Do you have an 'emotional attachment' to your house (or home)?

I've loved all my houses. But it's difficult to know whether the feelings I have for my old homes is affection for the house or nostalgia for the memories of the life I had while living there.

I was very emotionally attached to my previous house which we designed and built some 26 years ago after buying an infill plot at auction. Then 2 years ago my husband decided that we should part company after 40 years old and therefore the house had to be sold absolutely against my wishes. However after 2 miserable years it finally sold and I was surprised to find that when I walked out for the final time, I felt it was just a shell that I was leaving behind and that the "stuff" that came with me together with my 2 beloved cats were what would be making my new home. And I'm as happy as I could be under the circumstances.

keffie

OMG yes I am attached to our home of nearly 12 years. Thy will carry me out of here in a box as there is no way I will ever move.

This is the longest I have ever lived anywhere. My Father was in the forces and I moved around alot when I was an adult, including with the ex, for various reasons.

I took my 4 and fled domestic violence in 2000. We walked the fires of hell with the aftermath. We were hidden homeless for 2 & a half years, with 8 moves in that time.

When we finally got rehoused permanently by the local council a week before Christmas in 2002, I cried and cried with the relief.

The blood sweat pain and tears that went into rebuilding our lives and getting this place including the aftermath which also seen us involved in the system, can not be perceived unless experienced.

It is not the biggest home I have ever had, nor is it owned, however it's our home and the investment into getting this home is more than money can buy.

I wouldn't swap it for a luxury 6 bedroom home even if I won the lotto as simply money can't buy what this home means to us.

Yes I am happily remarried today. My youngsters have grown and left home. It is still their home where the camp-fires burn as it is mine and my husband.

Love, stability, emotional and investment (as well as financial over the years) where this is a happy secure home is worth far more than your materialistic big houses

I have mixed feelings - in some ways I feel we have become stagnant in this house, it needs quite a lot of work but it's difficult to have the work done when you are living in it and have cats etc - on the other hand when I look at other people's interiors on online estate agents, I realise we have made this our own.... what I would really like is to buy an identical house, get all the work done and then move into it. If only we could afford two houses......... but I must have some sort of emotional attachment to this one, I feel kind of guilty saying we might leave it in case it hears me

I sometimes look on google earth, type in the address of where I used to live, just to see what it looks like now. In most cases the houses looked good and well cared for, but one had changed out of all recognition. There was a huge extension on the side so the house looked twice the size it was when we had it. Quite a shock!
It's an interesting thing to do if it's raining and you can't go out - just looking at where you once lived. Has anyone else done this?

We still have friends in the close we lived in before moving back to The Midlands. I find it hard visiting them and seeing our old house where I was happy and brought up our children

Even though we have lived in our house for 40 years, I don't think I have any emotional attachment to it. The garden however is a different matter, that has evolved over 40 years and many of the plants have happy memories attached to them. I would however like to design a garden from scratch, but would I have the energy to see it to fruition.
I would also miss my neighbours they are great and always there in times of need.

Not really, although I like it very much, and love where it is! We moved here, to Devon, two years ago, and it is the first house, and area, that we had chosen free from financial constraints etc.

Twenty odd years of our married life was spent in married quarters; I have lived in some huge, old fashioned houses, (one with a bell push in the dining room!) very modern ones, and some adequate ones, moving every two years. We bought our first house when we were in our forties; it was brand new, four bedrooms, detached, and meant commuting for anything from and hour upwards into London where we both worked. We couldn't afford the same house in South London!

We are in our forever (well....) house now, and it was chosen for convenience, comfort and proximity to DD and the sea. I do love it. But it is a house when all is said and done.

Because we put so much effort and 'soul' into decorating the house, but mostly creating a great garden- I really wanted to sell our house to a young family who would love it as we did. We found the 'perfect' family for it twice, and their house kept falling through at the last minute. We waited as long as we could but it didn't work. In the end, we sold it to be transformed into a Kindergarten- and that is great- as I love the idea of kids running around and lots of laughter. We keep meaning to visit next time we visit the UK- and we often drive past- but never had the courage to go in- but I see pictures on their website. I've turned the page now... perhaps best left.

The people who sold it to us felt the same- and accepted a lower offer from us as another offer they'd had- as they didn't like the couple.

Sorry, meant to say sent jamsidedown a private message.

Hi, sent you a private message but not sure if you saw it?

We drive past our last house loads but, the people who bought it from the people to whom we sold, had a sort of religious commune and have extended it in all directions and it bears no resemblance to the house we knew so it isn't too upsetting and we love this house.

Aesthetically though they have wrecked it! It was a three storey, Edwardian semi - now it is a flipping shambles, and I'm not sure how they got planning permission. It looks nothing like its twin as it has a huge flat roofed extension incorporating the garage, another one taking up the suntrap side patio and yet another taking over the back patio.

This house is a former board school and, until it was rescued by a builder who converted it and built on the playground, it was going to be a light engineering factory!

jamsidedown DS and I disposed of our parent's large camphor wood chest last year, so I know how you feel. DS had had it since they died but following some work on her home, she had nowhere for it, we already have two chests inherited from PiL and DS has the much smaller one that DP bought for DM's sister. So with sadness and regret we sent it to auction.

jamsidedown I also have one of those camphorwood chests which I wouldn't part with. It came from a great aunt who was a headmistress in a girls school in Calcutta before WW2 whom I had great admiration for. It's a bit battered and split from the central heating but still smells wonderful inside.

Yes, definitely. It's the first home that is completely mine and no-one else has ever lived here with me. It seems to mean more because of that.
Also the beautiful location and the lovely surroundings make it special.
I frequently thank my lucky stars for my home, humble though it is.

glammamama it must be awful going past your old house and seeing it like that. Ours is too far away for that to happen, although we could have done a drive past recently when on a trip to Derbyshire. My DH asked if I wanted to drive past but I said no. I know the people we sold to had great plans for it by way of extensions but, even though the garden was large, they were not gardeners. I couldn't bear to see it, I think it's better not to go back. Having said that, we now live relatively close to the house before that one which was on the banks of a canal, and we have walked past and peered in through the holly hedge - frustrating, I want to tell them to give it back even though that was nearly 20 years ago and it wouldn't really suit us now - no room for our Motorhome for a start!

I love the apartment we have been in for the past 6 years but am not emotionally attached to it as I was to our old family home,how I loved that house every single brick of it I can close my eyes now and picture it in my minds eye walking through every room,but with all the children gone and a huge 4 bed place to keep up with we decided to sell and move abroad,it was a wrench but I was not going to get into old age and say "if only".I drive past now and look at it and think where are the hanging baskets and why are the windows dirty ? Why did we sell to these people
On some of the property programmes it makes me laugh when couples are wanting to move into country cottage's and they state that the rooms are small or the ceiling are low !! what do they expect from a cottage for goodness sake ?

The only item of furniture I am attached to is a camphor wood blanket chest bought by my parents when my dad was posted to Hong Kong. It has so many memories in its scented interior, every time I open the lid the smell takes me right back to my childhood. It is quite large and carved, and I am so pleased we had enough space to give it room. It now houses the grandchildren's toys and I hope will give them happy memories in the future.

All the rest of the furniture is completely disposable!

I had 21 permanent addresses in my first 21 years, DF was in the army, but the house I was emotionally attached to was my dear maternal grandmother's house. I loved her so much and had so many happy memories. After she died unexpectedly when I was 14 I couldn't go down the road her house was in for more than 30 years. My father's family lived in the same London suburb so we visited the area frequently.

I love my current house because it is so old (550 years) and is timber framed. I had always wanted a house like this ever since I was 13, and visited a friend who lived in a similar house. I didn't achieve my ambition until I was in my 50s. It would be a real wrench to leave it. We and others have done a lot of research into its history and know so much about it, but, as I say, it is a childhood ambition achieved and it would be a wrench to leave it, but I am not sure I am emotionally attached to it.

I am emotionally attached to much of the furniture because it is inherited, I am a real 'second-hand Rose' when it comes to houses and their contents, and the most of the furniture is redolent with memories of my family. However if I have needed to get rid of any of it I have done so and the older I get the more I am willing to do so.

We were forced to downsize from our previous home as we needed the money to keep the business going. Also it made sense to be nearer the GC once I was doing regular school runs. I felt no sadness whatsoever leaving the house behind. To me it seemed something that was destined not to be ours. However a few months later when it became apparent that the money we had injected into keeping the business afloat was not enough and we were forced to sell our static caravan I have never felt so sad about anything ever. It really broke my heart as that caravan was the bolt hole that saved my sanity on many occasions. I just couldn't bear that someone else should be able to have it when we couldn't. Silly I know.

Many years ago I'd have said yes. I loved my home, my first married home. Was there 23 years and all my myself with little money and no experience made a beautiful garden with the advice of my father and his seedlings and cuttinrs. My exH did nothing and both indoors with decorating/painting and outdoors with digging and planting I made it a home.

Then came a time when leaving it was less emotional than the pain of staying with ex H. And later the joy of walking into a house that was totally mine and was where I could find peace was bliss. But the bliss was peace. Not the bricks and mortar.

Now that I am married again and have been with my DH for 17 years and very happy in our home, it is the happinsss that we'd make whatever or wherevsr we lived...... I think .

I would say so, my youngest child was born in this house. We have lived here for 43 years and completely changed it three years ago with extensions but it is the house with the most memories.

i often think back to the lovely house we had in the Midlands. A field with horses next door, looking out to oak trees, swans, geese and ducks doing a fly past over the roof. The house was just a bog standard 1930s house but we made it into what we wanted. I also miss my dear friends. We moved South to be nearer to relatives, but I don't feel our present house is home yet (18 months in). Working on it though

What an interesting thread, so many different views of our houses 'homes'. We moved to a different area 5 years ago after previously living in the same house for over 20 years. Our children grew up there and it was in a lovely close. It felt 'right' when we bought it. We now live in a nice house but not such a good area and I would love to move back to our old house which of course isn't possible or at least back to the same area. This house isn't 'home' it's a pace to live for the time being.