Not being a homeowner vs being happy

I’ve mentioned before that we are currently renting a property since we relocated to Norfolk. Financially we are not able to buy a house at the moment but if even we were able to, we would have opted to rent initially with moving into a new area. We wouldn’t have wanted to make such a big commitment as well as the expense, if an area turned out to not be right for us.

We used to own a flat and I wrote a post a few years ago about my worries of never being able to move when our eldest was just a toddler. It’s amazing to read about how much our lives have changed since I wrote down those concerns. All of those worries have now been quashed but of course have been replaced with new ones. New ones that we will deal with as well, but new ones none the less.

What lay ahead of us was so different back then and literally everything has changed about our lives since then too. We craved the space and now we have it. I now realise that every choice along the way has been for the best, even if it didn’t always feel like it at the time. We took risks and they paid off.

My husband works from home and has an office and I also spend time on my blog at home at my desk (in the kitchen). Our space is crucial to us and to think that my husband started design work purely as a hobby in a cramped corner of our lounge in our flat.  If we were still there we would have been busting at the seams and we certainly wouldn’t have been able to consider having a third child. It simply wouldn’t have been viable.

We rented out our flat first, while we lived with family and then we eventually sold our flat a year later once it’s value had increased. I initially was dead set against the idea of selling our flat as I didn’t want to get off the property ladder. However, with the cost of houses in our area being ridiculously high and needing to save meant that we really had no other option than to sell. I hate being back at square one again but I also know that it was right for our family.

Through making that life changing decision to sell our flat and subsequently lose our mortgage, we were able to unshackle ourselves from the lives we were living. Our dreams of moving away were that little bit closer and bit by bit, we started the process of finding areas and jobs. It seemed such a mammoth task.

Once we found the house that we are now renting, everything seemed to fall into place, one by one after that. It was extremely stressful as you would imagine but it’s something that you just have to do. How do you find a part of the country to live in, a house, find jobs and schools all at once? The worrying part is that you don’t! They all fall into place one after the other. It seemed such a gamble but then if you want to make changes in your life then you have to take the plunge.

We’ve rented before and we know what it entails and even though this house is so much nicer than our previous one, it’s still sadly not ours to do what we want with. That’s what I miss about having a place of our own.

If you want to wallpaper a wall, you can do. If you want to paint the fences in the garden, then you have free rein to do that too. Clearly home renovations are out too! It’s the little things that you take for granted that can surprise you when you rent.

However I’ve found that although I long to be a homeowner again, I know that having a lifestyle that makes us happy is what counts. Like everything else, owning a home will hopefully come with time.

Nb. A collaborative post.