How many people are living in their forever home?

[Feltwell]

Well, Penners old chap, we can assume that either PP has been taking 30 years off you or adding 30 onto me......

Mind you, the way I feel most mornings, adding only 30 years onto me would be a compliment!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Quite a few of us share the 'three score years and ten' label--obviously renovating houses has kept us all on our toes!

 

[Keithj]

'fraid so. Three score and ten and one. I've recovered from thyroid cancer, she from acute pancreatitis, and we're reasonably fit for our age.

We bought this in 2010 as our forever home. We spent more fixing it properly than we'll ever recoup, so we're staying. It's small, the ceilings are low (real headbanger stuff), but there's a new modern staircase in the front extension that will take a Stannah-thing when the time comes. We could just about live downstairs, but it would be a pity.

The problem is the large lawn - I may have to pay someone to drive the mower over it at some future date.

The intention is to be carried out and down the hill to the churchyard. I've buried a few in there, and while it's not permissible to reserve a plot, I know there's enough space for us.

 

[88v8]

The intention is to be carried out and down the hill to the churchyard. I've buried a few in there, and while it's not permissible to reserve a plot, I know there's enough space for us.

A mere plot? No no :shock:
You must have a Gothic vault.
We can help you design it.
And Penners will pen an unsuitable epitaph.

Ivor

 

[TheRoost]

When we bought ours in June I don't think we really thought about it. A few weeks after moving in I realised that it probably wouldn't be a forever home, we love the house but the garden is probably too small/noisy for the long term.
If I could pick the house up and move it??

I see us being here for at least 10 years, because realistically it will probably take me 9 years to do 9 rooms, with working on the outside of the house in the summer - new windows, porch doors, guttering, bay roof, re-pointing, repairs, planting a garden, etc. etc. make that 15 years!

 

[Penners]

Well, Penners old chap, we can assume that either PP has been taking 30 years off you or adding 30 onto me......

Oh, it's clearly the former. I have this youthful approach to life, innit.

 

[Penners]

Penners will pen an unsuitable epitaph.

Just off the top of my head ( :wink: )

Here lies an old feller called Keith
Who said, "Please lay no flowers or wreath,
"Just a builder's hard-hat,
"Cuppa tea and Kit-Kat,
"With my broken old body beneath".


That will need filing away for use in thirty years or so.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Very nice Mr P, A* for rhythm!

What an interesting thread! I'm not going anywhere, I'm waiting for nice and interesting things to come to me. This year an M&S Simply Food has opened up a 20 min walk away, and the multi million pound new tennis club which is a new found obsession is a short drive away. I'd now like a wonderful butcher's, baker's, fishmonger's and florist's in the town please. Oh, and a Russell and Bromley would be nice. And some salsa classes and Egyptian dance.

Apart from the obvious flaws to living in Grantham after living in London Beacon Cottage is in every way a romantic idyll. I never tire of the sunsets pouring into the house from far reaching vistas, the hooting owls, the woodsmoke, the carpets of flowers in spring. And I'm Queen of all I survey 8)

 

[Penners]

Very nice Mr P, A* for rhythm!

Thank you, Miss. I'll bring you an apple tomorrow!

 

[worms]

My final mortgage payment is in February, so I guess we have had this place for 25 years, although we didn't actually live in it for the first ten.

Still haven't quite got round to all these necessary repairs that were a condition of the mortgage!

 

[Penners]

Very wise, worms - you can't rush into things. Make time for a cuppa and a Kit-Kat.

 

[philpjuk100]

When we retired here seven years ago my son on his first viewing said "you will never get a stair lift on those twisty stairs and is that door wide enough for a coffin?".

 

[Zebra]

I've actually been laughed at by friends and family, because I've dithered over whether to get a bath or shower, and my main reason for wanting a shower is that when folks get older, they often find it difficult to get into and out of the bath, so have a shower installed instead. So I might as well install a shower now to save myself the trouble of doing it later.
I'm 42.

Also, when doing the pointing inside the fireplace, I've been mindful to do it nicely so that when I'm sitting here in my nineties waiting for meals on wheels to come, I won't find fault with it.

However..... I know what I'm like, and will probably want a new challenge when this is all done and finished. No, can't say that!! Can't bring myself to think of being somewhere else! And in any case, there's still the garden to do.

 

[Keithj]

We have the shower, in the (new) downstairs loo. The theory was that when we can't get upstairs, the "garden room" becomes the bedroom and we abandon the upstairs. Then I had a new (super-comfortable) bath installed upstairs. A stairlift will be installed when we can't walk up stairs.

I am NOT moving house again, so there. <stamps foot>

 

[LadyArowana]

Reading this makes me wonder if I am the only one that really dislikes showers? I'm not a smelly grubby person ( promise ), and splash about happily in the bath, but if I am ever somewhere where there is only a shower I end up cold and unhappy. OK not "cold" if we are somewhere that's 30 degrees, but vaguely grumpy. Lots of people seem to not care one way or the other though, so maybe it's just me.

 

[Flyfisher]

I can't say I've been doing any works with getting older particularly in mind (apart from wondering if I'll ever get the place finished before they carry me out!) though I have installed a shower in a downstairs cloakroom, but that was mainly for Mrs FF to change out of her wetsuit after swimming in the river without having to traipse through the house dripping wet.

Regarding stair lifts, I suppose there may come a time when it's no longer possible to climb the stairs but I can't help thinking that the contraptions might actually hasten that day if installed in readiness. If it ever comes to that, I suspect I'll follow Keith's plan and simply abandon upstairs.

As for showers vs baths, I'm firmly in the shower camp. Unlike Milady, I can be a tad grubby and smelly after a day of hard graft (yes, it does happen sometimes) and I find a shower far more refreshing than laying in a tub of turbid water. I believe baths are very popular in Japan, though they wouldn't dream of getting in without washing first, which seems very civilised to me.

 

[Feltwell]

I do like a soak in the bath, although the current Feltwell Towers bath is pretty narrow. However a "soak in the bath" it is - usually the only time I have a bath is after some particularly physically exerting job, where I need a hot soak with some Radox a couple of hours later to ease my seizing muscles! For getting clean, it's a shower every time, to the extent where if I have a bath I have a shower as well for the actual washing bit.

Mind you, I've no idea how people can have these 2-3 minute showers that the green lobby promote - 10 minutes minimum for me, usually 20! Sorry environment!

 

[LadyArowana]

Mind you, I've no idea how people can have these 2-3 minute showers that the green lobby promote -

Do people really manage that? I could barely "cover all the bases" in that time, and nobody likes a stinky Bunny :lol:

 

[Flyfisher]

I suppose a 2-3 minute shower might just about be acceptable in preparation for a bath, but otherwise even 10 minutes would be quite a rush for me (some of us still have a head of hair to wash :wink: ) and I agree with Feltwell that 20 minutes is pretty much the norm.

 

[88v8]

One of my pet hates here is the bathroom.
In our previous house, I built (well, mainly it was the builders but my design) a huge bathroom with a huge bath and lashing of hot water, and a real fire.
I absolutely love soaking in the bath



But here, the bath is narrow and too short and we have only the immersion. Consequently, I hardly ever have a bath, and when I do, I remember why I don't
Worse, the bathroom is too small for a longer bath, unless I start knocking down exterior walls. Whatever I do, I can never create a bathroom to match what we left behind.



And as for the shower, how on earth does one keep a shower clean.... the silicone... I think I spend more time cleaning the d***d thing than I do using it, and it never looks clean. Showers, pah!!

Ivor