Unexpected nice thing you realised about your house after moving in

[JustJam4Tea]

In the middle of a town very close to where we used to live, but the back garden is at such an angle from streetlights that’s it’s like a little dark sky area. The stars are great.

Fantastic draw on the chimney.

The water pressure is amazing.

My neighbour is the loveliest person known to man kind, and although I am really, really close to an A road (my garden has one row of trees on the street then the dual carriage ways are just there), the soundproofing in the brick walls of this little old ex council house is great. (Makes commuting a dream too north or south)
Also, surprisingly because we are so close to the main A road, we get such amazing birdsong and visiting birds. And my not south facing garden actually gets LOADS of sun. And we are only 10 minutes from the sea. I thought it was 20 to the nearest town, but actually, we have a lovely little forrest you can walk through and bam, you're on the cliffs looking at the coast. A lot to be said for North East England.

Well I knew it had a stream running through the garden but didn’t realise it had a significant waterfall too.

The neighbours are wonderful although the nearest one is half a mile away,

Garden is completely private,

Stars are amazing as we are properly rural.

We also have bats flying around at dawn, and we have pheasants, eagles, minx, pine martins and other amazing wild life in the area.. snowdonia !

View of beautiful trees (new build brought off plan), lovely community

@Warmduscher

When we moved in we met the neighbours and told them we were planning to have the house fully rewired. The husband told us it would be easier because of the cellar. I said we didn’t have a cellar and he said, “Yes you do - lift up the lino behind the kitchen door and there’s a trap door into the cellar “.

He was right - five rooms all big enough to stand up in, the whole length and width of the house. The estate agent knew nothing about it (the seller had gone into a home two years before) and the surveyor didn’t spot it either! We had the new boiler installed down there with a remote control thermostat. It’s so exciting to have found so much extra space!

Wow, I'm so jealous of Warmduscher's cellar! Can't compete with that, but we had been living in our house for a week and I was putting the bins out and noticed a small square window along the side of the house where the kitchen was. I was puzzled, because there was definitely no window on that wall inside! It turned out that the previous owners had put a kitchen wall cupboard over it. It's a tiny window, but we have replaced the kitchen and it's quite a nice little feature, and catches the morning sun!

Lovely neighbours
Church bells - all day and all night and I love them
The sound of children on the playground at the back of the house
A much better woodburner than expected
The garden is actually bigger than we thought it was when we viewed
A massive fat squirrel that I love watching

I love reading this thread and it’s so reassuring to know that a lot of people have really good neighbours-myself included!

The lane at the bottom of our garden. We knew about the lane before moving in but had reservations about it, however it came in very handy as we have 25 steup to our front door and the lane gives almost level access into the back of the house. Very handy when DD was a baby and using the pram.

The row of daffodils that suddenly started popping up at the bottom of the garden the first February we lived here.

The view when lying in the bath is wonderful.

My neighbours are ace.

Lovely neighbours all around
A huge common for walks with benches & picnic tables scattered about
Local pub does an amazing Sunday lunch
Local Indian restaurant does fabulous food and its bring your own bottle
Hidden olde-worlde bakery
It really is a hidden gem of a village and I had no idea when I bought the house!

No one except us can see into our patio, which for a very crowded little fishing village is a complete miracle. I could sunbathe nude out there if I wanted and no one would ever see.

Also the house faces east-west so gets the sun all day from one side or the other. It feels bright even on the gloomiest days.

How quiet the road is.
How much sun we get in our north facing back garden.
How we're not overlooked.
How bright the house is with the sun streaming through the front door/ windows.
How lovely our neighbours are. There's also no young kids for quite a few houses so sitting in the garden is so quiet.

We found original stripped floorboards under the grotty sitting room carpet and a 30s tiled hearth in our bedroom.
The garden has loads more mature plants than I realised when we looked round.

What a lovely idea for a thread For us it was a really nice carpet inexplicably laid on the stairs and hallway between our viewing and completion of the purchase. So much better than bare wooden treads!

We found ours had been on a TV makeover programme some years earlier when a repeat came on. It explained some of the slightly out-there decor when we moved in!

What I seriously thought was a tree in the middle of the garden turned out to be a wisteria that stands on its own. Its very old and in the spring the blossom is amazing.

@Warmduscher

When we moved in we met the neighbours and told them we were planning to have the house fully rewired. The husband told us it would be easier because of the cellar. I said we didn’t have a cellar and he said, “Yes you do - lift up the lino behind the kitchen door and there’s a trap door into the cellar “.

He was right - five rooms all big enough to stand up in, the whole length and width of the house. The estate agent knew nothing about it (the seller had gone into a home two years before) and the surveyor didn’t spot it either! We had the new boiler installed down there with a remote control thermostat. It’s so exciting to have found so much extra space!

You unexpectedly found a whole new house! How amazing.

OH and I are now discussing where the trap door might be in our house

@Warmduscher I'm jealous and reminded of the time early in my house reno that the builders discovered what looked like a door down to a cellar. I was envisioning some Grand Designs type affair but it wasn't to be 🙁 .... Yours sounds amazing!

Our garden must have been loved for decades by previous owners. The soil is really rich, easy to turn over and everything grows. It takes some weeding but planting is a joy, unlike the rubble below the surface of my previous garden.

@AgentCarterRocks 🥰 lovely

[quote Ribb]@Warmduscher I'm jealous and reminded of the time early in my house reno that the builders discovered what looked like a door down to a cellar. I was envisioning some Grand Designs type affair but it wasn't to be 🙁 .... Yours sounds amazing![/quote]
Oh how disappointing! I never get lovely surprises so this one was worth the wait!

Our neighbours. We bought a house on a very small new build estate (8 houses) and it’s a culdisac, no through traffic. Our neighbours are all so nice, kids a similar age to ours & the kids play out front in their bikes & scooters like it’s the 1980’s or something! It’s genuinely lovely, I can’t quite believe our luck!

House wise, really pleased to find we can hear zero noise from next door. New builds can be bad but we don’t hear a peep. Also, while the garden is small & was our compromise, turns out it’s a complete sun trap and a real delight in summer!

The quiet. We’re on a main drag into town, so expected some noise, but you can’t hear a thing, even in the back garden.

Keeping my fingers crossed for a hidden trap door to make itself known to you, @Annabelle69

We had another viewing just before exchange and only realised then that the property had a summer house at the end of the garden. When we had initially viewed the house we never went to the end of the large garden, as this is where the previous owners hung around whilst we were viewing the house. So this was a very pleasant surprise!