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Writer's pictureJohn Burkinshaw

Our current house vs our dream house

John


The current house we have is pretty nice to be honest. It's a modern 4 bed detached - the original marketing would have called it an 'executive' house, but realistically it's middle class suburbia for folks that have done 'all right' - highly unlikely to be true 'Executives' in my opinion. It works, it's functional, if it lets you down it's pretty simple and formulaic to fix. When you wake up in the morning, the heating has come on and if it's a bit cold, you nudge the thermostat up a degree and within 10 minutes you feel the effect, throughout the whole house. The rooms are sensibly laid out. If it were a car, it would be a Toyota, or maybe a small Lexus - reliable, practical but fundamentally lacking true soul or character. It's served us well and let us focus on being a family, going to work, rather than a slave to a building in either time or money. It was the right choice for a stage in our lives but now, with the kids all but gone, it's time for something different.

So what do I want? I've literally always dreamed of a house with a drive. Not a drive where you park your car off your street, but a driveway - where you turn off a road and into your drive and there's more than 10 feet between that and where you nudge up to the garage door. Not a tree lined 1/2 mile drive, but a house set back by 50 feet from the road wouldn't be bad. A drive where, if you wanted to, you could put a gate to hold the outside world at bay.


A house with lots of light, light levels not determined by planning regulations designed by corduroy wearing pencil pushers in the local planning office, insistent on consigning us to dark rooms driven by some ill founded belief that having small windows somehow saves the planet. Ideally, a south facing aspect with floor to ceiling windows so that the solar loading makes even a cold winter's day warm as toast inside.


A warm house, not damp stone walls that you endlessly throw heat at with marginal impact and a house that's not a hovel with low ceilings.

So, as you may have read the posts to date, you can perhaps see how many properties that fit Liz's criteria haven't quite rung my bells. Many of the character location properties we have seen are older (100 year +) thick stone walled which were built with relatively small windows (Loch Droma, Muir of Ord). A barn conversation (Old Ellick) could fit the bill because a re-purposed agricultural building could have the right aspect, light, ceiling height and wall insulation.



Liz


We have really enjoyed living in our current house and we have been here for over 20 years. It was the first house we bought together and John wisely pushed our investment as high as possible at a time of low interest rates. It has been a great house to watch the kids grow up in - safe and spacious and adaptable enough to grow with them. They had friends near by, good schools, a safe, small town to explore as they got older. It is at the end of a quiet road, with lovely neighbours, hassle free regarding maintenance and easy to keep clean.

But it is pretty plain - a box with rooms in. The garden at the back is overlooked by 8 other houses. And, the town that we used to live on the edge of is swallowing us up on all sides. Over the last 20 years the building has continued all around us and the countryside on our doorstep is no longer. We only live in the Midlands because John works for Jaguar Landrover, and that time is swiftly coming to a close. So, the potential freedom for a total change that presents itself is both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. But first we need to decide what it is that we are aiming for and whether we have the guts to go after it.


My dream is of a house with an amazing view - one that changes day to day - may be water, maybe a far reaching view of hills, but opens is essential. I want to be able to feel the space around me, watch he weather as it changes across the seasons, and maybe watch the local wildlife and share their environment.

I would also love a house with character, and a bit of soul. But also something that I can put my own heart and love into to make it my own. Ideally it will have some quirks that are unique to that house, that make it different and gives it some style. But that is as far as I can get. I cannot make my mind up between a 100 year old barn conversion with big windows, high ceilings and beams, or an ultra modern house made of glass and steel with lots of gables to give it interest. I wouldn't rule anything out, but I would like to have made my mark on it in some way.


It is much easier to know what I don't want. I don't want low ceilings, dark and heavy beams, twee cottage, or to take on a nearly new that is not to my taste but in too good condition to pull apart. It cannot be on a busy road, I don't want to have neighbours too close as I want to get away from the scrappy gardens. the road-side rubbish, the parked cars everywhere. But am I asking too much?

How do you define the perfect house for you? Is it something that you find aesthetically pleasing, something that suits and promotes your chosen lifestyle, a place where you can bring up a family in peace or with great opportunities?


We have found it incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what it is we want, and to merge a compromise of the two ideals that will suit us both as near as damn it. I always thought that 'when you knew, you knew' - a house would present itself, having ticked some boxes, drawn us in for a viewing, and it would immediately feel like we belonged. I still believe that one day soon the perfect house will catch us by the heat and take our breath away and make desperate to claim it as our own.



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