Moving On

To Move or Not to Move? That is the question. Not quite such an existential one as that posed by Hamlet, but life changing for lots of us as we head into old age and the homes that we might have lived in for donkey’s years become less suited to our needs. It’s a challenge I have faced myself in the past three years and I have experience of both solutions: to change where you live by selling up, and to change where you live by remodelling in order to future proof it.

As a result my very best advice whichever route you choose is: Just Do It! Don’t delay until some age-related crisis overtakes you and forces you into compromises you may not wish to make.

These thoughts have been sparked by two events. One was on my flight to St Lucia in February when I sat next to a delightful 80 year old couple called David and Angela who had just downsized, and the other was last week, when I watched a heart-warming Grand Designs programme on Channel 4, which, very unusually, featured an 82 year old widow called Kathryn. Both encounters illustrated the dilemmas we all face when we know that our accommodation cannot see us through to the end of our lives, usually for practical reasons to do with declining health and strength.

Why Downsize?

If we are lucky we may have lived for many years in a house which was big enough to accommodate a growing family. We may have moved into this house with small children and seen them grow and ultimately fly the nest. They may pop back for a bit, or have children of their own, so we can justify all that unused space until we realise that it’s only really needed for two days a year over Christmas. That is what happened to David  and Angela, who had brought up two sons in a large house in Twickenham. However, one son now lives in Portugal and the other in New York, so they had just downsized to a nearby flat overlooking the Thames which is much more suited to their current needs.

Angela told me that selling the house had been a wrench, not least because the flat would not accommodate her beloved baby grand piano which she still played every day to keep her arthritic fingers from seizing up. The solution was to install a clavichord on which she was now enjoying lessons, allowing her to continue to indulge her passion for music. Another problem was what to do with all their excess furniture. Happily this was solved by their son in Portugal who had room in his farmhouse for some of the larger pieces. Geography wasn’t an issue because the couple had no desire to move countries to be nearer their sons, so they chose to stay in much the same familiar location, just in something more appropriate to their needs.

Selling My Family Home in 2022

Geography was the main reason for my decision in 2022 to sell my house in southern France, a place which I had considered my family home for twenty four years but which had become more of a burden than a bonus. The decision was a difficult one because, as often with downsizing, the imperatives were much more practical than financial, although the cost of upkeep of a house left empty for the winter months plus the local taxes did play a part. 

My main concern was how long I would be able to drive the 600+ miles there and back given that its remote location meant that a car was essential. So I found a buyer and embarked on that painful process common to all downsizers of letting go of years of accumulated ‘stuff’ and, much more importantly and poignantly, the wonderful memories that they held.

Staying Put and Adapting

If, however, you really don’t want to move because you love everything about where you have lived for 50+ years, then maybe you can solve the problem that your knees can no longer cope with the stairs by doing something really brave, or some might say, quite foolhardy. This was what Kathryn, an 82 year old widow, did to solve the ‘downsizing’ problem. Kathryn had lived in her street in Barnet, North London, for sixty years and was so loath to move that she decided to build herself a new house adjoining the old one. 

As usual with new builds featured on Grand Designs this was neither straightforward nor plain sailing with delays, underground horrors to be discovered, financial hiccups and worries and a final demand from the local council for £50,000 to run a pipe across the road carrying all necessary utilities. However, and happily for Kathryn, after all the trauma and stress, she was finally able to move into a truly beautiful open plan, light-filled space with a downstairs bedroom and bathroom to perfectly accommodate her needs. If you are interested to see her ‘journey’ here is a link: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs/on-demand/76838-003

I had a similar dilemma with my ground floor flat in Wimbledon. It was the perfect location for me and I could not imagine wanting to live anywhere else. I had originally bought it at auction in 2004, having spent far too much time watching ‘Homes Under the Hammer’. I was living in an upstairs flat in Chiswick at the time and I hated the shared communal entrance, the lack of a garden and the fact that the freeholder, who lived elsewhere, was a nightmare to deal with. 

The ground floor flat in Wimbledon, despite being in a truly terrible state of dilapidation, ticked all my five boxes with its own front door, two good sized bedrooms, and the possibility to extend and open up the living room at the back so that I could sit and look out onto a really pleasant small garden. To boot, it was in a good street within walking distance of the station and opposite a delightful small park. It also came with the freehold of the whole property which I knew to be a valuable advantage in a leasehold flat in London.

I went alone to the auction which was in a large hotel in central London. Bidding for the flat was one of the most exciting, nerve-wracking and daunting things I have ever done, but when the gavel came down for my bid at £5,000 beneath my absolute limit, I cried tears of joy and immediately phoned the builder who was going to renovate it for me. There was much to do, including damproofing, replacing the rotting floorboards and very out-dated bathroom and kitchen, and adding a small extension to enlarge the living room. The builders also redecorated throughout and cleared the garden so that I could create my own little patch of heaven.

It was all perfect for me until I sold the French house which gave me both cash and pause for thought. I was now in my mid-seventies. My much adored Wimbledon flat was exactly where I wanted to live but had three major drawbacks. The small bathroom couldn’t accommodate a proper shower and was also located quite a distance from my bedroom. This was very inconvenient at night because it was accessed via two steps making it more of a trip hazard as I aged. Also, the tiny galley kitchen was neither a convenient nor pleasurable space in which to prepare meals.

A bit like Kathryn, I began to plot and plan ways to change how I lived without changing where I lived. The solution was beautifully simple as long as I was prepared to forgo the (very rarely used) spare bedroom in order to create a more spacious single bedroom leading via double doors into a well proportioned ensuite bathroom with a bath and a large walk-in shower. The existing bathroom could then be knocked through into the pokey kitchen to give me a lovely functional space where I could actually enjoy preparing and cooking meals.

Fortunately I had none of the trauma and stress that Kathryn encountered, probably because my building work merely involved the removal of two walls and the installation of a new kitchen, bathroom and flooring. I used the same builders as I’d done twenty years ago because they were so brilliant and it was all finished in four months, during which time I was able to stay with my daughter and family. 

I can hardly describe the joy I felt when I moved back in. The difference was amazing and to this day I still get so much pleasure from all my newly configured spaces. And a final bonus was creating off-road parking at the front of the property with a charging point for my electric car.

I am earnestly hoping that my decisions to sell my house in France and reconfigure my flat in Wimbledon have future-proofed my life. Some might say that I have done both well before I needed to because I am still able to drive down to the south of France alone, as I proved last year, and my flat was perfectly fine for my current needs.

However, as I aged, I became acutely aware that selling and clearing out beloved houses, making major structural changes, and/or moving to a new location requires bucket loads of grit, determination and energy, combined with all the inevitable stress. Better then to make those difficult decisions sooner rather than later at a time of your choosing. Better not to have to do any of that under duress because of a sudden health crisis or bereavement.

At the end of Grand Designs, Kathryn, now 83, was absolutely delighted with her low energy, light-filled and perfectly accessible new home on a street where she’d lived very happily for over 60 years. Kevin McCloud (the presenter) also loved the house and suggested that the building was so good that it would likely prolong Kathryn’s life. 

Perhaps it will, but Kathryn's motivation was not about the quantity of years she has left, but the quality of whatever life remains to her. And quality of life, surely, has to be the main consideration when we ask ourselves where we want to live, how we want to live and what would now fill us with joy as we walk through our front door and into a new life perfectly adapted for our changing needs.

Tricia x

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