Buying upside down house

[Lanosajulas]

Hi all,

Wanted to get some views on buying an 'upside down' house. Its 3 floors with 2 bedrooms on the LG, 2 bedrooms (including master) on the G where you enter the house and living room, diner and kitchen on the 1st floor. The house is great in terms of space (3,200 sq.ft.) and location but can't get our heads around potential issues/worries. We have a 2 year old with another baby on the way. Potential worries for us:

1. Kids bedrooms will be on LG floor and ours will be on G floor - so not on same floor as young children. Not an issue when they get older

1. Access to the garden is via the 2 bedrooms on the LG floor i.e. the kids rooms. So no real access from the 'Living' spaces and potential security worry for the kids

1. Back garden is small as it has an outdoor pool. Another worry is that if the kids are in the Garden then cannot really monitor them if we were in the living space which is two floors up and potential worry with swimming pool accidents. Would need to be with them at all times they are in the back garden

Ideally would like the traditional layout but we would not get this size house close to the high street and underground station generally and this is a forced sale so could get at a good price.

Thoroughly confused - any insight from anyone massively helpful!

Thanks a lot

Oh that actually does look upsidedown from the outside

It's very spacious, but in my opinion it's actually too big. The rooms are huge and furnishing them would be very difficult. You're also paying a premium for the heated swimming pool, but with the awkward access to the garden and small children you probably wouldn't ever use it.

OP why do you want to buy it? It seems to have so many negatives, and isn't at all practical for a young family.

The garden kitchen would help a bit but in the summer I can imagine basically having spent over 1mill to use a small shed most evenings !
That is an extraordinary floor plan. Can’t work out fully why it’s as it is.
Very detached which would underline my being uncomfortable about children being in those ground floor rooms.

Thanks all for the replies.

I guess we are thinking really hard because this would be our home for the next 20 years and with 3,200 sq.ft. for 4 people it just seems like great space, albeit impractical space. The thought process was to work it for a while then build up cash reserves to re-configure but just can't visualise the best way to do it.

Other reason thinking so much about it is because of the size as I mentioned and location to high street and underground station. Wouldn't get that much space in that price close to the area.

The confusion carries on but have received some very helpful insights from you all so thank you very much for this

I would just have the 2 kids share the bedroom on the ground floor until they are older, it's a big enough room to give them each a fair bit of space. I assume the baby will be in with you for a while anyway?
You have at least a few years to sort our the lower ground space, I think it's pretty flexible.
I would fence in the pool with locks and alarms before you do anything else though! Love the garden kitchen.
There wouldn't be much there to put me off if I really loved it.

Couldn't you just put in a corridor and external door where I've highlighted?

If you can afford that in Loughton you can definitely get somewhere just as nice if not nicer for that budget in that location (if you can wait). Have you looked around Epping?

Personally I wouldn’t buy it, it’s terribly dated and tacky so you’d have to do it up anyway

Would want some kind of attached for all the things up and down all day from the kitchen.

There's so much space it really should be possible to find a layout that works. Use the 2 rooms on the middle floor as bedrooms for now? I couldn't put young DC on a separate floor with external doors in their rooms, even without a pool.

Downstairs could be an almost self contained flat for teenagers/young adults of a great handout space for DC and friends as they get older, but I can't see it working as part of a family home. I think you'll end up with a lot of space, most of it not used and the garden will seem a long way from the house.

@AllAroundTheWorldYeah

Thats an idea but unfortunately wouldn't not work as the Property is on a Hill so where you have highlighted is essentially underground (covered by the sloping aspect)

hangout space...

@HeronLanyon - Hahah like the Peroni advert
@ToughLoveLDN - Yeah looked around Loughton, Buckhurst Hill, Epping but not come across anything with that much space. Agreed probably wont use half of it but thought it future-proofs us for ages.

Live in Loughton currently but looking to stay in the area and upgrade house.

I think you'll end up with a lot of space, most of it not used

I agree with this. You've been seduced by the thought of how much space you'll have, but there's no point having the space if it's unusable. Much better to have a smaller footprint with usable rooms and a more cohesive layout. Planning to stay 20 years is great, as is planning to change when money allows. However, time moves quickly, and life gets in the way. Before you know it you'll be 5 years on, and still putting up with an awkward layout, not using half the house but with the hope of changing it at some point.

Space for space's sake is just time and money.

We had maybe 5 years when the space was used, now it's just housework/maintenance and a constant drain on funds.

Op yes ! That was in Naples where they are very common and very useful for deliveries from stall holders after orders shouted down.

I think you are being far too influenced by the square footage. It really does mean nothing if the layout is impractical and the space in is the wrong areas (where’s the massive eat-in kitchen for all that space??). Given the choice between this or a well-proportioned and well laid out alternative, even 3/4 of the size of this, the alternative would hands down beat this any day. I wouldn’t get too suckered into the headline ‘space’

Close to an underground
That size
With a swimming pool

We’re talking well in excess of £1,000,000 aren’t we?

It looks massively over extended. I hate it when people do this to a house. It really ruins the character and sense of a place. It ends up being neither one thing or the other.

Sorry OP but for that kind of money and only needing 3-4 bedrooms I think you can do a lot better.

Bedroom 1- for you
Bedroom 4 - kids share, sleeping only
Bedroom 3 - playroom and office
Bedroom 2- sitting room for daytime

You can then change as kids age but keep bedroom 2 as garden access/ sitting room

I would only do this if I was going to change the layout as pp have suggested.

I can see the appeal as its a lovely house but the current layout with young kids is a no from me. This is on the basis that my 3 year old is really unpredictable. You think you know they wouldn't do something silly then they do. Shes like a little houdini, you next child could be similar you never know. You could lock the doors yes but there is always chance in your sleep deprivation that you forget (as has happened to me on occasion) so with direct access to the pool from their rooms its a no.

I often send my dc away to the playroom, garden, their rooms so I can enjoy a peaceful coffee and I feel like you couldn't do this. As your children age they will argue and you want to be able to safely separate them in their rooms but you need to be able to hear them to make sure they are not killing each other, you'd have to be in your bedroom/the floor above to do so. It just all seems like hard work.

While they are babies the house is fine, when they are 10+ the house is fine. In between not so much.

Ha!

Didn’t see you that you’d posted a link before I estimated asking price!

I would only consider it if I had enough money to flip it - kitchen/diner/living on ground floor, maybe a cinema room in a dark bit. Ground floor bedroom 1 becomes a living room, guest bedroom at the front, 2-3 bedrooms upstairs. Not cheap though!!

I’d have all the living space upstairs and bedrooms downstairs ( like we have ) would it be possible to create access to the garden level ? So you can enter the house without going in the front door and up the stairs.

I'd be put off by the swimming pool. The garden isn't big enough to have one in my opinion. Also the danger aspect with young children

You can buy a hard cover to go over swimming pools to stop anyone falling in