I sold my dark little cottage (which I loved by the way as it was very quirky!) in January, because I needed to be near my daughter who couldn't drive at that pint, having had 3 major surgeries in 2020/2021. It was small and had a courtyard garden and a thatched roof, and surprisingly a lot of storage that I actually created when I did my alterations to it. What sold the house to me was not the galley kitchen in dark oak with no windows or extraction, not the green hotel carpet in the lounge, nor the beautiful inglenook fireplace lined in patio slabs, but the extension at the back which was large and had virtually nothing in it but a sink, washing machine and a breakfast bar! I opened the door to that room and just saw a gorgeous large rustic kitchen, which it got! I designed it so that everything was built in or behind a door - all the appliances and boiler etc .... a fantastic larder cupboard and integrated fridge freezer which made it look as though it was a very large larder. It was l-shaped and at the other end which had a stable door to the garden I had a big dresser and my dining table, and the big chair in which I sleep, It was handy still having the original kitchen too whilst that was being hand built! Then, I ripped out that kitchen and to cover up where the walls had been tiled etc, I had the whole of one side made into bookshelves and the other side had 2 big cupboards for coats, vacuum, printer, airing cupboard etc - very handy as they both had sockets in them for the printer/router/charging the vacuum etc!
Anyway, having sold that, I had to find somewhere cheaper to buy with the equity I had - there were literally 2 houses on the market I could vaguely afford! I really needed a bungalow, but the only one which could have been even vaguely affordable was rather weird! It had a front door which had been enclosed in a kind of patio door affair, was about big enough to hang a coat in if the sides hadn't been glass, but they were! Maybe could have left your muddy boots in it, just .... I went in via the kitchen, which was tiny! You could just about turn round in it to wash pots and stir the dinner at the same time. Then went into a hallway with a boiler cupboard and into the living area which had been done beautifully, nice fireplace and floor, the down a very dark hallway with rooms off to each side. Bed 2 was just about a double and would have been ok for a guest room etc. Bed 1 however wasn't a great deal bigger, had a large skylight in the roof and the curtains were closed, I assumed because of the sun. You then went around a corner to find an extension dining room and what they called a garden room. On the surface they looked ok, but when I looked closer, the extension had been literally built on to the back, The walls weren't done - they were the original outside walls and they'd covered them up with cream hardboard. When I looked at the doors, they didn't seem to have been properly joined to the walls either, and in the garden room was a closed set of curtains on the inside, which was where they'd done the extension and not removed the original bedroom window, hence the closed curtains in Bed 1! More hardboard up against the walls followed! Asked the EA if they had any Building Regs paperwork - apparently not! Then walking back through the house into the kitchen, I looked around and couldn't see a washing machine or a fridge! Who builds a kitchen without space for those items?? Couldn't extend the kitchen unless you went in front of the garage or into bedroom 2 either .... Turns out the washer was in the garage and the fridge, wait for it was in the boiler cupboard - they'd knocked out the wall behind the kitchen door into the hallway boiler cupboard and stuck it there - so you couldn't get to any boiler controls without removing the fridge, and to cover up the mess from where they'd taken the wall down, they'd hung a curtain! Just how it went for over £305k is beyond me, or someone was desperate - considering where I live in Marlborough is retirement heaven, with every development space filled with supported living 'apartments' going for over half a million £, there are no bungalows!
I can see through gaudy walls and clutter and see what I can do quite easily, but there, there was no potential whatsoever and putting it right would have cost too much money .....
Out of the 2 houses remaining, one was very small but nicely done, had a big plot so an extension was possible, but there was no downstairs loo and the kitchen was open plan into the living room, so would have had to have a commode down there somewhere! The other, was much bigger, huge garden for the dogs, a downstairs toilet and space for a downstairs bathroom to be created - just need the money to do it now, and the Council isn't being too helpful so far, but in this heat I need a bath, not a strip wash in the kitchen with my grandchildren running through!
