This cottage for a family of 3 (contains link)? What is your opinion?

[AfterTheRainComesSun]

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/137657495#/media?channel=RES_BUY&id=media0

Within budget (lower end) in the desired area.

Family of 3 next door have exactly this layout downstairs and it seems to work for them.

Is there scope to convert the loft?

I agree with EllieQ about partitioning off the front door. You could create a small office area in the front of the house with a half wall and glass double doors to keep the nice light, and you wouldn't sacrifice too much usable space from the sitting room. Also agree wrt building storage under the stairs. If you built a wall perpendicular to the front wall, parallel to the stairs, creating a short hall beside the stairs, you could hang coats there and reduce draughts from the front door.

With a 3 year old I think a zoned living room as one big space is probably better but as your child gets older you could put in large glazed pocket doors like this and return it more to separate spaces but still with light

Looks like it's got development potential to me. I'd make an entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs though and plan to extend over the garage/driveway for extra space. If that's something you can budget for over the long term I'd say it looks a good choice.

I think it's plenty big enough for a couple and one child. I wouldn't call it tiny.

This one is much better for a family IMO.

You have to consider how long this property would work for you.

Are you planning on having more kids? If so, this house will become far too small very quickly. You will need a third bedroom, possibly in the loft - have the other houses on the street gone up into their lofts? Can you find any examples online of houses being sold on the street with a loft conversion and see what layout changes they have done to fit this in (i.e. where are the stairs and how much space does this cut out of the bedrooms below)?

The bathroom only being accessible through a bedroom is a problem and will continue to be so as your child gets older. As other posters have said, you can put a corridor in and reduce the size of the larger bedroom, which would help, but then you also have to think about a future loft conversion and how much space that will steal from that floor.

You could make it work while your child is small, but in about 3 or 4 years I would imagine you'd be looking to move again. There's not much you can do with this property to add more space, as you can't go sideways (I'm assuming the space next to the house is a shared drive), the garden is too small to go out the back, and going up only solves bedrooms and not living space.

My sister bought a house just like this when she first moved out of London, and within 4 years they had to move - despite a loft conversion - because though they had enough bedrooms after the loft was converted, the downstairs space was just too small for their family. They also had the one open plan room that the front door opened straight into, and my sister was driven mad with having nowhere to hide/store all the toys and no real dedicated adult space.

The question is, with the cost of moving being around 20-30k, and you doing this twice in the next 5 years, would it be worth pushing the budget a bit higher to get something that's more of a 10 year house now, and save yourself potentially 30k in future moving costs?

I don't know the area well but I know it's expensive. Think creatively - are there any ex council houses that represent better value for money? Could you go a bit further from the station and have a slightly longer walk in the morning? This is a very cutesy Victorian cottage that looks well situated from the map, and going for something less pretty and a bit more of a walk to the station could give you a much bigger house that could be a more longterm move.

Think it through carefully - if this is lower end of budget I'd be inclined to go a bit higher and get something a little more long term.

So many people saying it's tiny! With a 23.5 feet by 12 feet living room! And a 19x10 kitchen?! Looks great to me for two and a 3 year old. The bathroom access is the only snag I can see.

Nicely presented, but stairs in the lounge would put me off completely, tbh. It’s such an odd layout for a family home. Main bathroom off main bedroom, no thanks.

I absolutely love it but I'm also from the North where long Victorian terraces are common.

The price is eye watering though. Similar house back home would be a lot less than half that.

Much prefer the house that @VeloVixen linked too, way more practical space/layout-wise and more future-proof, plus you can add value by doing it up cosmetically whereas the one you linked to is as good as it's going to get, which is nice for now, but once the sheen has worn off, the impractical layout and lack of space may well grate.

Wanted to add I would probably rebuild the wall between the dining room and living room, maybe even rebuild the original hallway wall.

Toilet in the kitchen
Bathroom off the master bedroom

Both are deal breakers for me .

So many people saying it's tiny!

It's less about the maths than the fact you're straight into the living room from the front door and the stairs are in that room too, so there's only that room and the kitchen downstairs, which is full of table, so no sense of space there either. Whatever the measurements may read like, the sense of it is a tiny house where you can't get space to yourself. The 3-bed may have smaller rooms (or it may not, haven't checked measurements) but there's a lot more of them, which becomes way more valued as kids get older and people need space.

Are you planning on having any more children soon?

I think it’s a lot of money but I’m not familiar with the area and house prices.

The garden looks amazing and has potential for a summer house or something to give you more room.

Its lovely but it depends what’s more important to you - the area or home.

The main thing that would put me off is the stairs in the front room but I wouldn’t not buy a house over it.

I like that it’s on the end too!

Okay just checked figures and @VeloVixen house is much bigger 1462sq ft.

I agree the other house linked by a pp is better.

The cottage will look cramped with all your stuff in it and 3 big things for me would be access to a bathroom through the bedroom, a front door straight into the living room and a toilet right beside the kitchen.

I think it is adorable.

Is there any scope to move the stairs to the opposite side? It would be much easier to make a little corridor and have the 3 doors for the bedrooms and bathroom coming from that. It would be quite a big job but would probably eventually pay for itself in terms of increased value.
Stairs coming straight from a room mean the loss of under stairs storage, but the kitchen looks like it has lots of storage space.
I would want to put a porch on the front so that the lounge door didn’t open straight outside, but I know that there are sometimes restrictions about building forward of the existing line.

The one I linked to I also prefer the fact that the main two bedrooms are away from the other house. So no chance of hearing your neighbours having sex, snoring through the wall.

plus long term you could also possibly extend downstairs by converting the garage. More chance to add value?

I like it very much, I love houses like this, grew up in one in south London

I wouldnt be happy about having no hallway so would be wanting to do something about that. You could make a corridor to the bathroom but that makes the bedroom smaller. Personally I might be tempted to just have a communal shower room down stairs and make the bathroom a bedroom with a corridor.

Not ideal to have a downstairs bathroom but plenty live with that, as I say our house when I grew up was like this although the bathroom was virtually in the garden because it was at the end of the kitchen

The garage is the winner here because it means that although you havent got a huge number of different rooms,, you can store clutter and stuff in the garage, its a huge bonus, as is the parking of course.

I wonder if the OP has looked at this one, and if so why they've discounted it. If the cottage is at the lower end of their budget I would think 25k isn't out of reach, especially as the property you linked to has loads more space and a much better layout.

It's very poky.

Could the loft be made into a room?

The stairs I go the sitting room would be annoying.

The wooden toilet seat would have to go!

It's very cute and ok for a family of three, but I can't see any storage at all except in the kitchen. There's only one photo of one bedroom and that photo doesn't show any wardrobes. I think you would have to be fairly minimalist to be able to live in that space.