When hubby originally purchased a house 7 1/2 years ago, not in his dreams he would have thought of the house to be “compatible” for his own kids. The plan originally was to buy the house and rent it out to other people. That way he would have made a good bit of money on it too because our house has 4 bedrooms where 3 of them would have been rented. Unfortunately at the same time he was in the middle of purchasing the house, he also met me and I got in the way of changing his plans. In a good way I hope.
Half a year later we moved in together. I did pay my bit toward the house of course. I wouldn’t have expected him to pay all of it especially after paying off a fresh mortgage over the next couple of years.
Three years later our first child Matthew came along… 2 1/2 years after that our second child Chloe came along. Soon we realised that we need more space. I mean to some people the house we have is quite big but with two kids it can get quite cramped particularly with all the million toys they have. I have sorted that a bit by ordering a storage unit from Argos. One of them is now sitting in the corner of the kitchen with half of the toys stored away. We still have a travel cot beside the kitchen table with the other half and I just haven’t got the time to sort through them. I will get there eventually. With full-time work I only get time to do this at weekends and they can be packed too sometimes.
Hubby is working away quite a lot the last 1 1/2 years. He is spending 3 days away from the kids every week. We are at the point where it’s just too much and the traveling is taking its toe on him and he can’t do it anymore. He hates missing out on spending time with the kids every evening. He is catching up at the weekend but that is not a long term solution at all. There have been talks in the last year whether we should move house/location or not. We finally came to the conclusion and decided to make the big step and move at the end of this year.
This will be the house we get old in too so it means the house needed some requirements. We made up a list about a year ago we wanted for our new family home. It’s bang on and has everything we want.
Fully Detached
At the moment we live in a timber frame semi detached house. It means we hear the neighbours all the time, for example banging their doors. A full detached house is so much quieter and we don’t have to worry about any noise around us.
30 minutes max during rush hour from home <—> work
The new house will only be a 4 mins drive to the creche which is basically around the corner. Same distance as it is right now. Hubby drove the route from creche to work the other day and that was during the busiest time of the morning. It only took him 15 mins. You can’t argue with that.
Utility Room
We have no utility room in our house. It can be quite annoying trying to dry the clothes in the spare bed room upstairs. Utility room should sort this problem and it’s also great to keep the washing machine seperate from the main kitchen area.
Play Room
The biggest issue we have with our current house is that there is no play room or any other room the toys can be thrown into. We have thought about it in the past to build in an extension in form of a conservatory but then decided against it for now. I am glad we did, it means we didn’t waste any money and the value of the house will stay the same because if we did that there would have been pretty much no garden left.
Big Garden
The garden in the new house is probably nearly double the size of the one we have at the moment. It’s grand because the weather in the West part of Ireland is worse than it is in the East part. We don’t get to go out much anyway. Half the space is taken up by the huge garden shed we have which is mainly occupied by our two cats. We will be downgrading that for sure. In my head I can picture a small garden shed in the corner and on the opposite a trampoline. I’d love to have a little flower garden corner too with maybe some vegetables/fruit to grow.
Concrete Floors
Hubby can be upstairs working in his computer room sometimes and without him doing it on purpose I can hear him walking around and it sounds like he dropped a bowling ball. Im not kidding. Timber frame house is great heating wise but you hear everything. I would like to walk around the house as normal as possible. For that reason the new house has concrete floors. Heaven!
Local
Town is in walking distance like it is in the house we live in right now. I’m not a big fan of living in the country and having to drive everywhere with the kids. A 20 mins walk is nice for the kids to get into town and at the same time they catch some fresh air. We will get all this in the new town too which is brilliant.
What we are left to do now and it’s also what it depends on, is to sell our own house and hopefully move into the new one at the end of September.
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I like living quiet if I am honest but not too quiet. For example country living wouldn’t be for me.
I hope you find the right place, it sounds like you have got a great list there though, sounds like a house I would love too x
I love house hunting 🙂
I can’t wait till our next move!
Im sure you will find somewhere with everything you want!
Lx
http://workingmumy.blogspot.com
#TheList
Sound like you are sorted to buy the new house already! I really like the idea of Fully Detached – I live in a middle attached house at the moment I can could hear both side of the walls. It is such a nightmare when you have kids. They could hear our kids and we could hear theirs! I also like the sound of the concrete floor for the same reasons. 🙂 #TheList
Yay for finding a new home and hope the move goes well!! It’s funny how we all have similar but slightly different requirements for our dream house. I live in military marriage quarters at the moment and won’t be buying for a while but I love looking up houses on property sites and browsing Pinterest for inspiration 🙂 x
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that’s funny how tastes are. I think the reason why we wanted a new new build is because we moved into a new build and have been used to the standard of a new build. Basically it was hard to find any house we liked unless it was a new build if you get what I mean.
Good luck with moving home! We also had a lot of requirements for our new home and a playroom was a HUGE requirement! We also wanted something with a bit of character and neither I or my husband wanted a new build. It’s funny how everyone has different requirements and yet meeting them all is equally hard! #sharewithme
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I can’t wait to decorate ours once we moved in.
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That’s very good. The new house has 4 bedrooms. But it has the playroom on top of it so it’s handy to have a spare bedroom. x
Ah lots of luck, we couldn’t manage without our playroom, I’ve been re-decorating it and so it’s been out of action for weeks which has been really tough. Thanks for linking to #sharewithme
Congrats on finding somewhere. We were lucky that the house we wanted came up as I was pregnant with my first son, and since it had more bedrooms than we needed, it still fits us now we have 3 children x
congrats on your new place! I love the sound of a play room I feel like our house is being overtaken by toys! x
Congratulations on your new home. It sounds like it definitely ticks all the boxes. I love the sound of the utility room.
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Thanks 🙂 x
How exciting! I would absolutely love a utility room and play room.. maybe one day! Good luck with it all! x
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It’s great isn’t it. I didn’t think I would be so happy about a utility room either. x
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Difference though is that the new house we put the deposit on is energy rated at A3. Our timber frame house is B3.
Good luck with your moving home adventure. We’ve just recently moved home (well about three months ago) and we now have a utility room and it’s actually amazing!!! Sad that I’m excited about a utility room, it’s the small things I guess. We’ve also moved from a semi detached to a full detached home and it’s great not having to worry about how much noise you make, etc.
Laura x
Hope you find your forever home soon. My hubby is an energy surveyor and he would strongly disagree with concrete flooring and recommend timber frame for cost efficiency but I suppose everyone needs to make these decisions based on their needs and not always based on practical tips.