Yes! It’s totally obscure and abstract but we did walk in and get a feeling that told us to buy this house. Many of us experience a feeling when we step inside a house for the first time and especially when viewing to buy…
Can that feeling make you want to move in right away, or does it prevent you from buying altogether? Does it make you feel ‘good or bad, happy or sad’? Please tell me you sang that as well!?
Maybe it simply feels like you belong? The emotion and feeling will typically drive your desire to buy a house or not. It’s important we understand the feeling, so that it can be translated into the home. From the atmospheres we create in different rooms to the objects we might introduce to make it feel like home.
To us home is a feeling and without it, it’s just a house. One viewing, an offer and a self-move later, we moved into ‘This Home Grows’. Here’s our story of buying this house…
Deciding to move
We didn’t plan on upping sticks per se. It was more us testing the water in the property market, we got caught up in the tide. Thankfully, we washed up here!
Born and bred in Devon, we returned South after university to find jobs as all students do. Having experienced living elsewhere, we saw only a future by the coast. Thankfully, career options and home location sewed together in a way we didn’t think possible. We managed to hop between family homes for a couple years whilst saving for a deposit.
That first step onto the property ladder finally came in 2012. Both of us worked away during weekdays resulting in our weekends spent chipping away at the new abode. We upgraded it all ourselves (with some family paint parties) within a year. I actually planned on admiring our handy work. Before I knew it the house was on the market and we had thirteen viewings. House sold and we were moving…somewhere! Moreover, we needed to get a move on and buy a house..and the feeling!
To finish off, there is not a right or wrong time to sell your house. It’s more about when you feel ready. If moving home is not on your radar then looking at the property market conditions might make it a prospect worth considering. Reports indicate that a year into a global pandemic, property value continues to increase with no signs of slowing. Buying service, Good Move, predicts house prices are on course to rise by a staggering, 17% in the next ten years!
Time to buy a house
Buying the right house is a big decision. In fact, it’s likely to be one of the biggest financial decisions you will ever make. Ultimately, we all have a cap on what house we can afford to buy so we sat down with a mortgage advisor before we started looking at properties. With budget in mind, we needed to do some prioritising to decide what our house must-haves were and what those “nice to have” preferences might be.
We viewed a variety of houses knowing that we fancied a “project” and a property that had a feeling of space. To be honest, we were pretty clueless about embarking on a “true” renovation journey and I’m pretty glad we were. What you don’t know, can’t hurt you! We were looking for a place that we could grow and nurture. There were many disagreements at the start about what that might look like. A farmhouse, a terraced property on the waterfront or a modern build – we viewed all! Amusingly, we were actually shown our now home by the estate agent selling our property. This was dismissed as it wasn’t the ‘dream period house’ we imagined living in.
Eventually, we were shown a grade two listed Georgian building which we liked. It had most of its original features but also required a significant amount of work. Offer placed. Rejected. If I’m being honest, it was a relief. I can’t really explain but I had an “off” feeling about it from the start. Why did we offer you ask? Well, we completely loved its raw beauty. What I had disregarded was the most important sign: that feeling. The feeling, that it’s home. It didn’t give me those feel good vibes and I also wasn’t sold on its location.
Finding ‘This Home’
I truly believe a house calls you and we definitely went round the houses (quite literally) before getting back here. This time however, we saw it differently and it was love at second sight, not on a leaflet, but the real deal in all its glory. I remember standing outside before we’d even stepped over the threshold thinking this feels promising. Usually, we are quite vocal people (in different ways) and instead of giving a running commentary on the inner processing as we’d done in every other house viewing, we stayed silent. A rare moment that hasn’t happened since. The constant chaotic noise now filling our home we call, “ambience”.
Viewing finished and we both exchanged that knowing look that “this is the one”. It felt warm in that metaphorical sense and how you’d describe a home to feel. This was the opposite to what it visually spoke, having not been lived in for a while. It felt damp and was completely dated inside with rooms that were pink, yellow and avocado green. Yet, there was a warmth about it. It was calling out for someone to love it again. You could somehow tell that it had felt it before. Totally out of character, hubby says to the estate agent ‘whatever’s been offered, we’ll match it’. Inside I shouted ‘you’ve just shown your heart to the estate agent you fool!’. To cut a house buying story short and a lengthy ole conveyancing process later, this house chose us and we now gratefully call it our home.
Ikea’s Home Report series, surveying thousands of people across the world since 2014, has identified five emotional needs for the home; Privacy, Security, Comfort, Ownership and Belonging. A home should give you that feeling of protection and freedom. From the time we first walked through the front door to now writing this; this home feels homely, happy and safe.
Above all, my advice is to look beyond the paint colour or the green kitchen because the house itself might be imperfectly perfect. A house for today and tomorrow. Try viewing a house a bit like a seed. A seed has a protective coating called the shell and inside, it contains everything needed to start a new life. Just like a seed, both of us saw everything we needed in ‘This Home’. We just needed the right conditions to grow it.
Thanks for reading. If you’re searching for your home then don’t ignore that ‘feeling’ with your house buying hat on! Remember to sometimes look past the shell. The house may have everything you need to make it a home. 🙂
Hols x