been here 14 years now and completely changed the place (as was always the plan). He loves it now and I don't think I'll ever get him to leave -not that I want to either at the moment.

I suspect that when the house and garden are upgraded/tidied, and your children are offered places in the local school, you'll feel a lot happier. At the moment, there's lots wrong. In a year or two, realistically, only the road will be wrong. And you may have got used to that, or at least made peace with it.

We moved at the beginning of the year. The house was such a dump. I was upset at first. It had fleas and I couldn't get rid of the smell of cigarettes. It literally came out of the walls. The garden was full of poo and was so overgrown. Everything was falling down. I just looked at it and thought how are we ever going to do this?

But we did. We still have some way to go, buy I love it now. Is it the road I would choose if I was a millionaire? No, probably not, but we have been able to make it into a home.

Every wall and ceiling needed the be re plastered. Everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING was revolting. My hair and clothes all smelt of cigarette smoke.

The point is, it can all feel overwhelming, but you can't really make a decision at the moment. We've been here six months and you wouldn't recognise the place. We didn't even unpack our last box until a couple of weeks ago.

Can you identify the positives (or hoped for positives) about the house and make the most of them?

Could you for example:

• Put secondary glazing on windows in rooms that suffer from road noise (we have acoustic glazing in one room and it definitely helps so sec glazing should be even better);

• If you're unhappy with the house (and assuming the garden is at the rear) maybe the key is to focus on the garden? If the turf is no good could you replace with artificial grass? I know its not to everyones taste but its clean, comfortable, safe for kids and low maintenance. We also took away most of the broad borders, it's made our garden (and the room looking out on it) feel very open, light and twice the size.

• Identify particular dark areas and perhaps hang strategic mirrors or in the longer term knock through rooms/walls.

• make the most of the space with allocated rooms for study/storage/laundry etc.

• can you get on a waiting list for the school (assuming you want to)?

Hang in there. When we moved in the boiler broke down on day 2 (in Winter) and the neighbours played bass guitar at midnight. It was awful. But now we've tackled everything that was bugging us we don't regret moving.

I felt the same about the house we live in now. I was taken in by the location and views and reality hit me shortly after we moved. We left a beautiful,huge Victorian house,with massive rooms and a 100ft garden. The house we moved to was a 1960's semi,that hadn't been updated since the 1970's,had no real kitchen and sloped garden. I moved in with a 3 week old and a 21 month old,and shortly afterwards Fil became ill,so Dh spent every weekend 2.5 hours away with him,so I was on my own with the DD's in a semi derelict wreck. We had no money or time to improve things as I pined for my lovely,solid old house,where you couldn't hear the neighbours through the walls.
One day I parked in my old street,to pick up a takeaway, and as I walked past tmy old house,the new owners came out and invited me to look around and see what they'd done. In my rose tinted dreams,I'd forgotten the tiny,narrow hall,the almost vertical stairs,the overlooked garden,the lack of parking. I went home determined to see the best in my new house,and now,after a lot of work,Im very happy here and only way I'd leave it is to do a self build.

Just wanted to say I'm 6 months in and feel the same way about our house. Nice to hear I'm not the only one! It's been hard on me and DP relationship. :-( always seem to have work to do and not enough time for fun stuff

Just curious if you are still out there Tobermory and how this turned out for you?

Hi I’m feeling exactly like you were! I moved 4 months ago. I hate it! I miss my old house and friends so much we moved to be closer to my parents and I do have my best friend here but I hate the road the neighbours! We’ve had all the horrid artex ceilings re plastered and my husband has done lots but I wake up everyday and want to cry. I’m intrigued to see how you eventually got on?

I’ve bought & sold lots of properties as we moved around a lot when younger. There was only one where I cried in the first few weeks because I didn’t like it as it felt dark and needed work.
But that was the house we ended up making the biggest profit on.

It’s understandable you aren’t bonding with it just yet as you are getting plastering done etc so can’t feel relaxed in your own home. You’ll probably always see the road as a compromise but you could grow to love your house. And even if you do never love it, you can add value to a house that needs work doing to it.

For C, the garden, hire a strimmer and have at it. You get results immediately so it feels like you have moved forward.

Thank you! My husband has suggested we do it up either fall in love with it or hope the market allows us to make a little money and move on! He loves it though! The plasterers have gone and I’ve got a couple of rooms done but still dislike it!

Thank you the garden is actually ok it’s the rest of the house! 😂