Do you use your house the way you thought you would?

purplebutterfly

People on tv say you don't sell a house, you sell a lifestyle.

I just wondered whether buying into that imagined lifestyle is ever actually real?   

How many people envisage themselves drinking their morning cup of tea in a sunlit conservatory but end up only using it to dry clothes in?   Or dream of planting a vegetable patch in their huge garden but then end up wishing they had bought somewhere with only a small patch of paving instead?

We've just made an offer on a house that is ideal for how we WANT to live in future but I don't know how many people actually end up living the lifestyle they imagined when they bought their home. 

Getting_greyer

There's been a distinct lack of keys in fishbowls since we moved in so yeah not what I was expecting.

Skiddaw1

I've found it certainly takes time before you find out how you 'use' a house/garden, which is why I wouldn't recommend making any significant changes or even doing much in the way of decoration until you've lived there for a while.

lady1964

When we moved 200 miles away, we envisaged living in a certain way in a house with potential to make into exactly what we wanted.

We are extremely fortunate that we are doing both, in a small town 10 minutes walk from local shops, restaurants and pubs with a big choice of larger shops etc a 20 minute drive away but also on a good bus route should we need that option. We couldn’t be happier 😀

MaryNB

I bought my house at the end of last year. I thought having a NW facing garden was a disadvantage. I'm surprised at how much sun it gets (well, more than expected, I won't be having evening BBQs in April anytime soon). Since it's a small Victorian house it's quite dark inside. With a SE facing front room I get quite a lot of light into the living space. If I had a south facing garden my living room would be dark all year around. Since I've been working from home quite a bit during covid, having light in the front room is a massive plus. I don't spend a huge amount of time in the garden so it's better to have sun coming through the front window. 

I thought I wanted a separate living room and then a kitchen/diner rather than a living room with dining table, and then a separate kitchen. However, since moving in, a house on my road has gone up for rent and I had a peek at their layout. Mine is definitely preferable!

Also, glad I waited until I lived here for a few months before getting an electrician in. Between WFH and my smart gadgets I need far more additional sockets than I originally thought. 

Thrugelmir

purplebutterfly said:

People on tv say you don't sell a house, you sell a lifestyle.

Presumably the same people that now say shopping is an experience.  

 From viewing many remodelled properties online. Many are personalised to suit circumstances. Rather than being designed with style\functionality in mind. 

tellmeagain

I desperately wanted to buy a bungalow....we bought a bungalow 5 months ago....we are now currently awaiting planning permission to give it an upstairs, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom....should have just bought a house haha   

AdrianC

Thrugelmir said:

purplebutterfly said:

People on tv say you don't sell a house, you sell a lifestyle.

Presumably the same people that now say shopping is an experience.  

They're "making memories"... <vacuous simper>

We definitely live in the way we envisaged when we bought this house.
We sleep in a bedroom, and sometimes other people sleep in the other bedrooms.
We sit and watch TV in the sitting room.
We cook and eat in the kitchen.
We do some gardening in the garden.
And as for the toilets... Yep, exactly as planned.

youth_leader

I've just moved into a bungalow and was pleased the flat roof lounge extension has a skylight ... until it recently hailed.  It's like there's a steel band drumming on the roof.  I'm thinking of using the original room at the front of the house as a lounge instead, this could just be a dining room.

jonners666

So far yes, but we've only been in a month. We wanted a larger lounge that we could divide into lounge and daughter's play area - we've done this and it works well.
Conservatory is used as dinning room and my home office until we can convert the garage. 
Bedrooms are used as expected. 
Garden - I'm also planning a vegetable patch - but we're thinking of removing the border trees / shrubs to give us an extra ~2m width of lawn. 

Fiesto88

Our current house was a bit of a mistake to be completely honest. I don’t necessarily regret buying it because it’s a big improvement on our previous place, but we just didn’t think carefully enough about whether some of the features were things we really wanted. The big thing that’s wasted on us is a large converted cellar room that opens out onto the garden. We planned it as a second, more secluded, living room but we never used it. So it then became a gym and the novelty wore off. Now it’s something between those two things and a junk area. It turns out neither of us like the open plan nature of the main living areas and we never use the en suite that we thought was a good nice-to-have.