Would you live in a Bungalow?

missyrichards

I would love to live in a bungalow. I hate vacuuming the stairs and would love to live on one level.:)

We were looking at houses earlier this year and the bungalows are always quite pricy but you do often get a big plot size.

rosyw

Old_Git wrote: »

I live in a four bedroom chalet bungalow .
I have two bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs .
The lowest wall upstairs are 5ft ,no bumping heads .
I use the downstairs bedrooms as a sitting room and dining room ,
I think I have the best of both worlds

Mine's similar, but only 3 beds, 2 upstairs (1 with en-suite) and the downstairs one I use as a study/library for my large vinyl record collection!
I think chalets really do offer the best of both worlds when it comes to "future proofing".
I'm also surrounded by other bungalows, some of them very old person-y, but the last one sold was bought by a young family who are extending it, both outwards and upwards into the roof space. Have to admit I actually do like to hear children playing in the garden, it makes a nice change from hearing the neighbours discussing their latest crop of runner beans etc.!

cyantist

We bought a semi-converted bungalow last year and we're 33. I love it (mainly due to the huge garden and the location) but would probably prefer it as a normal house. But getting a house nearby would have cost over 200k more which just wasn't an option. Next year we will be getting the upstairs converted to 3 bedrooms and a bathroom but I do like the versatility that we will get by having a lot of space on the ground floor that we can do what we want with.

seven-day-weekend

We have put a large conservatory on the back of ours (leading from the kitchen diner).

We would have quite liked an en-suite room upstairs, but the only way to do it would be to lose a downstairs bedroom because that's then only place the stairs could go, which would make the downstairs room into little more than study size, and I don't want an upstairs bedroom at the expense of a downstairs, don't see any point in having a bungalow if you do that!

D00gie72

We moved last year. My husband is a wheelchair user so a bungalow was the only option for us. Where we live bunglaows are pretty few and far between - particularly family sized ones. Of the few bigger "bunglows" that are around here many of those had had their lofts converted into extra bedrooms manking them inaccessable for my husband. We finally did manage to find a suitable property but we had to make a lot of other comprimises to get a bungalow big enough for 4 of us!

ripplyuk

I prefer to go upstairs to sleep. It must be a primitive thing. I grew up in a bungalow and always liked bunk beds so at least I could feel I was going higher up to sleep. There's less privacy in bungalows too. I feel it's nicer and quieter to go upstairs when you want to get away from everyone else for a while. My favourite house is the tall, narrow, 4 or even 5 story high, Victorian terrace type. I like small rooms but lots of them. I really don't like open plan.

When I'm old and can't manage stairs, I'd be very glad to have a bungalow.

Loanranger

We live in a 3 bed detched bungalow and we had one when we first set out in life, too. There is no issue with sleeping with window open. Every outer door also has an inner door, all locked up at night, ie porch and inner door at front and back and conservatory door and dining room doors.

We love our bungalow and have spent a lot ensuring it is not an oldies looking place. Very modern bathroom and separate loo and very modern lounge. We have a separate dining room and a conservatory and two loos and one bathroom plus a pantry and a boiler room. We moved from a 4 bed, two bath, three loos house and it's far far easier to clean the bungalow. The people we bought from brought up a family of two children in this bungalow.
We bought this place when we were both working and paid a premium for the location and for the bungalow.

Lily-Rose_3

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/bring-back-the-bungalow/

Having recently moved into a bungalow and not having regretted it for an instance, I have become a huge fan of this type of housing.

Ours is within walking distance of shops and on a frequent bus route.

Would you like a bungalow as you get older, and would more elderly people downsize if more were built, as the article suggests?

Your thoughts welcomed.

:T Congrats on your new house move SDW! Glad it's worked out for you.

We moved into a bungalow about 3 years ago. And I have loved every minute since. The close we live in (that has about 20 homes,) is all bungalows on one side and 3 bed homes opposite. The 2 families opposite us, are a very elderly couple (mid 90s) whose 5 kids left already, and a family with 3 kiddies. All the bungalows have over 55s and disabled in them. We are the only ones who are not over 55. (We are over 50 though.)

We were in a huge 4 bed, 3 storey house before, and although having so much space was great, there weren't many other 'pluses.' It cost an arm and a leg to heat and maintain, and it was a mare to clean.

The bungalow is soooooooooo much easier to clean, and is really cheap to heat. We love it, and are so pleased we moved here. I know a couple who recently moved into a £300K 5 bed detached house, and she keeps saying 'you MUST miss having a big house!' And every time I say NO, she doesn't believe me.

Why would I miss taking 2 days to clean the house compared to 3-4 hours, and £100 a month gas bill compared to £20 a month, and why would I miss excessive repair bills for an over-sized house we didn't need? Also, she and her other half work about 50 hours a week each to pay their excessive mortgage, and do nothing but moan about how much the house costs! Why the heck would I swap places with that? :j

I LOVE our little bungalow. Plus, we got rid of 50% of the crap we had in our old house too. So we decluttered brilliantly.

One woman I know said she wouldn't want a bungalow because she doesn't like the idea of the bedrooms being downstairs, but the back is fenced off anyway. And so is the side. So nobody can get to the windows.

A few bungalows on the 'council' estates have postage stamps for front gardens, with no fence, and easy access to the front and side windows, (and in some case, even the back,) and kids go running up to them, banging on them. But our bungalows have decent sized front gardens, and front fences and gates, and are very private, and set upwards off the road, so that people can't look in the front. And the back is fenced off, so nobody can get any further than the side door. Also, it has fairly big gardens, and the properties have a decent space between them.

I would never go back to a house now. Also, we don't have any stairs which take their toll on our joints. I can't actually think of any disadvantages to be honest.

I hope you will both be very happy there SDW.

mumps

rosyw wrote: »

Mine's similar, but only 3 beds, 2 upstairs (1 with en-suite) and the downstairs one I use as a study/library for my large vinyl record collection!
I think chalets really do offer the best of both worlds when it comes to "future proofing".
I'm also surrounded by other bungalows, some of them very old person-y, but the last one sold was bought by a young family who are extending it, both outwards and upwards into the roof space. Have to admit I actually do like to hear children playing in the garden, it makes a nice change from hearing the neighbours discussing their latest crop of runner beans etc.!

I never quite get the chalet bungalow thing, if it has two floors to me it is a house and chalet bungalows are a house with some bedrooms downstairs. Funny how we can look at the same thing and see something different.

mumps

Loanranger wrote: »

. There is no issue with sleeping with window open.

That's great that there is no issue for you, some people (including me) would have an issue with it. I have real problems sleeping at the best of times and sleeping in a ground floor room wouldn't be an issue except for the open windows and I always sleep with open windows.