THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

moneyistooshorttomention

kittie wrote: »

true capricorn is kicking in, the orientation looks wrong and garden looks too small, no wardrobes and why is it lower than the lane? ok a friend of my husband`s and his wife are right behind me, was a work colleague of his. Calm and steady person. Me, well I should have picked that lower level up right away, me the flooding guru when it came to my children and their houses. It will be interesting doing a viewing, my first, will be taking my notebook and compass. I`m on the chamomile tonight

Fingers crossed for this house Kittie.

Errrm...the "no wardrobes" bit is puzzling me though - as virtually no house (new or otherwise) is likely to have built-in wardrobes. So I really think you should strike that requirement off your list.

Be aware of flooding risk obviously - but the thing that strikes me with every single person on here that I know is looking to move is a long list of absolute "musts".

I can fully sympathise - as the thing is that those of us buying a "subsequent house" (ie not a starter house) will have a long list of requirements and decide that many of them are "musts". This coming from we want to keep all the advantages we have on our current house and get a noticeable number of other advantages as well (ie increase the total list of "pluses").

Perfectly understandable and I feel the same.

From my starter house - I wanted to keep:
- the CONVENIENCE (ie ready access to lots of facilities)

and I wanted to get:
- detached
- a proper garden
- not living in a very polluted environment (air pollution and electro-pollution and noise pollution)
- bigger kitchen

and the only way to get the things I was after was to lose my "convenience":(, living in a normal road (ie adopted by the Council of course), find that things are sometimes being done in Welsh as well as English (though impact isn't too noticeable - as I'm retired), the area of the country is noticeably poorer than my own, worse weather, etc. Quite a long list of downsides to get rid of the polluted environment and my house not being detached and it was a bit damp too (Victorian terrace).

Hope you manage to find a "cost-free" change of house - but just to say it's my suspicion that the vast majority of us can't manage to swop house and get the advantages we are after - without also having corresponding disadvantages as the price we've had to pay to do so.

But I'll keep my fingers crossed you can keep your existing advantages and get some extra advantages too.

[Deleted User]

rightmove and all its links, is like a first viewing with benefits. I slept on it and have come to realise that this house is very unlikely to be the one for me but I am looking forward to the viewing. I even managed to find the planning application, original site plans and objection letters. I have always said that the plot is paramount and will stick with that

My future prepping involves being involved with a garden, big enough to keep me happy, not a postage stamp with a soakaway underneath, thank you planning dept. Looking at new houses online, the big builders, getting to see past the bling, the staging, very difficult. I prefer to see older houses with signs of family. I`ll be back later, to tell you what is what and am very much hoping that I don`t have such a reaction to any other property. It was like a release valve after looking for 6 months, when no properties came online

[Deleted User]

Hit list for houses

1) must be in a place with public transport
2) must have a big enough garden
3) must have access to a local shop, and reasonably close doctors surgery, dentist etc.
4) must be big enough for our lifestyle
5) must be out of flood risk areas (specially relevant to our chosen area).
6) for us the property must sit in the middle of its' plot, we've had noisy neighbours wherever we've lived and we'd like to avoid being too close if we possibly can.
7) must have adequate off road parking
8) must have room for a good sized garden shed on the plot if there isn't one there already. (luckily in our accepted offer house there is a shed as big as the one we have here already in situ).
9) must have a loo on every floor.
10) must have a room on the ground floor that could be adapted to a bedroom if either of us should ever not be able to manage stairs.

Big list and it's been difficult to find properties that come up to all of it but we have found several now, all of which have been acceptable as a home to live in but until this latest one we've not been fortunate to find one with the garden plot.

Kittie, I hope your doubts are unfounded but you are Oh so sensible to have them. It's something that MUST be right isn't it?

moneyistooshorttomention

The thing I'm aware of too re house choices is there is an element of trade-offs that can be done (according to one's own personal requirements).

I want the biggest garden I can get my hands on (an acre would do nicely:)) and I insist on at least a certain size of garden. Now I wouldnt take a pocket handkerchief garden of the standard garden variety (ie minute patch of grass with a few shrubs/flowers dotted on the edge) BUT I would take a (totally private) courtyard garden subject to the house itself being very convenient for a lot of facilities again. I had a courtyard garden in the last house - but it was hugely lacking in privacy.

I would take semi-detached (if I absolutely had to) - subject to correct layout of my/neighbours house that our hallways were up against each other and the bedroom I'd use was not "their" side of the house in order to get the convenience/lots of facilities back.

So the wishlist is most definitely detached (meaning really detached as I call it - not "only just detached" or "link detached") and large garden. But I was checking over a place yesterday on Rightmove that is actually terrace - but it's very upmarket terrace/no work needing doing/my London tastes/a view over water and LOTS of facilities nearby.

It's the "swings and roundabouts" thing. Now if I could just have a detached house/bit bigger than current one/on nicer outskirts of my Home City/big garden/large kitchen/decent conservatory to start with - but what I have my eye on is very rarely on the market and 4 times the price of my current one.

Comes to conclusion money is the biggest obstacle most of us have to getting exactly the house we want. Even with enough money for what we want - then it comes down to a limited supply of houses like it and having to play a "waiting game" waiting for one of them to be up for sale (as houses like that don't tend to have a high turnover of owners).

[Deleted User]

As some of you will know, I love my one egg frying pans.

They're great for cooking eggs to go in a muffin, bap, barm, or whatever they're called where you live.

They're not so good though, if you want to put the egg between two slices from a loaf.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the square one egg frying pan.

mardatha

Oh I do like that! I'd get that. One had an omelette in Bruges that made on a square griddle and it was lovely.
We've had more heavy snow here this morning, from 6 until 11am, covered the road back up again but now turning to rain.
I phoned the sorting office and they are supposedly sending 2 vans out tomorrow, they must have a pile there as Tues was the last day we got mail. God knows what's happening with the binmen. But still warm cosy and full of food here

[Deleted User]

mardatha wrote: »

One had an omelette in Bruges that made on a square griddle and it was lovely.

I once had an omelette in Bruges.

FIFTEEN EUROS. :eek:

[Deleted User]

back after the attempted hard sell, I just smiled politely. Took the compass out and checked orientation. Completely wrong, small back garden, superb build quality. Just told her she would be able to sell it quickly as she had so many interested enquiries this morning . Deal breaker was also the front to back long rickety neighbours fence, now planted with a line of young leylandii tight up to the fence on their side, obviously going to be problematic. I told the builder he did a wonderful job, gave me a big smile. I`ll keep looking

Came back in spring cleaning mode, started with steam in the shower and drat another two degraded rollers at the bottom of the r hand curved glass door. I already replaced all 4 on the other door, its a potch but an so glad I had bought the rollers, there are hundreds of different ones. Tools away, rm cooling and yet another maintenance job done, now hoping the top ones don`t break

mardatha

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I once had an omelette in Bruges.

FIFTEEN EUROS. :eek:

Can't remember - but the whole menu was in Flemish and it was the only word I recgonised I don't even like omelettes lol

moneyistooshorttomention

Kittie - Oh well....at least you've only got one set of personal preferences to suit (ie your own).

Been remembering (many) years back when I was out on "inspection visits" with my parents trying to find a place for their final years.

It didn't happen - as there were two sets of personal preferences to suit (ie both his and hers). This was very much exacerbated by the fact that the part of the country we're from is where "We all want to live - and so do a lot of people from Outside too".

It would have been possible if only having to take into account one set of personal preferences. It would have been possible if "people from Outside" weren't looking there too and putting our prices up.

But it simply was literally impossible with two sets of personal preferences to take into account and people from Outside also wanting our area.

Yep...cue for knock-on effect of even just trying to match one persons personal preferences and "people from Outside" also buying meant I've been forced to move elsewhere too and ...I know...being a "person from Outside" here forcing their prices up in turn....

It ain't easy is it:(:mad::mad::(

Can I go and kill Tony Bliar (sic) now please? pretty please (if I smile nicely)? - as I do rather hold him personally responsible for part of this problem....I am joking (sorta) - but some of the responsibility for this problem does lie with him imo.