General Chat

We decided that it was time to move and downsize, seeing there are only the two of us in a three bedroom house. So we are moving to a four bed bungalow with a rather large garden.

well, everything will be on the same level!

Bungalows with spare rooms are the easiest to manage for all ages and state of health and indeed the elderly!

Sounds ideal. We’d love something similar but the cost would exceed the sale price of our current house. If we moved to a cheaper area, it would be further for our children to travel when we need their help. It would also be further for us when we’re asked to baby sit!

Well done, Bob. Perfect.

A master bedroom, a doghouse bedroom, a study/office room and one spare for ironing in and storing all the clutter. :-D

Who'll be doing the gardening?

Bob, you will still manage to fill every inch of it. We did something similar 5 years ago. We had quite a big house and a half acre garden in a very rural area so decided to downsize and move to our nearest town.

Well, we did downsize the garden but that’s all. The house is almost as big and, in fact, I have gained an extra loo. Now I have 4 to clean instead of 3. Just after we moved here the little corner shop closed down, one bus was axed altogether and the other went from 1 an hour to 1 every hour and a half.

But we are sure we made the right move. Good luck with yours

We downsized to a bigger place but much less garden. Was it the right thing to do - we have over filled the house several times with visitors so a smaller place wouldn't have coped :-D :-D :-D

It's a large 4 bed with an en suite, a family bathroom and a 3rd toilet downstairs and we've still had queues :-S

Bob, if you're incredibly good and you don't need a doghouse, you could turn one of the bedrooms into a dressing room for your missus - we did that with our fifth bedroom and it's wonderful with masses of hanging space, my dressing table, tall chest of drawers, shelves and a window that you can see for miles from.

We did this several years ago when my OH dug his heels in and told me they'd carry him out from here in a box!

Like Vera and Pat, we have bathrooms and loos so visitors don't have to queue.

We are in an urban area but we still have a large garden (though not as big as Vera's) and a good-sized patio area. Surprisingly, because he was never a keen gardener, my OH has the garden looking good now that his time is his own.

It is still easier living on one level though ....we've done it on three occasions and I found all three bungalows ( a two, then a three then a four bedroomed) a doddle to clean.

At the moment, I am facing a big birthday soon and I've decided to get a cleaner when I reach that hurdle. I am fit but I have always hated housework - would do anything to avoid it!

Good luck with settling in ... but if you hate it, remember that houses are only bricks and mortar; you take your home with you wherever you live.

Room for a pony then Bob :-D

Island, did his sis-in-law, Mrs B, tell him that? :-D

No, I did LOL

:-D

:-D :-D :-D

Snap JoyLouise, our 5th bedroom was turned into a dressing room as well by the previous owners.

We’ve got the best of both worlds as we can live totally downstairs if the time comes when we can’t negotiate the stairs. Our en suite bedroom/dressing room is downstairs anyway so we’d only have to bring the computer down and we could live on one level.

Are you staying in the same area Bob?

We'd need a stairlift, Vera, unless we converted the garage which already has water and a telephone socket in it - the previous owner used it as an office.

Where we'd put the junk is anyone's guess!

Do you know what I'd like, really really like (sorry Spice Girls) - a wrapping room. I saw one on one of those Hollywood star's homes years ago and I was well impressed. :-D

Wouldn't your OH like a wrapping room, Bob? :-D

Take your junk to the tip Joy. they have recycling shops. :-) Sorted.

I reckon Bob would like a room to set up his trainset. :-D

A trip to the tip, several to the charity shop, a four yard skip, and we still have loads. My shed is the worse thing. It is 20ft by 10ft and has 20 years of stuff, all absolutely necessary. One of the best bits about the new place, it has several yards of river bank, our boundary being the centre of the river. Moving date, 25th.

Sounds idyllic Bob. Are you able to get reasonable insurance with the river being there? Any likelihood of flooding?

Our son has his fifth bedroom all laid out with his train set. In our four bed house two of the bedrooms are offices his and mine. :-D

Bob, how lovely, a river frontage (or backage, whatever is your wont). :-D

I am turning green here - only joking, but I would sit for hours just watching what was going on there.

You are lucky. :-D

My office is my kitchen table, Ann. OH has commandeered one of the bedrooms for his - but as it is at the front of the house, facing the street, I have put my ironing board in there so I can sticky beak on the rare occasions I iron. Once I reach my significant age (later this month), I hope not to have to do it except for rare occasions. :-D

several yards of river bob? Fabulous!

When I had my flat I emptied the living toom to lay new carpet. When I'd finished I sat in the corner and thought how wonderful it would be to have an empty room (save for big cushions and/or a futon) just for quiet time. Never got that but we like to keep our front room as a calm area, although it could do with a defrag at the moment!

A dressing room would be a dream but the arty crafty room has to be somewhere. Mr has the loft for his hobbies. Keeping the guest room available as just that is a must. A shed each is a dream come true :-D

The whole village flooded in 2007 but the cause was the Environment Agency not doing their job. It has since been sorted, and the whole area is monitored. There are covers for the air bricks, and the lower part of the doors, but it is not expected to happen again. (Famous last words?) The garden is on two levels, the upper part being several feet above the river. River Dene, as you ask. Fortunately the area is covered by the government's Flood RE scheme, whereby the insurance company is reimbursed in part by the Government. It is still something near £800 a year though.