Our Future Property Must-Haves

AD/Sponsored post in collaboration with Three Counties Ltd.

I never really thought about getting onto the property market before I ended up with my boyfriend. Before he came along, I was hauled up in my little one bed flat above a shop in the town centre, single mum, sleeping on a bed in my living room while Luke had the bedroom to himself. Some readers may know that struggle of single mum life – it’s hard to make ends meet, and with no financial help, you find yourself getting stuck in a very deep rut.

Fortunately for me, a while after getting together with Mikey, things started to look up. Together, if we combined our incomes are were savvy about it, we worked out that we would be able to collect enough money to move in together. More importantly for me and for Luke, it meant we were able to move out of our old, cramped flat. I cannot tell you the joy I felt when we moved and I slept in my own bedroom for the first time in years.

Fast forward a few years and one conversation keeps popping up over and over again: buying a house.

Of course, it’s never that simple. There are lots of behind the scenes bits and bobs that come with getting a mortgage and getting yourself on the property ladder that aren’t ever mentioned to you before you find yourself researchinhg it. But that sure as heck doesn’t stop us from dreaming!

We like to go on a few adventures – nothing too major, but we enjoy driving around the UK and visiting new places together. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve visited an area and started looking up housing prices for that district. It’s almost embarrassing, but it keeps the dream alive and gives us something to work towards.

Light and Airy

Since we’ve looked at so many houses, we have a rough idea of how we’d like to decorate and design it. The thing about renting a property is that you have no control over the major things. Sure, you can pick your sofa out and maybe get a new fridge, but there’s nothing you can do about the windows or the flooring. Some landlord’s might let you paint the walls a different colour, but apart from that, the shell you have is what you’re stuck with until you own the building yourself.

After renting for so many years, the concept of buying and owning our own property seems heavenly. We’ve had a lot of time to think about the more structural side of things, as well as what type of furniture and décor we’d have. I grew up in the countryside and for me, a big garden with a lovely conservatory or sun room is a must have. Direct Bifold Doors look like the sort of thing that would be perfect for me – they really open the area up, merging the line between being inside and outside and I can just imagine all the afternoon get-togethers in the summer that we could have.

Along the glass theme – one thing I have decided is an absolute essential is double glazed windows. My experience of rented properties means that I have spent a lot of time in poorly insulated housing where heating bills cost a fortune, mould and mildew are present and the window frames start to rot away. Even if you are lucky to find a rented flat or house with double glazing, it’s sometimes difficult to get your landlord to actually replace blown units. In a recent conversation with Mikey, yes, we were driving through a particularly lovely area of the UK, we decided that sash windows were gorgeous and that our future home must feature them. Luckily for us, companies like https://www.threecountiesltd.co.uk exist. Three Counties make a whole variety of window units that are double glazed, so no matter what your aesthetic appeal is for your home, you can have the windows to match.

I think after suffering with depression and anxiety for so many years, living in a building that is bright and airy is extremely important to me. I need that natural light and I need to feel like I’m not cramped – I couldn’t ever go back to living in that one bed flat above a shop. I suppose that’s why the sliding doors and big double glazed windows are so important for me, and they’d both be things I would look out for when the time comes for some serious house searching. Mikey, on the other hand, he just wants to ensure that there’s no pebble dash!