We've gone from old to newish in a roundabout fashion. Our first home together was an early Victorian 2 up 2 down workman's cottage, which one local estate agent pretentiously described as a little lane of mews houses. It was cute but with limitations. However it did have a very long, but not particularly wide garden, broken up by a pond in the middle with fascinating pond life including toads, I was always worried my cat might try and catch one because I gather they're poisonous but thankfully she had no such inclination. The cottage had its charms, lovely fireplace, where we exposed the brick work, but also its drawbacks. I remember at one time having fitted a new kitchen we wanted the walls tiled and we got several tilers come round to quote. The first one did that whole sucking his breath in and shaking his head, "not easy with these walls, I'll let you know" by the time we received his quote, some weeks later we'd had the job done by another tiler who didn't regard what we wanted as something insurmountable. We had the original sash windows, and when Concord went over everything shook and the frames reverberated. We moved from that house to a larger and later Victorian house with the classic bay window, oh so perfect for the Christmas tree. Again we did that one up, and like the previous house we had some exposed brick work, my late father in law in his very own obtuse way, was prone to repeat his mantra of "you ought to get that wall plastered" they the parents in law also hated the original panelled doors which we'd had stripped and the original Victorian tiles around the fireplace. In fact when we moved from there they told us they hated that house and Victorian houses generally, maybe because they'd grown up in them and their preference was to get rid of any original features particularly doors and window frames, they kept urging us to get aluminium window frames nooooo! By the time I was expecting our 2nd child, we needed more space and bought a house, almost around the corner our removal van didn't have to go far. We were moving up the timeline, this one was late Edwardian, well later than that really probably 1920s but still retaining much of its character. I loved that house, far from perfect, it was prone to be draughty, but it had everything we required for our family a good sized garden with trees at the end, two reception rooms, my other half likes a separate dining room, plus a large kitchen and breakfast room,. We added a loft extension for us with an en suite and moved up to the top floor, so our children both had the large two bedrooms on the first floor and the smaller one we turned into a home office. That being our third move in just a few years, we did stay there for about 13 years. Then we moved to the other side of town near their senior school, near the station, near our very large nearby town, very walkable along a tow path. This was a 1980s town house on three floors, it had a small courtyard garden and magnificent communal gardens that went right down to the Thames in fact some of our neighbours had moorings. The people that sold us told us "we take our boat up to the nearby town, moor at John Lewis and Waitrose to do our shopping". I thought they were kidding but they weren't. I did kind of love it there, our kids still lament the fact that we sold up and moved after they'd left home, in fact one said, tongue in cheek, when we told them we were selling "don't do it think of the children" No sorry, you're 30 and 34 
They're always telling me that they had very fond memories of that house. Straight across the river was a pub and a rowing club, one of my sons got into rowing briefly until winter time and early morning practice was required and he couldn't face getting out of bed in the freezing cold. The pub across the water always put on Village People's YMCA at chucking out time so that was often blasted across the water. Some of our maddest neighbours, we had a few, in the height of summer took it upon themselves to swim across the river to the pub 
Mad fools Weil's Disease The Royal barge, The Gloriana also came floating by our grounds at the time of the Diamond Jubilee or it might have been 2012 Olympics, great photo opportunity, as well as David Walliams doing his swim along the Thames, but he became quite ill soon after he passed our part. My late father in law when he visited in his inimitable prophet of doom mode said "you won't stay here for long, too many stairs" well we were there for 19 years so yah boo! but he was dead by the time we moved and it was the stairs that did it, so he was half right Our living room was on the first floor, kitchen and dining room on the ground, in the end the configuration was too inconvenient and we decided it was time to leave London for a quieter life. So here we are 4 and half years on, we moved in the height of Covid, not a good time, but are very settled in our mid 1990s build, old to new for us. It was a bit of side size, square footage we have more, have gained a bedroom and a utility and a larger garden, a work in progress, it my husband's passion he loves being in the garden almost as much as golf. We've made a few changes, had it redecorated, put a new en suite in and have had a new patio laid, I think we thought we pretty much wouldn't change anything it was up to date, loved the kitchen with island unit, but we realised once in there are the inevitable teething problems. We love it here, about 30 miles from where we used to live outside the M25, just into Sussex, a mile or so outside a largish market town with just about all the shops and facilities we require, a John Lewis even, an Everyman Cinema, plenty of coffee shops restaurants and I can see the Surrey Hills, Surrey is the county of my birth so I retain an affection for it.
Anyway good luck to those who are moving or about to I wish you all the best in your new homes.
Registering is free, easy, and means you can join the discussion, watch threads and lots more.
Register now »Already registered? Log in with:
Gransnet »
