Would you buy a bungalow with young children?

[hummingbird12]

Just that really!
We're going to look at a bungalow this evening. It's in the area we're desperate to live in. 2 minute walk to our DC's current primary school.

The location is lovely. Great primary and secondary school options. Houses in the area don't come up often and usually out of budget. The bungalow has a great garden and is down a quiet little lane which we love.

We are currently in a 3 bed semi, small garden (although a good size house) with on street parking 10 minute drive from school.

The bungalow is only a two bed but the plan would be to get rid of of the conservatory and do a brick built extension for an open plan kitchen/living/dining area and then turn the current kitchen into a 3rd bedroom.
Will include a floor plan.

Just wanted to further opinions before we go to the viewing ☺️

I think it sounds lovely OP.

I have two DDs and they shared a room until they were 10/11 ... we then spent a fortune on an extension to create a new bedroom for one of them and another bathroom. They spent about a week apart and decided they preferred sharing and did so until they were about 14.

Surely ' It's in the area we're desperate to live in. ' tells you all you want to know ? If the property is the right price and you can afford that price, i expect you will be putting in your offer 1st thing tomorrow morning.

I hope you like it when you step foot in it later today.

We lived in a bungalow as kids, it was fine. I don't really see what the issue is appart from changing the layout. In the meantime could you children share, or one use the 'dining room' as a bedroom?

Yes my dd's share a room now out of choice as they were desperate to. So they'd happily share at least another 6 years I'd imagine 😊

Definitely!

You could also use the dining room as a bedroom and block up the door joining the lounge. There’s many options for the layout of the bungalow.

Why are young children in the market for a bungalow? 😳

It's really common here.... I think 80% of our village is bungalows, it was originally built for old folk, but as the older, old folk have died, young families have all moved in and are upgrading, renovating, adding roof extensions. The plots are usually pretty large, many have had extra houses built in the grounds, so lots of scope for improvement. The downside is that old folk now have nowhere to downsize to.

I would love it as long as the kids bedrooms had some separation / sound proofing from adult noise (TV etc) after bedtime. As the two planned bedrooms would be across the hall that would work well.

Check you can get PP / or use permitted development to build a permanent extension in place of the conservatory

Yes. I love bungalows. But I'd always want to change the layout to have a bedroom side and a living side. The layout of that one is awful.

We used to live in a bungalow with our kids and I loved it. Bungalows are brilliant to live in - especially if you can have lots of French windows and little coffee nooks for people in the garden. Many countries where space is no real object opt for bungalows. There's a reason!

It's really odd isn't it!!
We're happy to redo the layout to have different spaces for sleeping and living as we'd also want it to be sectioned off 😊

Thanks everyone! I'm looking forward to the viewing now.
We hadn't really ever considered a bungalow, I'm not sure why. I guess it's not the norm for families so just wanted to make sure there wasn't an obvious reason for this but you've all pointed out some very good reasons it could be great for us.
It's not on a street of bungalows either which I like, as not going to disturb elderly neighbours with the DC playing outside etc. It's just an odd one on its own behind a little cul de sac of houses

I found my bungalow much easier to keep tidy as I could 'see' any mess during the day. Whereas I sort of forget upstairs exists until bed time.

Bungalows are great and you get a large footprint. You might be able to extend upwards eventually to make it a big family home if you find it a bit small. Going up makes it easier to position plumbing ,ie, above the existing. As others have said check where the new plumbing would run and particularly where the main drains are, probably close to the existing kitchen, routing and managing the fall of new drains could be a real problem.

I love bungalows but I would be cautious buying one with young children. In my experiences roads of bungalows are almost entirely older people who like peace and quiet and you may find your new neighbours will object to your children making what you consider normal noise levels.

I live in a bungalow and love it. So easy to clean. Yours sounds great!

Easier cleaning would be a huge bonus! 😆

How could you feel more on top of each other in a bungalow than a two storey, which is literally some rooms on top of the others? 😂 Surely the overall floor space matters not the configuration. Where I live bungalows are just as common for young families and all other types of residential set ups.

I didn't know if it would hinder privacy/sleep time with everyone all on one floor that the separation of an upstairs gives.

We've stayed in many holiday cottages etc that are all one floor and really liked it but that's very different to living in it all the time

I grew up in a 3 bedroom bungalow. We moved to it (my parents, almost 4 year old me and my 1 year old sister) in 1970. We were a family of four in there, and 54 years later my mother still lives in it

It was great future proofing by my parents and was great for a small family. Now it is great for a much reduced mobility 89 year old lady, who otherwise would have had to leave her home of 54 years for probably a care home. So good all round and worth serious consideration.

Yours could work well, given a rejig if you can afford it.

I guess the worry about having windows open in the kids bedrooms during the summer. Mil lives in a bung, and she used to fret about her kids being abducted, when her first grandchild came along she got the windows changed so they could only open a couple of inches
Dh told me as kids, he and his siblings weren't allowed to open the window at night, he used to wait till everyone was in bed and open the window right up....needless to say he was never abducted!!

My dream home would be a bungalow. Of course! Perfect family home.

Yes bungalows are great with young children. When we bought our house we had two big bedrooms upstairs and two smaller ones downstairs and initially we used the downstairs rooms (young kids sharing) and used upstairs as study and guest room. So kind of lived in it as a bungalow. Ideal with young kids. A million times better than our three storey townhouse that we moved from.