House regret

[pigglepot]

We've recently relocated from London to be closer to my family. We've bought a house with only a very small courtyard garden which it turns out faces east so only gets morning sun. The house is a terrace so is over four floors (cellar and two bedrooms on top floor) and is a typical terrace in that it has a relatively small kitchen and a dining room off that plus a separate sitting room. What it doesn't have is anything that was on my initial must have list- a playroom, a utility, a downstairs loo, a garden. I've got one daughter and another on the way and I'm filled with regret that we didn't buy something that at least had a garden. Matters are made so much worse as I've just seen a house on the same street as ours but on the other side so it will get sun in the garden (which is really big and beautifully looked after)- with an open plan kitchen and separate playroom. Basically everything we were looking for.

I suppose I need help to shake out of this rut. We are about to embark on spending circa 40k redecorating and changing the kitchen here and I'm terrified I'll do that but still feel we live in the wrong house and want to move still!

Help!!

Some of what you say doesn't make sense. You don't have anything to fill the 4th bedroom, but are disappointed not to expand into the basement? Unless you were going to make a utility room in the basement, I'm not sure what you were expanding for. Mornings in your garden, afternoon at the park.
Will you use the dining room? Could that be a playroom and you fit a table in the kitchen?
Ramp on the stairs in the garden. A fun water trough or Wendy house out there. Paint it all white. Sell in 2 years.

Definitely move & before you spend your money . You have to be happy in your home . Good luck ☘️

When I bought my first house it was a wreck, the day I completed & got the keys I sat on the stairs & cried. Within 6 weeks I had a new kitchen going in, the wiring sorted, the place decorated, flooring done in the lounge & carpets in the biggest two bedrooms. It took another two years before I could afford to sort the garden, get it all fenced off, the rubble removed & it all fenced off & paved, in that time I had got married, been pregnant & had ds. The garden was tiny, only about 25 foot by 20, when ds started walking, he had a sandpit, water play area & a slide we had bought at a car boot sale. He played for hours out there. When my marriage ended & the house was sold, it broke my heart, from a total wreck we had made a home. Your house is what you make it, you don't have to spend thousands, other than the kitchen & bathroom, we did everything ourselves, the laminate floors, the decorating, I had never decorated before but I painted nearly every room myself, if you put love in you get it back by loving where you are. It may only be a stepping stone to your perfect home but for now it is your home.

The houses you are talking about including the one under offer sounds exactly like the street and house my DD and her DP have just had an offer accepted on. I wonder if it is the same one? A city north of London. Street with an animals name in it?

Why not turn that fourth bedroom into a playroom? Pop a sofa bed in there so it can be a guest room.

I never wanted a house with lots of rooms, I prefer open plan. But visiting a friend last summer who lives in a townhouse where the living room is upstairs from the kitchen/dining, I have to say I appreciated how she and her family (we both have a 4yo and 2yo) will grow into the space. The needs of a 7 and 9yo are vastly different from a newborn and a 2yo, so bigger bedrooms in a few years where they have more space to hangout with a friend etc could be a really good thing.

I sympathize op. I also have a bit of buyers remorse of the house we bought. At the time we bought it, it was the only one available on the street. Been here a year now and have been seeing other houses from the street go on market and most a lot better than what we bought. I.e. kitchen/bathroom done. One even with a conservatory and bigger garden for a £20k more. But the cost of moving would be pointless so will just continue making our house our home and try not to dwell on what we could have got!

I lived in a terrace with a yard with little ones. It was fine. We did go to the park alot though.

Your wish list is sensible. It it were me

• Make a plan to move in the next 2 year's as you already have.

Do not spend the 40k renovating the house.
Treat the house as an investment (what am I putting in vs what am I getting out.)
E.g.

• replacing functioning but semi old laminate with hard word floor =waste, large ikea rug to cover scratches = cost effective solution
• tired but functioning kitchen =Leave it
• wrecked bathroom =replace using large neutral cheap tiles and a clean looking cheap online bathroom suite (No small/expensive tiles and no roll tops)

However do redecorate as it will make it more your home.
paint is a cheap way to transform a room (high Victorian can take colour) it will make the place feel more like yours.
And i would def make one of the bedrooms a play room - you can make an arts and crafts corner 😍

We moved last year and over the bank hol weekend we turned a spare room into an office. The room was painted in "rental peach" beforehand 🤮. I did the whole thing for sub £500 including furniture (desk, office chair and sofa bed that converts into a double)
However I did spent a while "collecting bargains" for it (like tkmax cushions and a zara home mirror for 80% off)
Another guest room we totally transformed over the weekend cost £100 and we used a combo of wallpaper and paint and finished it off with tkmax curtain bargains 😁. The room has a bluish steel grey carpet I frankly do not love but I worked wall colour around it vs replacing the carpets and saved myself about 1k doing so. Its now possibly the nicest bedroom 🤣
I didn't LOVE our house for diff reasons to you but redecorating def made me feel more at home. Good luck!

As the DCs get bigger, they'll want a bigger garden. For the moment, you have a way of putting them in the garden and keeping them contained - it's probably enough for toddlers. I would stay put for a year or two, work out the schools situation ( both primary and secondary), then factor that into your next move and don't compromise on the must-haves such as a bigger garden

Save the £40k. Move when you can.

I agree with others - think of it as a transition home and build a 2-3 year plan

Repaint, make basic changes where necessary. But do not spend 40k

Make a bedroom into a play room with a nice seating area for you so you are happy to hang out there with the kids. If it's up high put in a mini fridge and kettle so you can grab a tea or coffee if you like without traipsing downstairs.

Really research the area and get to know it, you'll find you prefer one park over another or your favourite shops/restaurants are somewhere else. Work out schools, jobs, friends and then decide your priority list for a new place.

Focus on your dad and your newly expanding family - it's ok to live somewhere a bit 'meh' while you put the time and emotion into another part of your life

See where you are in 12 months - and then decide what to do

We had our children in a London maisonette with a small, mostly concrete, north-facing shared back garden. We put some work into the garden (not a lot of money, just thought, diy and some good planting and play spaces) and by the end it was a lovely space, felt like a green outdoor room. The shade is actually sometimes a blessing with small children when you want to be outside a lot in the summer. We spent nearly all of the first lockdown outside, kids were 6 and 3.

We've moved this year to a much bigger place with a glorious garden and it is lovely watching the kids make the most of it. But our smaller garden, though not ideal, served its purpose for a few years while the kids were little. I remember our little garden really fondly.

You're in now so make the best of it. A shady garden is good for little ones. Have some pots of flowers, get them a sandpit and paddling pool. Nice garden furniture etc

Give the house a couple years. Decorate and Try to add value: if you're pregnant with a
Toddler, don't put yourself through moving stress again

Can you use one of the bedrooms as a playroom?
I know not environmentally friends but get some artificial grass and some nice planters for the garden. It'll make it softer on crawling knees and tumbles for babies, also getting sun all day is nice but also logically in a courtyard type garden it could make it extremely hot, which isn't ideal for little ones. Get a few small toys like a standing water/sand table, a little tykes seesaw, and a little slide and honestly that will be enough to entertain them as they grow. A mud kitchen is a big hit here too.
I'd do they house as you like and maybe look to move when the kids are a bit older and are needing a bit more space. Our previous house had a small new build garden and we moved when no2 child was a few years old (no3 was on the way) to a much better house that has a very big garden. But the years where we were in the smaller house with the smaller garden where absolutely fine when the kids were little and it was a nice safe enclosed space. I'm more vigilant now when the kids are in the garden as it's about 40m long and backing onto a field so I need to keep more of an ear or eye out as I can't hear them should they fall over/need help or something. If you're not sold on this house, use it as a stop gap and keep your eyes on the market. Things are picking up again now so more will pop up. You might find that you actually begin to really enjoy your house as you start doing the bits and bobs you want.

May have missed this but you talk of not having a playroom or utility yet can't fill the fourth bedroom ....

At the age children will use space in a garden they could just as easily go to a park?

Children are better playing in a shady garden though as they are less likely to get sunburn

Ha ha.. I did miss it !

You don't want a sunny garden in the afternoon with toddlers. Honestly!

There is lots you can still do to make the garden work. Even stuff like painting it white and having lots of green plants will make it better.

You are lamenting what you havent got rather than trying to make the best of what you have and enjoying it.

You can only buy the house thats on sale at the time you want to sell and already have a buyer lined up. This window of opportunity is extremely narrow. In reality this often restricts your choice with 'the perfect house' a real rarity and likely to not stay on the market long. You could try and sell but your chances of lining things up just right with a buyer and seller are slim. How would you feel being pressured to find a new home but not being able to find one which does tick the boxes.

You've said you want a playroom but you do have a spare room. Make it work as a playroom. Explore the options you have to make things work - without spending too much money - rather than resorting to a plan which could leave you in the exact same scenario but at a lot of cost.

I think a dose of realism as well as dreaming needs to be taken here. Are your aspirations achievable? How often do properties that tick all the boxes come up, how quickly do they sell and what is the premium you pay for that?

I think it’s great you moved. It sounds like it was a sensible choice considering your dad is ill. And living far away makes it really hard. And re sharing the room, I put my kids in together on purpose. They love sharing a room. If the rooms are big, you can have the baby in with you for a year and then go in with your older one. It can just be a stepping stone and hopefully your next house hunting will be less stressful coz you’ll be in the area and won’t be about to have a baby. Apart from this other one coming up and making you feel bad, it sounds like your current house was a good choice considering all of your circumstances. Stop looking at rightmove!!!

Hi everyone- thanks for all the messages I'm reading them all and they are genuinely so helpful.

On the spare room/playroom thing I'm actually using the spare room as my office. Both me and my husband are WFH at the moment. We had been sharing one of the spare rooms as an office but we found each other really distracting so he's in the spare room with the bed in it and I'm in the other one. It's a huge room and currently only has my desk in it but I'm thinking we should get a second hand day bed/trundle so it can be used as a second spare room for family and friends when they come to visit. Having space for people to stay was important to us as we've moved so far from all our mates! It's two flights of stairs and two half landings up from the kitchen so I don't think it would work as a playroom even if I wasn't working in it.

On the cellar idea we had indeed planned to put a utility room down there plus a downstairs loo and make the main room into a snug and a playroom. It's the floor below the kitchen so I think it would have worked well. I also planned to add some shoe storage and coat storage down there and use the back entrance as the main entrance as at the moment we have piles of shoes and coats in our narrow hallway (we've got some hooks but there's no space for a cupboard). As you would probably imagine the quotes we've had for that have come in around 50k so we can't decorate AND do the cellar.

In terms of the garden we've painted the fences a lovely green colour which has made a massive difference already and I've ordered some nice pots to put some shady plants in to hopefully make it feel better. It wasn't what I'd thought we'd have but you're right we can make the best of it.

All the advice about this being the stepping stone house is very true and accurate and I feel a lot more calm about it all. And I need to stop checking Rightmove and thinking the grass is greener!! A terrible habit in life in general! I need to focus on my dad and my new baby and what is actually a lovely house in a lovely place and not what shoulda woulda coulda been. In a year or so things may look different.

Now onto the DIY boards for advice on DIT floor sanding and how to make Roman blinds 😂

That sounds like a pretty sensible choice OP. Make sure you unsubscribe from the RightMove notifications and maybe set yourself a date - 6 or 12 months from now before you even think about seriously looking again, at which point you might not even want to. Buying a house is almost always an exercise in compromise based on what’s available in your budget at the right time - if you have the type of personality that always focuses on missing out or what might have been, you might never be satisfied.

I’d also say that unless your partner is thinking a very similar way, it would risk putting a strain on your relationship to have such a major decision revisited so soon after you’d made it, especially since the things that are bugging you were known in advance and weren’t hidden surprises.

I think your decision to give it a fair shot is the absolute right one, and probably the least stressful for your mental health at what sounds like a very busy time in your family life. Best wishes to you.

pigglepot, when I moved into my current house, my friends said it would take a couple of years for use to settle in and for it to feel like a home and it would take time for you to work out how best to use the space in a way that worked best for you as a family.

I thought they were talking out their arse.

I love our house. It ticked most of our boxes. But theres a couple of things that are problematic.

2 years on, I understand what my friends meant. I'm slowly finding the ideal space for everything, what furniture we need and what we don't, the best way to use the garden and to get the most out of it.

Its been a learning curve.

In that time I've look daily on rightmove as I'd got into such a habit with it. There's been houses I've liked and there's been 1 maybe 2 houses that in an ideal world perhaps would have been 'perfect' and ticked all the boxes we had instead of most of them. However knowing how long it took to sell our last house, knowing how stressful the move was and being realistic about the chances of getting that 'perfect' house I'm happy.

Create the vision of the best way you can live in your house rather than thinking about how nice it would be to have x, y or z.

Ironically, having spoken to friends about the way they live in their houses, I suspect that things on our wish list would probably drive me nuts in practice (eg DH wanted a garage. If we had a garage it would be a black hole I wouldn't be allowed to move things in and would turn into a dumping ground. Instead we have a smaller store area which has to be kept tidy and DH has think about where he puts stuff).

Your house sounds lovely. Reflect on the fact you could have the massive sunny garden and then never have the time/skills to do it justice and maintain it nicely and you'd forever worry about your children getting burnt. And grass grows faster in sunny gardens. Enjoy breakfast in the sun instead!

I'm also surprised at the majority view. buying and selling is stressful and expensive enough without all the uncertainty we've had in the past year. And with a new baby on the way, just sounds like a recipe for major stress.

When we bought our house, there were many things about it that didn't fit what we wanted. It is mid terraced, has no front garden at all and is a tiny cottage (we are a large family) that has meant sharing bedrooms all round. But I, like you mentioned, immediately had a connection to it. And it ticked other boxes for us. It is close to our kids schools, good transport links, a short, picturesque walk in to town...

Sure, you can't make the garden bigger or sunnier, but there are many ways to add interest and beauty to even the smallest of gardens - we used to live in an apartment with a balcony and I was able to turn it into a lovely outdoor space with flowers and vegetables and seating.

look for climbing flowers, hang planters on the fence to grow trailing plants or vegetables, grow things in lovely pots. focus on plants that smell and feel nice, along with edibles - a sort of sensory garden approach - to make it fun for the kids Get a folding table and chair set that can be put aside when not in use. Hang up festoon lights and use rugs/floor cushions for decor. Maybe you could fit a swing in? A sand table could do double duty as an eating table maybe?

My youngest kids don't really use our garden much at all except for in the summer as we spend most of our time out at parks, in the woods etc. The older ones barely ever use it except to get out the back.

I suggest you give it some time, because you did mention many positives.

I’m also that kind of person. And the thing with regret, is you put that other house in your mind as perfect. But you never know. Maybe there would be a huge issue you don’t know about, or horrible neighbours or whatever. So you’re comparing your current house, which has some faults, with an idealised version of the other house. Rename your garden a terrace or patio garden. Look up ideas for small gardens like climbing plants. Fences sound lovely.

Also, there’s that phenomenon of comparing what we have with what people who have a little bit more have. I love our house but always wish my garden was a little bit bigger. It’s pretty small. Id like it maybe twice as big. But I bet if I had a garden that was twice as big, then I’d want something else that was a bit better than what I had.

I think as your second baby is not here you can make a plan to move in 3 years time. I would say that my two dc had most fun in the garden from when they were 3 and 6 until they were 8 and 11.

I would consider the benefits of your house.

Could you use one of the top bedrooms as a utility room? The other one could be a quiet sitting area /toy storage/study/guest room.
If you can get a downstairs loo in do that. More useful than a playroom. People who have playrooms seem to end up with more toys and don't purge as often. Just bring a few toys down at a time or have what they play with most downstairs.

Make the yard cosy and inviting for you so you and DH can enjoy it when your dc have gone to bed. Put in lights, an infrared heater. Best toys for very young children are paddling pools, sandpit, mini trampoline. Could you for those in your yard? Throw blankets, outddir cushions outside and let the dc take toys out to play with. Get a little playhouse. Really, you don't need a ton of space to have some of these things. My dc loved their little tykes playhouse. At least they can play more comfortably if they don't have the sun directly on them all day long.

Could you use the cellar for bike storage or for a washing machine?