My English Home Tour 🏠
A four-bedroom flat sounds excessive for two people until you know how we used it. In the Kent home I showed in my June 2022 tour, one bedroom was for sleeping, one was an office, one became storage and the fourth was a business workshop. We weren’t filling four rooms with beds. We were making one rental work as both a home and a workplace.
We’d been there about a year, and I loved the place. I had put off a tour because I worried people would be judgmental about my home. Then the letting agency came for an inspection, we did a big clean and I thought I should film while it was as tidy as it was likely to get. So, welcome in.
The rooms that made the flat work
When we were preparing to leave our previous property, my partner and I had a choice. We could rent somewhere just big enough to live in, then rent separate office space for work and business storage. Or we could rent a larger flat and use the extra rooms for those things. We chose the second option. At the time, we both worked online and had several projects on the go.
It meant we didn’t need to commute to an office or rent another workspace. We also didn’t have a car at this property, so we had put the money we weren’t spending on buying and running one towards our overall living costs. That was how our budget worked then. It wasn’t a suggestion that everyone needs four bedrooms, or that this arrangement would suit every job.
The kitchen and dining area was one of my favourite parts. It was huge compared with the kitchens in the other places I’d lived in southeast England. We had a large open kitchen, dining space and a beautiful exposed-brick wall. I filmed many of my videos in a corner of that room and filmed cooking there too. After a tiny kitchen, having proper space felt wonderful.
Upstairs, we’d made the room intended as the main bedroom into our office. In the previous place, I’d done all my work at the kitchen table. Having a dedicated workspace was a real improvement. I used it for my regular job, editing all my own videos and livestreaming. My desk and my partner’s were reused desks from a business that was closing down, which had wanted to get rid of them.
Character, clutter and three bathrooms
I loved the old building’s character, especially the wooden floors, even with their creaks. The living room still had our big grey sofa, now lumpier and less comfortable than ever. My favourite seat was the chaise end, with my Nintendo Switch ready nearby. This was a lived-in home, with exercise equipment tucked into an awkward space by the stairs and paintings we still hadn’t hung.
The flat had three bathrooms, which felt like more than we needed, but no built-in closets. We used the smallest bedroom as a storage room, and it was still too messy for the tour. I would have preferred combining the bath and shower in one bathroom and using the separate shower room for storage. That was my opinion as the renter, rather than something we’d actually changed.
We were buying furniture gradually after moving from a much smaller place. The bed was still on the floor because we hadn’t bought a frame. Spreading out the cost mattered, although I also found the low bed cosy. Our used, dented portable air conditioner was another compromise: it cooled the room, but it was noisy and didn’t fit neatly into the uneven window. The flat could be lovely and still have some very awkward bits.
The thing I couldn’t get used to missing
The biggest drawback was the lack of outdoor space. No garden, no balcony, nothing. That had made me reluctant to choose the flat in the first place. In winter, I minded less, but summer was difficult. Our tentative plan at the time was to stay perhaps another year, then move somewhere with a garden. The work space was brilliant, but I still wanted somewhere outside.
I also had to get used to hearing people outside even when the windows were shut. It bothered me at first, but it didn’t ruin the flat for me. Nor was buying a house an alternative I could simply choose at that point. I could rent this place; I couldn’t afford to buy it. For our circumstances in 2022, the positives outweighed the drawbacks. After the problems at our previous rental, having a home that felt peaceful mattered a lot.
No Comments