Did you buy a house that didnt match your wish list?

[cowboylover]

Looking for some advise form some other recent home movers out there:

We have decided to move to a more family friendly home in the hope of having children soon and currently have a small 3 bed terrace with no garden and not the best neighbourhood so we wrote a wish list for a 4 bed detached with seperate living areas and definatly and not open plan.

Now after a few veiwings and seen some nice places but now fallen in love with a 3 bed semi-detached with open plan living area but somehow I can see us living there and having children there.

Anyone else done the same?
Or have I taken my eye off the plan?

Thanks in Advance x

Yes.We lived in a beautiful,huge Victorian terrace house,but on a dodgy street.I love old houses,but we sold it and bought a 3 bed 1960's semi that was in a bad state [hadn't been touched in 30 years].The garden is on a steepish slope,had 2 huge ponds [we had a 21 month old and 3 week old when we moved].What swayed us was that it was in a village where houses never came up for sale,was where I grew up and near all my family and work.If it had been elsewhere I wouldn't even have viewed it,as it just wasn't what we had in mind.5 years later we are slowly renovating it and would never move away now.

If it feels 'right' it will be right for you.
We have lived in a 3 bed semi with open plan downstairs and are only moving now because of area, also it has been a real bonus to have an open plan set-up when cooking etc- means you can keep an eye out for children at the same time. No running in to dining room from kitchen and via hall to find little johnny spoonfeeding baby Rosie playdoh etc!

We've bought a house which didn't really tick any of our 'wish list' but just felt right when we saw it, due to move in Aug / Sept.

It sounds from your post that what you want is a family home and the one you've seen fits the bill.

I'd say go with your gut instinct, really hoping it'll work for us

Our essentials included a downstairs toilet and off-road parking. The house we are buying has neither

No, but if you asked my DH he would might have a different answer

Yes our current house felt right but is much further walk to shops/school/pub/park than I wanted.

The things we didn't compromise on were the size of the garden, a quiet road and the fact that it is detached. I would be very reluctant to be attached again, following a bad experience with our old neighbours.

I did the opposite two and a half years ago and stuck to the list despite not really feeling anything for the house.

It ticked all the right boxes so I thought once I'd put my stamp on the place the rest would follow. It hasn't and we sunk all our cash in it. We are stuck here and feel we have made a very expensive mistake.

We are now considering down sizing to something smaller than we actually started with just so we can afford to move on to somewhere we like.

If the house feels right and has enough space I'd say go for it.

Thanks for all the advise!

Thinking on it the open plan would be more family friendly and DH will have to live without a seperate piano room for a bit longer than he would like. When we have a family I expect he wont be playing it as much anyway

Yes, we are buying a house that is the opposite of what we wanted. It is a 70's square box, and we wanted original features, but we both got that 'feeling' when we viewed. i think the house chose us, rather than us choosing it.

Yes - the last house we had didn't tick the boxes, and it was fine.

But, I don't think I'd do open plan again - I like somewhere to shut things away, and a separate dining room, but thats us and our needs.

I do agree that the priority of a piano room will lessen considerably when you have a child