Our first home was a flat in Leicester, the bottom half of an old terraced house opposite the blank brick wall at the rear of a garage business.The small living room had an old unusable kitchen range in it,and there was a tiny scullery with a deep stone sink and not much else.The lavatory was the second door along in the back yard, beyond the coal shed,and was shared with the tenants of the upstairs flats who had either to walk through our flat to get to it or go out of the front door and down a little alleyway between the houses. The only bathroom was in the upstairs flat with a hot water tank that took 24 hours to heat enough water for a bath. We were happy there for two years and thought ourselves lucky to have our own place.After two years we had saved up enough to pay the deposit on a detached house with a big garden which was on the market for £3750.How times have changed.
A two bed end of terrace house with very small postage stamp garden
After living in several shared student houses we bought a house when we got married and I’m still living in it. 3 bedroom detached, now 4 bedroom after an extension. I sometimes wish we’d started off in a smaller house as I would have got used to the idea of moving house. As it is I’ll probably spend the rest of my life here.
We lived with my parents at first as exh didn't have a job. Then moved after three months to a Scottish Special house in a wee village. I was classed as an incoming worker. It was lovely. We backed into fields. I grew lots of vegetables and there was a real community spirit. After three years we bought our first house for £22,000. That would be around 1984. It had Hessian on the walls and every summer brought an ant infestation. However we loved it. It was in a lovely estate at the foot of the Ochil Hills. I still look back with pleasure at that house.
First six months with my parents. Then we had a small 2 bed council house, furnished with second hand family stuff. Only new thing was the bed. We could have bought it for £3000 but we couldn’t afford it. Bought our first house five years later ,.
A two up - two down terrace, small rooms but high ceilings and steep stairs. As it was near the river the garden soil was excellent and we grew lots of salad, beans and sweet peas. Washing was dried on a line the length of the garden and I winched it up and looped it over a hook so that it blew high over the garden.
WE were very fortunate that a) my husband worked for a bank and had a bank mortgage - 5% interest, imagine! in the 1970s!! and b) he was already hafway up the ladder and was "old" at 33 when we married.
So we had a 2 bedroom maisonette. It was heaven after the dreadful bedsits I lived in, which was all I coud afford.
We rented a first floor flat in Leicester with rooms off a communal landing! There were two elderly Scottish ladies upstairs, who fortunately crept quietly in and out, but complained that I didn't dust the bannisters often enough! Downstairs was an opticians so I didn't have to go far to get my eyes tested. A couple of years later we bought a Victorian 3 bed terraced house a few streets away, with bathroom added.
In a small Police flat near Kings Cross. It was rent-free courtesy of the Met Police so we could save up for a deposit for a house within two years. DH seemed to be on endless night duty, we had no phone and I knew no one. I was 21 .He worked all night and I worked all day and we met in the hall once a day.We used to have drunks banging on the door in the middle of the night and a noisy pub opposite our bedroom window.
In each other’s arms on cloud nine ??
As DH was studying full time at university we had a one bedroom flat student accommodation - in reality the upstairs of a terraced house on the edge of the campus.
We rented a small flat in Ealing . The landlady felt free to come into it while we were out and complained when we left the radiators on when we were away for a weekend . I decided the rent was too much for what we had ( DH has organised it ) so we looked around and got a bigger flat in Acton . The landlady lived in the bottom half of the house and we had the top we could just go down to her part with ho security. The poor old sould used to leave us gifts on the stairs , things people had given her .
We rented a flat above a dentist in Esher, Surrey. It was freezing cold so we bought a paraffin heater - remember those?
It was opposite Sandown Park racecourse so we had a brilliant view - of the car park!
Saved enough to buy a 3 bed semi in Cobham but had no real furniture to go in it. When a local lady visited us to welcome us to the area we let her think we were still waiting for our furniture to be delivered...........
We bought a Barratt new build 3 bed link detached on a big new estate just outside Durham. It was £5950 in 1972, plus another £500 for the freehold. DH and I both worked 2 jobs and managed to save a 10% deposit towards it.
A two bedroom maisonette which we had to rewire ourselves. It had purple wallpaper in the bedroom, and instead of changing the wallpaper, we bought curtains and a bedspread to match!!!
We moved into our 2 up2 down terrace which we bought for £6500 on our wedding night. No honeymoon, all our money had gone into doing up the house prior to the wedding . Hours of scraping layers of old wallpaper ?
We stayed there 10yrs during which time MiL payed for some alterations from late FiL estate.
We sold it within a week of putting it on the market and bought a 3 bed semi whichs where we still live
We had a 2 bedroom teachers flat which was subsidised in Scotland and I could walk to work. It was a shock when we moved to London.
1980 rented house
Beechnut
In each other’s arms on cloud nine ??
Do you still live there?!?
We lived in a bedsit but soon managed to get the deposit for a
rented flat. It then took another 4 years before we could buy our own house.
P.S, In Torquay.
grandmajet
Beechnut
In each other’s arms on cloud nine ??
Do you still live there?!?
We did until DH passed away. ?
A two bedroom flat with a view of the local cemetery. We had moved on before it became the Kray brothers’ resting place.
We started off in a ground floor flat with an upstairs shared bathroom the guy upstairs always used the hot water which was heated by 1 shilling pieces in the hallway insisting he had put the money in the meter.
We stayed there for 18mths until baby son was born when we started looking for a house and saving for a deposit,my FIL died and left us a large amount of money so we where able to buy our first 3 bed house for £5.250 we thought we had moved into a palace just after we completed the sale my husband was offer a 3 bed house in Port Sunlight it was a beautiful area and still is, I would have loved to had lived there but owning our own home was far more important at the time.
Lovely upstairs flat of a semi. Shared garden with downstairs couple called McGinty. I always had to suppress the urge to sing Paddy McGinty’s Goat.
The landlord used to wander in and poke around when we weren’t there, so we removed the door handles to prevent access.
We first lived in a small terraced house with a downstairs bathroom. It was in 'Sarf' London and at £26000 in 1981 at the very top of our budget. All our furniture was second hand but we did have a new mattress. I loved it but we only lived there for two years as my DH was offered a new job north of The River.
Registering is free, easy, and means you can join the discussion, watch threads and lots more.
Register now »Already registered? Log in with:
Gransnet »Get our top conversations, latest advice, fantastic competitions, and more, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
