Jolly Good

Daughter and family are renting an Air BB for a month until school ends and they move out of state. The blurb was very misleading. There is no kitchen really even though it said kitchen appliances. The only appliances are a microwave on a table and a plug in hot plate. If it wasn't so hard to find something at short notice and not wanting to keep moving kids about they would have asked for their money back. But between us and her in-laws we are keeping them well fed!

Hope you find something adequate soon

Scamp

UK property sizes are a disgrace. I've seen 3-4 bed detached with smaller square foot total than our 2-bed apartment here. It's not like we're in a monster gaff, the second bedroom is only big enough for a standard double and the super-king in the master takes up most of the room.

I honestly can't get my head around how you can advertise a 4 bed house where two of the rooms are basically studies.

Expatrick

I remember working for a developer, back in the '80s, who competed with another developer to build & sell the smallest apartment!

Lion in Winter

Closets.

Lion in Winter

I think I've looked at some of those.

Lion in Winter

The air bnb we are landing in claims a king bed (not super king, sadly) and appears to have an actual stove. We shall see.

For the longer term, I don't need one of those vast kitchens, but it would be nice for both of us to actually be able to fit into the room at the same time.

Expatrick

Didn't take long, did it!

Lion in Winter

Blink and you'll miss it.

macliam

Having moved to London in 1980, I've lived in some glorified cupboards advertised as "studio flats", where to switch on the light you opened the fridge door.....
Even my first purchase, thoiugh in a good area, was barely larger than the lounge in Macliam Manor these days!.... and that included the bathroom and entrance hall!!

At the time I could have bought a 2-bed in Streatham for the same price...... but I wanted to be central (and near to Mmme Tussauds and Sherlock was pretty central!)
Of course.... I couldn't get all that luxury(!) without some compromise..... so it was in the basement as well!!!

I sold it for £40k, in 2018 it was sold for £291k....... and its estimate today is £351k!!!

Lion in Winter

A good call though. I mean, Streatham....

Still, the eye-watering price changes must be hard to swallow for someone who sold property back before that huge boom in prices happened. My family lived in a pretty average house in Maida Vale up until I was three. It is now valued in the millions

macliam

I can't complain, I traded up and up.... so ended up mortgage fee in my early 50s with a house now worth silly money. Moving from a basement in Marylebone to a view over open countryside is definitely a good call!

Scamp

So I need to look for 6+ bed houses to convert one to an office and one to a walk-in wardrobe. Gotcha

So where will the island be that houses a wine fridge that you stand drinking around?

Lion in Winter

I think that's known as the living room.

Lion in Winter

Yeah, basement living is pretty grim, even in London.

macliam

Nah, it was OK - as long as you never wanted to open the windows! The traffic fumes from Gloucester Place were best kept outside!

Here people complain about the smell from the rape-seed ..... what?

Then again, someone local actually left a note with a neighbour asking them to stop putting their canaries at the window, because the noise was disturbing them!!! Heavy metal canaries, obvs.