Do you have an 'emotional attachment' to your house (or home)?

We couldn't afford to buy back the house I really miss in a million years, it was extended by its last owners and has three acres of land on a south-facing slope overlooking the weald of Kent. I often dream that I am back there. I never wanted to leave it. I like this house, it's much smaller, newer, easier to heat and more practical but I feel content, rather than excited, to see it upon my return home from a trip away.

After our 3 children left home we started to look for somewhere else. The kids protested so much that we decided to stay. Been here nearly 40 years and it is lovely to see the gks playing in the street and the garden just like their mums and dads did..

I have an attachment to our house because it is light and bright, reasonably spacious, and the garden is nice. I'm not sure I'm overly attached, though. If I moved to a house with similar features I expect I would feel just as contented.

Having said that, I do think a house should "feel" right. When we moved to the north west from West Sussex, although the prices were considerably cheaper in the north, we had great difficulty in finding something we liked (we were in rented accommodation for almost a year).

In desperation, we finally settled on something. It was reasonably good value and would be considered by many to be quite an impressive house in a very pleasant area, with lovely views - and certainly much grander than anything we had lived in before. However, I never had a real "feel" for it and it never felt like "home".

When we moved back to London, where prices were rising almost every week, we could only afford a terraced house but we both liked it very much and, with various improvements over the years, we feel very at home here.

Heart rules the head here too- but it has always worked for me. I am a very intuitive person- and our last house in the UK we knew was the right one immediately- and it turned out to be the best ever place for our family to grow up. Our new (VERY old) house here also felt like home from day one, which is why we ended up moving here instead of renting a small place to visit more often. It has become a home for all the family, and our grandchildren absolutely love it and will spend many a holiday here now they are a bit older. I am also truly attached to some furniture and decorative objects that have been passed down through to me from my grand-parents and would not sell for any tea in China. We had 2 houses before our last one in the UK- they were just houses- the last one and this one are truly 'home'.

I strongly think that a house had to 'feel' right before you buy it. I've had details from estate agents and the house looked ideal on paper, location, room sizes etc. but on viewing I just felt that I couldn't live there and I couldn't give a reason, it just felt wrong.
A few weeks later we came to see this one and I knew immediately I'd found the right one. It felt right from the start and we've been happy here for 25 years now.
Grannyactivist I completely understand your daughters feelings about her grandparents as I was the same when my grandfathers house was sold. It was full of happy memories for me and if it came on the market I would be very tempted to rush and buy it. Heart rules the head every time I'm afraid!

Yes, definitely both house and furniture. The house I bought by myself after my husband died. I have had many homes but this was the first one I fell in love with immediately I walked in the door. It has been my little nest eversince.

Some of my furniture has been passed down the family, and in one case actually made by an ancestor who was a cabinet maker in Liverpool. I couldn't possibly part with it.

I do really like my home, but I can't say I have an emotional attachment to it. Definitely no emotional attachment to any of my furniture or other belongings, but having recently sold my car I did feel very sad to see it go - I'd had it for about fifteen years and it was only my second car.
One of my daughters had a very deep emotional attachment to her grandparent's house. It was a beautiful Georgian house and the place where she spent all her summers and many Christmas and Easter holidays. When it was sold she was devastated and told me that she felt like her childhood had been sold off. She's recently bought a house that's very similar and I have no doubt that she is already emotionally attached to it.

I love my house and I've lived here, alone mainly, for 22 years, longer than anywhere else.
However, I'm going to have to sell in 18 months time, and move to a small rented apartment, hopefully in this same area. I'm looking on this as an adventure and the house is beginning to feel a bit of a weight on my shoulders, as things start to need replacing.
I think when I get organised, and I'm not responsible for the upkeep, I'll be ok.
[trying to be optimistic emoticon]

No! I did have an attachment to our family home on the Isle of Wight though but it has been 'renovated' and like merlotgran I couldn't resist taking a peek on Rightmove.
My parents moved to Weymouth and I still have an affinity with their home there although I never lived there.
I keep thinking I would like to move back to our previous home which isn't far away. We only moved because we needed - or thought we needed - a bigger house. I don't so much miss the house as the neighbourhood. People are pleasant where we are now but not overly friendly

Been here 36 years and all together now
'We shall not be moved'

Yes, I have a huge emotional attachment to my house. We/I have lived here for more than half my life. It's where many memories were made and are stored, where our children grew up (and one was born). We worked gradually over the years to make it what it is today and just before J died we replaced the old kitchen with a big new kitchen/sitting room which he designed. It opens out onto the garden which he too redesigned and his ashes are buried under a tree which I can see from this room. It will be very difficult, almost impossible to leave, but I know the time will eventually come when I will have to; the question is, when?

Not at all. This is DH and my second house since we married. I closed the front door for the last time on our first house without a backward glance. I'm sure if we ever sell (possible) this one I will do the same.

I've lived in loads of houses, RAF married quarters, hirings, rented cottages, tied farmhouses and now our own cottage style bungalow. I think there's a little bit of me left in all of them but the house which holds a large part of my heart was once a four storey Guest House that my parents owned at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. We lived there for seven happy and exciting years before Dad died and I was married from there. It is still locally referred to as Karl Marx's house as a blue plaque on the wall states he used to holiday there.

The actress Celia Imrie mentions it in her autobiography as she was house hunting on the Island but says she found it depressing Silly woman

It has now been divided into two lovely flats. One of them was for sale recently and I enjoyed having a 'nosey' on Right Move.com.

If I won the lottery I would make them an offer they couldn't refuse!

Never had with previous houses but since DH died I have with this house - every room has memories of him (he renovated and extended the house - he did the work, I did the designing!). I know the day may come when I will have to leave (middle of the country, no bus service, 4 miles to nearest shop) that will be a huge wrench for me.

Yes, absolutely! It has so many memories, good and bad and I felt happy the moment I walked into it over 30 years ago. In the garden are buried 3 dogs and 4 cats and I like to go and have a chat from time to time.
As we are 3 miles from the nearest shop and not on a bus route, I dread the day when we get too old to manage any more. In the meantime, I enjoy what I have now and hope the dreaded day never comes!

No not at all I like the house and I have a chat to it now and again but no also to the furniture or the car - I attach emotionalyl to people not bricks and mortar or engines. Weird! They say the most odd things on those programmes probably scripted. The one I like best was a couple looking for a country property where they could keep horses. They were found a perfect one but the paddock had a slight slope. 'Horses don't like going uphill' the woman said. Whenever we see a horse in the countryside now we wonder whether its one of the uphill kind.

Yes definately. I was only thinking the other day that I actually own this little piece of brick, mortar and land. And I had no family money, or support. I did it all on my own.

I surprised myself by an instant reaction to your question, gk. Yes! It wasn't until we had put it on the market after 10 years, and then took it off (11 years) that I realised this. We've renovated it thoroughout, but it isn't all the work that went into that. Nor is it all the stuff we have in it. It's the acknowledgement (finally) that I've never felt more content......but maybe that's not to do with the house at all....

Yes I have. The first house that I owned; prior to that it was rented houses with my mum and dad, then a series of flats/bedsits/shared student houses. The children grew up here; pets have come and gone along with the husband. Because I never had a family home to go back to I always wanted that for my kids; a bolt hole that was always theirs no matter what their age or circumstances was. However, that emotional attachment is weighing heavy on me at the moment and part of me would like to move on. I do think houses are more than their walls and furniture and carpets. I'd love to live a a little cottage but I'm scared that I might find an atmosphere in it that I felt unhappy with. They do say, with regards to sightings of ghosts etc that walls can 'record' emotions that have happened there in the past and I do wonder how true that is.

Yes!!

I was so sad when we decided that our last home was too big, draughty etc as it was where the children had grown up, was walking distance to town, schools etc and I thought I would never live anywhere that I loved again.

It took me ages to get DH to even agree to look at this house, it had been repossessed, was boarded up so we really couldn't see properly what it was like and it turned out that the electrics and plumbing left a lot to be desired. But, we all love it!

It's really quirky but welcoming and I'm only leaving in a box!

No! It's a house, somewhere to live. I'd be happy living in a shed as long as I had my OH with me.

And I've just had new carpets put down.

Good lord yes! DH did a lot of the building work on it. I did a bit until I got pregnant. That was 46/47 years ago. I made the garden. I'm pretty sure I'll never move away now. It's part of me.

Definitely - it is a bit scruffy, but is "home" and has lovely views. I also feel strongly attached to our house before last where the children spent most of their childhoods. But the house in between those, where we were for 7 years, was simply a "stepping stone" when times were hard and we had to sell to release some money; and all of us just miss it out of our thinking - it is as if we were never there.