Downsizing from family home?

mi-key

GDB2222 said:

Why do we want to downsize? 

Mainly to simplify our lives and reduce outgoings. We went from two cars to one, when I started working from home, and that’s halved the admin as well as the cost.  We barely use the car, anyway, now.

 We are not great ones for having the builders in, as we hate the disruption, so we have done practically nothing to the house for the last 25 years. So, downsizing would be an opportunity to buy something in good condition, so we don’t need to worry.

It’s been helpful hearing what other folks have compromised on. Downstairs, we would like a large kitchen diner, and a small sitting room. Oh, and a loo! Frankly, we could do without the sitting room.

Sadly, when these houses were built, they were not built with kitchen diners in mind. 

The other option I suppose is somewhere where you could knock the kitchen through to the sitting room and make one big room instead

GDB2222

It’s interesting that lifestyles vary so much.  We never eat in the living room, and we eat all our meals in the kitchen.

We have grandchildren, and for example my son and his family dropped in earlier this week. We need to be able to sit at least six round the table, wherever it is sited. So, a large kitchen diner works well for us, and we could sacrifice all the other downstairs rooms to make it big enough.

lookstraightahead

GDB2222 said:

It’s interesting that lifestyles vary so much.  We never eat in the living room, and we eat all our meals in the kitchen.

We have grandchildren, and for example my son and his family dropped in earlier this week. We need to be able to sit at least six round the table, wherever it is sited. So, a large kitchen diner works well for us, and we could sacrifice all the other downstairs rooms to make it big enough.

Our downstairs is one big room with an added utility room and a cellar room. The kitchen/diner and living room is split by a big kitchen work surface that you can sit around. You can get 6 round our kitchen table, a further 4 round the worktop if needed, and 8 on the sofas and chairs in the living room space. So in one room we could entertain 18 if needed just because of the layout. Whereas if it's just two of us, it still feels cosy.

If you split it into a kitchen , dining room and living room, it wouldn't be half as flexible.

I know it's not to everyone's taste but it shows how space can be deceptive.

youth_leader

That sounds marvellous lookstraightahead.  I remember visiting my MIL and having to eat off the ironing board!

tooldle

We’ve done it. 4 bed Edwardian semi, with 3 receptions, kitchen, conservatory and 2nd bathroom downstairs, into a bungalow with lounge diner, kitchen, bathroom and 3 bedrooms. Bed 3 can only accommodate a single bed and we use it as an office / wardrobe come dressing room. The other bedrooms are just under 10x10 and 10x9. The whole bungalow is smaller than the ground floor of our previous house. 

We had to get rid of a lot of stuff. Then we moved and got rid of even more stuff. Best move we’ve made. So much easier to keep clean and to maintain, freeing up time to do the things we enjoy.

mi-key

lookstraightahead said:

GDB2222 said:

It’s interesting that lifestyles vary so much.  We never eat in the living room, and we eat all our meals in the kitchen.

We have grandchildren, and for example my son and his family dropped in earlier this week. We need to be able to sit at least six round the table, wherever it is sited. So, a large kitchen diner works well for us, and we could sacrifice all the other downstairs rooms to make it big enough.

Our downstairs is one big room with an added utility room and a cellar room. The kitchen/diner and living room is split by a big kitchen work surface that you can sit around. You can get 6 round our kitchen table, a further 4 round the worktop if needed, and 8 on the sofas and chairs in the living room space. So in one room we could entertain 18 if needed just because of the layout. Whereas if it's just two of us, it still feels cosy.

If you split it into a kitchen , dining room and living room, it wouldn't be half as flexible.

I know it's not to everyone's taste but it shows how space can be deceptive.

I definitely can't think of 18 people I would even let into my house, let alone entertain them

silvercar

Given you wrote that you wanted to stay in the same area, why not look at the sort of houses that would be available and see if any could work for you. If there isn't anything that would be suitable, even with some building work, then you probably aren't at the right time to move - unless you look at different areas.

GDB2222

silvercar said:

Given you wrote that you wanted to stay in the same area, why not look at the sort of houses that would be available and see if any could work for you. If there isn't anything that would be suitable, even with some building work, then you probably aren't at the right time to move - unless you look at different areas.

We found one that had subsidence, and it was relatively well priced because of that. I reckoned that we could do all the work we wanted at the same time as fixing the subsidence. Unfortunately, as we are only just about to go on the market with our own house, we lost out on that one. 

We saw one yesterday that's a wreck, but priced as if it were perfect. That's a deluded agent, or rather it's an agent that has managed to get the instructions by lying to the client about what the place is worth. Now, they have to work on the client to reduce the price A LOT, so as to turn the instruction into commission. So, that was a waste of time.

lookstraightahead

mi-key said:

lookstraightahead said:

GDB2222 said:

It’s interesting that lifestyles vary so much.  We never eat in the living room, and we eat all our meals in the kitchen.

We have grandchildren, and for example my son and his family dropped in earlier this week. We need to be able to sit at least six round the table, wherever it is sited. So, a large kitchen diner works well for us, and we could sacrifice all the other downstairs rooms to make it big enough.

Our downstairs is one big room with an added utility room and a cellar room. The kitchen/diner and living room is split by a big kitchen work surface that you can sit around. You can get 6 round our kitchen table, a further 4 round the worktop if needed, and 8 on the sofas and chairs in the living room space. So in one room we could entertain 18 if needed just because of the layout. Whereas if it's just two of us, it still feels cosy.

If you split it into a kitchen , dining room and living room, it wouldn't be half as flexible.

I know it's not to everyone's taste but it shows how space can be deceptive.

I definitely can't think of 18 people I would even let into my house, let alone entertain them

🤣🤣 agreed - it was a temporary imaginative thought 

silvercar

GDB2222 said:

silvercar said:

Given you wrote that you wanted to stay in the same area, why not look at the sort of houses that would be available and see if any could work for you. If there isn't anything that would be suitable, even with some building work, then you probably aren't at the right time to move - unless you look at different areas.

We found one that had subsidence, and it was relatively well priced because of that. I reckoned that we could do all the work we wanted at the same time as fixing the subsidence. Unfortunately, as we are only just about to go on the market with our own house, we lost out on that one. 

We saw one yesterday that's a wreck, but priced as if it were perfect. That's a deluded agent, or rather it's an agent that has managed to get the instructions by lying to the client about what the place is worth. Now, they have to work on the client to reduce the price A LOT, so as to turn the instruction into commission. So, that was a waste of time.

So you know they exist. Why not leaflet the houses that may be of interest? Probably better to be under offer yourself first, or at least on the market, but we sold our last house to someone who put a note through the door. With a lot of luck you could find someone wanting to swap!