PLEEEASE HELP CHOOSE HOUSE! Links included!

[heldinadream]

Dear House-discerning mumsnetters, I need your help!
Choosing (we think and hope) between two houses, in Bristol.
HOUSE ONE. Beautiful and up together with a couple of minor things that would need doing/tweaking. Really special house in lots of ways. Brilliant garden, not massive but lovely.
HOUSE TWO. Bigger. More rooms. Some aesthetically fine, some not but totally liveable with. Smaller garden all paved so we’d be taking up paving and trying to create a garden.
REQUIREMENTS. I’m going to be 70 next year, DH is 77, but we are both fit, well, and energetic (well him more than me in some ways 😂). So this is our last house.
I NEED a garden. Where we live now it’s minute and I need more.
I NEED an art room or space and a writing room or space, can both be in the same room but I need SPACE.

We’ve sold our house and complete in 2 weeks and are moving into a rental. LOOOONG story but we’ve been looking since last December, mucked around by buyers, couldn’t bear the thought of losing this buyer so we’re moving out so she can move in, so we really, really can’t keep on and on looking. In this time we’ve lost 3 houses that I LOVED. I want to love my next house, I really do. Or make it into my lovable house fairly quickly.
Both houses same price and similar location.
So it comes down to this – house one I would love straight away and have an amazing art room, truly special. But it is on the main road so there could be noise issues, especially in the summer, and the rest of the space is more limited, even though lovely. Smaller kitchen but great utility room. Much, much better garden. House two I could have 2 art rooms (one to work in one to store art materials) and a writing room AND a guest room and still space to do everything else. Much bigger kitchen, no utility but not really needed because kitchen big enough. Both have a garage (for storage, we are leaving one behind so need this).

We absolutely cannot spend big bucks after the move. Some but not big.
So I guess the question is – could I love house 2 and make the garden something good, and so gain all the rooms and space? I crave enough space. I’ve never, ever had enough space.
Or should we go for gorgeous, less space, but already gorgeous garden, but on main road? ARGH! There’s no complicated chains so the consideration is choosing the right house, nothing else.
We wanted to decide today. We’ve only just seen these two today (I knew they were both good).We only lost house 3 that I loved about 3 weeks ago.
HELP!

HOUSE ONE - GORGEOUS HOUSE.
3 bedroom house for sale in Wells Close, Whitchurch, Bristol, BS14 (rightmove.co.uk)

HOUSE TWO - LOTS OF ROOMS.
4 bedroom semi-detached house for sale in Petherton Road, Hengrove, Bristol, BS14 (rightmove.co.uk)

Please take the time to look at houses that you think 'meh' about.
We moved several years ago, out of area, so tried to fit in a number of viewings on the same day.
I had 3 absolutely superb, perfect for us, stunners to view. DH managed to come up with one that was bloody awful.
Do I really need to say how it went? Viewed 2 of my 3, then walked into his pitiful offering and it was like coming home.
We didn't even view my final pick.
Sometimes the very house you have no interest in is the very one you need🙂

Why live on ground floor - what's the point - buy a bungalow - my hips have decided to pack in within a year of retirement - thank God we are single story

@Dotto I looked up the address and it is sadly high for risk of flooding

That looks quite grotty and unloved and the bars on the cloakroom window are not a good sign.

Quite a big bungalow here under budget www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149049041#/floorplan?activePlan=1&channel=RES_BUY www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149049041#/floorplan?activePlan=1&channel=RES_BUY]]]]

Looks a bit dated i wouldn’t say grotty. Hadn’t noticed the bars on the cloakroom window, not sure if it’s meant to be a decorative feature or a security one. Not sure any point from a security pov of just putting bars on one window?

@DanielaDressen not remotely on the side the OP wants as she wants to be within a mile or so of her daughter- this is opposite side of Bristol

Thank you, I don’t know Bristol and just asked for a search within 3 miles so thought it might be close but appreciate in a big city the traffic could make it not workable.

OP I forgot to mention that I have regularly sat in traffic outside property 1, and not just during rush hour, on my way out to my home in Keynsham.

If I search 3 miles around my own city I can end up in a town 10 miles away. The distance search can be a bit rubbish.

You do the map option. It's a bit fiddly to shift the boundaries but worth doing if you're looking at a very specific area.

I'm deeply grateful to everyone posting and I WILL UPDATE PROPERLY at some point but we exchanged on the selling of our house yesterday and now I'm packing for

1. storage
2. five days away from Friday
3. rental from 30th October

so it's bonkersville here ATM. And still looking at houses of course! Also looking for the extra 50 grand down the back of the sofa so we can buy what @TheStroppyFeminist posted. Believe it or not we just remembered (DH told me) an extra 25 grand in something I saved years ago! Not that we're upping the budget on those grounds, but come on premium bonds, 50 grand would do it...

I slept better last night. 😂
I really love mumsnet. In my wildest dreams at the mo we buy @TheStroppyFeminist posted house and throw a mumsnet housewarming party...🍾

Wishing you the best of luck @heldinadream and hoping you get that house that @TheStroppyFeminist posted. 🤞

ATM it's not even on the 'go to see' list. But I'm living in hope that they'll drop the price, soon, and by about 40 grand...😂
Thank you for your good wishes!

Good luck @heldinadream with packing and fingers crossed the price drops!

@longtompot we're going into Bristol today to see another house and are going to look at the house you posted from the outside and try and work out why it's apparently high flood risk when two others nearby (but not suitable, and anyway one has just sold and the other one taken off market) are low risk. It is actually surface water not river that's the risk I was wrong.
DH is an actual climate scientist by the way so there's nothing on earth that would make him buy a high risk house, but he also has a much better understanding than most of what the various risks are and how right or wrong the info might be.
So there's a slim hope still alive for this one (I keep mentioning it, I've got mentionitis). 😬😁

Awww good luck OP. I also thought that house was perfect for you, but too over budget, but the fact you've found 25k down the back of the sofa helps somewhat 😂

@DanielaDressen yep and Bristol traffic can be really shitty as it doesn't have a metro , a decent internal train service etc- in fact it's public transport has always been pretty awful - we actually moved to Bath because although traffic can be crap here too it's that much smaller and more concentrated - I remember several times it taking 45 minutes to get from our house in Henleaze out to the m4 - around 4 miles - it was that bad

There's a saying in Ireland - A dumb priest never got a parish (dumb as in being unable to speak).

In other words if you don't ask you won't get.

So @heldinadream phone the agent up about your dream home.
You never know the price might have
d

r
o
p
p
e
d

heldinadream I eventually sold my house (not to a cash buyer) for £150k less than it was originally listed for!!!* It *was on the market for over a year due to being originally overpriced, Liz Truss and it being a bit odd. The house I bought as a cash buyer was for £70k less than it had originally gone on the market for. So don't presume you won't get big reductions. They happen.

Thanks @deeahgwitch and @Tremping I know miracles can happen and prices can drop, it's just so stressful moving into a rental without any sense of what comes next.
We're going to see the Petherton house again tomorrow with my DD and a landscape gardener to try and get a sense of what could be done with both front space (concrete!) and back paved garden. I know DH wants to buy it and DD thinks if the house is right we can make something of the garden. I really do love the house but the thought of settling for the garden makes me sad.
But maybe with all of their combined visions I might be able to see it.
I'll update.
This thread is really supporting me. I won't be pushed into it if it's wrong.
Then I keep visualising my youngest DGC staying over in a proper guest room that's got really cool funky monkey wallpaper (no pic of it on the listing) and that makes me really happy (she's just four). I can so see us in the house. Just not the garden. 😭

difficult...... I like my house, it has many good points and is in a nice area with lovely neighbours.....but my garden.....it would rip my heart out to leave my garden.

@godmum56 exactly. My heart and soul were set on a garden I could nurture for the rest of my life, but we just cannot seem to find a suitable house with enough of a garden to let me loose on, within our budget, and in the right area. It's so damn sucky.

If its any comfort, we bought this house in a real hurry almost 40 years ago because my husband was promoted and it meant moving. I liked the garden then but I didn't love it. The love has come over many years of changing it and nurturing it.

Thank you. Those words will help me tomorrow. 💖