Do you love your home?

I downsized last year from our 4 bed family home of 40 odd years. It was far too big for solo living and I couldn’t afford the looming renovations which were badly needed.

I love my 2 bed semi bungalow. After a year the novelty still hasn’t worn off and I have a feeling of contentment each time I turn the car into my little driveway.

I still have room for visiting grandchildren to stay overnight . That was an important factor when I viewed the bungalow and I wouldn’t have proceeded with the purchase if I couldn’t fit bunk beds and a single bed into the second bedroom.

The gardens are much smaller and more manageable. The roof and bathroom are only a few years old. Both of which badly needed replacing in my previous home .

Several people have asked me in the past year if I miss our family home. The answer is a resounding no. Yes, I have lovely memories but they’re still with me. The rest of it was bricks and mortar and felt like a millstone round my neck until I finally plucked up the courage to downsize.

I love my house and have lived here for nearly 38 years. It is just a medium sized detached nothing grand with a wrap around garden, quite private. I wish I had lovely views and a bigger garden but probably won’t move as I have one of my daughters and two grandchildren nearby, good neighbours and good amenities close by. I especially love my conservatory as when I sit in there I can enjoy the garden all year round. It is my peaceful quiet place.

I, too, love my home.

It's nothing fancy, but it's ideally situated for us - near the town centre, surgery, shops, restaurants and transport. We moved here when the children were small but old enough to be wanting to go further afield, and having everything in walking distance helped. Now they've gone, having things handy for us is reassuring as we get older.

I worked through the house a couple of years ago to get it ready for retirement (new kitchen, bathroom and general decor update), and although there are still a couple of things on the 'get round to it one day' list, I am happy that it's reasonably future-proof. On paper it is too big for two, but we use all the rooms, so I can't see the point in downsizing. Unless we moved out of the area for some reason I would have to sacrifice convenience (bungalows in this town are on peripheral estates rather than in the town centre), and this is not the right stage of life to do that. If necessary I would get a stair lift fitted.

I love this home a lot, a 50's white painted 3 bed semi detached bungalow with a drive, large garage and gardens with lots of greenery - which are not too big, not too small. Been here 15 years now.

Inside it's 'cottagey', and suits me down to the ground. Sunny at the back and cool in the front in summer. Wide white painted floorboards [with rugs] throughout, easy to keep clean. Enough room to move around - and a wood burner used in the winter.

I've been so restless in the past, done up lots of houses before, liked them all of course but this one is a bit special. I can't see me moving from here.

Yes I too love my home. It is too big for the two of us but perfect when the family come to stay. We need help in the garden but we have wonderful views. We have future proofed it so hopefully will not have to move.

I love our house. We’ve been in it for over thirty years. In fact, it is our third house in this village. Although it’s too big for just two of us now, it’s good for putting family up when they come to stay. When the Australian relatives come over they generally use our house as a sort of base. We have a conservatory which is perfect for sunny days. We always eat Christmas dinner there. The garden, front and back, is small but colourful. We have had fun over the last few years decorating everywhere in the most outlandish (some would say) colourful paint, wallpaper, pictures and curtains.

What a lovely post. I also love my house . It’s a 1930s detached in Surrey . We’ve been here for 32 years and our DC grew up here . It was a 3 bed doer upper when we bought it . The previous owners bought it new in 1938. So we’re the second owners.
We completely renovated it and after ten years we extended into the loft and over the garage and now have 5 beds , 3 baths .
Since then we extended the back of the house into an open plan living, dining kitchen area with bifold doors . I love the view on to the garden .
With just two of us , we do rattle around and we should downsize, but we have shops, GP, library, buses and trains a 5 minute walk, plus open space to walk the dog . My mums a 10 minute drive away and our AC are in South London .
We also have lovely neighbours and a lot of good friends in the area .
Our house has lots of wonderful memories and I love coming home after a holiday .

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202604/medium-ntc6r-img-4248.jpeg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202604/medium-et8x4k-img-4247.jpeg

The downstairs loo in all its pink glory.

After my divorce in 2014, I moved to my current home, a two-bedroomed flat overlooking a park (see photo taken recently) in Torquay. It's an old building, facing SW, well sound-proofed and my neighbours are all friendly and helpful if needed.

It is within walking distance of Babbacombe Downs with easy access to various coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, shops, my surgery and a good bus service. I do drive but often use public transport, not least because my DH's role within BR has provided us with free First Class rail travel!

Despite having lived in large family homes for most of my first marriage, I love my current home. It represents my new life and the opportunity to be with my current DH. It's also easy to lock up and leave when I go to his home in France.

I have never formed any strong attachment to bricks and mortar but since I retired 3 years ago and spent a lot of the time at home, our house has become important to me.

I do love our house. I love the space and the 1960s huge windows that let the sun in, also the location close to all amenities.

We have live here for 30 years. I am working through the house bit by bit and trying to future proof it as well.

Yes. Our home is cosy, comfortable, and makes me happy.

Home to my grandparents and their parents before them. We bought it when we married, raised our daughter here, intend to stay on.

Near nothing, in middle of fields, calm, pleasant, delightful.

If you love your house it will love you back. ❤️🏠

I have lived in this house since early 90's, another along same road through the 80's, but my partner has lived in this town all his life. He won't move unless he really has to, though he is starting to say the garden is too much. The house is not that big but has large front and back gardens.
His parents (plus he and his siblings) lived here before us.

I hate it here now and would move tomorrow if I could, would love to go back to my part of Somerset. I have family and good friends there.

We have been in our home for 38 years, it holds many happy memories and a few not so happy ones.

Some may say it’s far too big for just the two of us, but we regularly have GC staying over along with friends and other family members.

It’s location suits us, and when we are unable to drive we are on the bus route.

I love the house I live in, wherever it is.

I have just moved from a house I lived in for nearly 30 years and an area I had lived insince childhood. I loved the house when I lived there, but we moved because the garden was getting too time consuming and we wanted to be nearer our children, or rather, they wanted us nearer to them.

I love my new home, I am homesick on a daily basis for the county and area I lived in for so long, the countryside, the landscape, my friends and interests.

Very similar to my circs GrannyGravy. We extended our kitchen into a large kitchen- family area when the children were in their teens. They often had groups of friends here, as did we.
Over Easter we had four grandchildren, their four parents and two dogs to join my two. Happy chaos.
I still use the four bedrooms, and enjoy having space

Surprised myself when I read this post that the answer was yes 👍 I lost my DH in October and have obviously been very lost. Many times I’ve thought I needed to move during that time but was intelligent enough to know it was too soon to make a major decision. When I read the opening post I actually sat and looked around me properly for the first time in a long time. Over 30 years of memories, mostly good. Furniture we argued about buying, both having different tastes then eventually agreeing on! Manageable garden with some quirky additions added my DH during the past year before loosing him when mentally his mind was already failing. The place my family always come to in times of need! It’s a very simple 3 bed semi but it’s mine and so are the memories it holds.❤️. So thank you for making me realise that yes I very much do love my home ❤️

That makes me happy sankev and I am pleased I started this thread.
for all your homes.

We’ve lived in our current home for just over 4 years, bought at the time when property was in demand and prices were going up every day. We sold our old house which was much too big for the two of us but was where we’d brought up our family. It needed money spent on it but had an enormous garden and we realised we should downsize. We now live in a very large bungalow and everybody says we haven’t downsized. What we have got is one floor living so it’s future proof. There is an Upstairs but that is now a guest suite for the family so not in use all the time. We have had to gut the place and replace everything. It has cost us much more than we ever envisaged when buying it. However, we like it here. We’ve both joined clubs. We have fabulous views over the downs and fields. We live near little towns that offer all we need for day to day life. A short drive away we are on the coastline. Has it turned out how we expected? If I’m honest no it hasn’t. But we like it here and it does feel like home.

Yes I am a real home bird. I love my home. I love my neighbors, all quiet & respectful.
I don’t think I could face down sizing & doing up another house, especially with the cost of everything.
No it will be a stair lift for us eventually.

SueDonim

That’s a lovely sentiment, UTBB. ❤️

I love coming home. I don’t love this house as much as our previous one, although I love the current garden more.

Surprisingly to me, I think back very infrequently to our last home of 25 years standing and don’t miss it as such. I knew it was time to move and it would now be a burden to us. I don’t miss fretting about oil prices and power cuts, the lack of services and the difficult, steep garden.

I love going home to our cats, too. We hesitated about getting another after our previous one died, but it truly was the best thing ever. We now have two and they make our house our home. 🏡

This says it for me, but only one cat! 🐈‍⬛

Oh Ann, what a chain of memories you have brought back to me since I first read your post earlier. Memories of our first trip to the Algarve in October 1987 when DH and I decided that our children were old enough to leave while we visited his brother in Portugal for a long weekend.
That was the start of so many holidays, some working, some dog sitting and eventually when DH was made redundant to our selling up and moving out here.
We bought some land that I fell in love with and lived in the converted barn, shown in the photograph, until about ten years ago when we could afford to knock it down and have a new one built. It’s small, light and airy and very well insulated. I still love it despite it being in the middle of nowhere.

Incidentally that weekend that we first left our children at home in the south of England turned out to be the one that the hurricane hit the same area and caused swathes of damage.

Yes, I love it. It’s not perfection, but then nothing is. We’ve spent quite a lot of money on it and by downsizing, this released some funds to do so. We’re retired now, daughter and grandchildren are in the next village and there’s a good sense of community here. The house itself has everything we need including a downstairs loo - very useful now we’re older. It’s the right size house and garden for us. The village has really good facilities and I feel very at home here - which I never really felt in our previous home where we’d lived for over 30 years and which was about 10 miles away from here.

Thank you Usedtobeblonde, it really did open my eyes to what I have to appreciate ! It felt like a revelation but in a positive light. Seems like such a simple question but it makes you think. I’m blessed to be safe and secure and lucky to also have the added bonus of having really good neighbours 🙏. Sometimes it’s good to see the good in what has been an extremely difficult time!

I do love our home, we've been here over 5 years now, although I still feel a newbie. Driving to a women's group meet up today at a country pub through country lanes, with the sun shining made me feel so glad to be here, particularly contrasting it with driving in suburbia where we previously were, that could take ages as the crow flies,sometimes to cover literally a couple of miles.

We were in a our last town on the edge of London for 35 years. It was lovely in many ways, in fact Sunday Times voted it one of the best places to live in London one year, good rail links up to Waterloo, The Thames ran through it, Hampton Court and Bushy Park on our doorstep. We'd decided some years ago, eventually once the children had left, then so would we, although they're always telling me they miss their hometown, in fact one, aged 30 at the time when we'd had an offer on our last house said something along the lines, very tongue in cheek, "don't do it! think of the children "! "No! we always told them we would move out beyond the M25. We're 30 miles from our old neck of the woods now sandwiched between the Surrey Hills, I like being near Surrey I grew up there and the Sussex Downs. We're in a village on the edge of market town which pretty much has everything John Lewis, Waitrose, Sainsbury, Aldi an Everyman cinema and a vibrant market, high street and restaurants, train station it's an hour up to London now instead of 30 minutes but doesn't bother me because I don't have the urge to go there as I once did. We do visit our old area, for various reasons, friends, grandchildren, although they come down here quite often. My o/h always sighs with relief when we hit Box Hill, Surrey with a "thank God away from the heaving masses" as the traffic gradually thins out homeward bound into Sussex, it's very beautiful around the Surrey/Sussex borders, for me, only bettered by parts of Dorset and Devon, I do love the coast, as other areas we might have considered, but too far away from family.

The house was a bit of sideways move in square feet, it's larger than our last house which was on three floors, when my late father in law first visited he exclaimed "you won't be here long, you'll get fed up with the stairs" We were actually there for 20 years, but in the end the configuration and the stairs became less than ideal so now it's just ground and upstairs. The kitchen sold it to us, bi fold doors that open on to the garden and today is one of the hottest so far so they're fully open and that's when it becomes the outside room, hopefully for six months at least if the weather is kind.