3G living

Last year DD and her family moved into our home. Hers was too small for them (granddaughter and twin grandsons) and ours was too large (four bed/three receptions).

It is working well. They have just sold their own house after being on the market for nearly a year and when it all goes through they are using the profit to build a large extension which will give us our own personal space and a huge kitchen/dining room/family room. We will have our own sitting room as they will too. We are making sure we have our own bathrooms plus a spare too.

We get on great! SIL does jobs which OH struggles with, we share cooking and chores and OH is the DIY expert so it all works well. We both have caravans and holiday together too. We babysit for them and we are so close to the little ones.

As you would expect, it's not all perfect. Two cooks/one kitchen can sometimes be challenging and noisy youngsters can be a pain but, on the whole, we are enjoying it. You have to make sure you think it all through thoroughly.

We have regular "meetings" to discuss anything that crops up and we always plan ahead for meals. We have a joint bank account for household costs and each put in a percentage each month to cover this.

We are rewriting our wills so my son and DIL won't lose out and we are going to do extra legal stuff too.

We're not getting any younger and OH's health isn't great so it's a win/win for us all.

Hope you can make it work for you all, I know it has for us.