The plan this year, was to finally start the home improvements that we’ve been wanting to do for ages. We worked out how much money we could remortgage and set to work getting quotes in. It was then that we hit a bit of a stumbling block.

You see, the cost of a loft extension as well as a rear extension could cost us more money (and hassle) then it would be to move to a new house altogether. So off we went back to our mortgage lenders to work out some numbers and they confirmed that our monthly repayment would work out around the same whether we decided to go ahead with the home improvements or not.

So, being the indecisive people that we are, we then had a look around to see what properties were on the market. It’s been over 12 years since we last moved house. Back then, we didn’t have many factors we needed to consider. We knew we wanted a house with a garden and to be relatively close to a train station for commuting to work, they were pretty much our only requirements.

Now, we have to factor in schools. With E only a few years away from starting Secondary School we have to take this into consideration. Schools over our way are oversubscribed so if we were to move, it would give us the chance to move closer to a good school.

In an ideal world, we want to stay close to the area we are already in. We’d want to keep the boys in their existing Infant and Junior school and avoid as little disruption to their current schooling as possible. Moving house is stressful enough without the upheaval of new schools to contend with too! I know that if we did decide to move I’d want to hire professionals to help us pack up and I’d probably look to hire someone like The Man Van to help with the removal process too.

We’ve seen a few houses on the market that have the indoor space we are looking for but nothing quite ticks all the boxes as yet. The market seems to be relatively slow at the moment and if we did decide to move, we’d then have to get our house ready to put on the market too.

We’ve not completely discounted going back to basics and do our existing house up. There are many advantages to staying where we are but we do need more space – and I am still desperate for a bigger kitchen and would love to incorporate a woodburner into our living room too! We need to get a few more quotes in for the work we’d like done and mull it over a bit more I think.

Keeping our options open seems to be a good choice at the moment!

*Collaborative post