Our first home was a flat in Leicester, the bottom half of an old terraced house opposite the blank brick wall at the rear of a garage business.The small living room had an old unusable kitchen range in it,and there was a tiny scullery with a deep stone sink and not much else.The lavatory was the second door along in the back yard, beyond the coal shed,and was shared with the tenants of the upstairs flats who had either to walk through our flat to get to it or go out of the front door and down a little alleyway between the houses. The only bathroom was in the upstairs flat with a hot water tank that took 24 hours to heat enough water for a bath. We were happy there for two years and thought ourselves lucky to have our own place.After two years we had saved up enough to pay the deposit on a detached house with a big garden which was on the market for £3750.How times have changed.
An attic flat in Germany while we were waiting for a married quarter at RAF Laarbruch. Tiny place, sloping ceilings. The bathroom was bigger than the lounge/kitchen. In fact, it became a standing joke among friends.
Within a month of getting married we flew off to Seychelles. OH had a job as a Junior Engineer for two years. So our first house was a bungalow overlooking a sparkling blue sea. We had a maid and a garden boy. We were in our early 20s so it was all very different and new.
We moved into a new built 3 bedroom detached house which cost £2950 in 1966. Our 4 children were born there and I still live there 55 years later.
Bungalow in Malaysia
Our first home was a three roomed flat, bedroom, bathroom and a kitchen/loung/dining room. Very small for two people and a new baby but we loved it
We got married and moved in with his mum and dad. This was despite the advice of my elderly doctor who said better to live in a draughty tent on top of a hill than to move in with the in laws! It turned out to be ok though. Their small back room was converted into our bedsit, complete with dining table & chairs, single bed with mattress resting on suitcases one side to make bed slightly larger, and soon after, a cot in the corner! I remember being so happy there, we had wonderful dinner parties with our friends in that tiny room!
An attic room in a Victorian house in London. In 1946. Had to use the basement for water and toilet. We had both been in the Forces and weren’t on a Council list. My mother disowned me because l had “married beneath me” having married a common soldier. Then were homeless with a six month old baby. Had to leave baby with mother in law who still had four children until we found a top floor flat with no bathroom. Finally managed to buy a house cheap because it did a lot of work doing.
Gwen45
We got married and moved in with his mum and dad. This was despite the advice of my elderly doctor who said better to live in a draughty tent on top of a hill than to move in with the in laws! It turned out to be ok though. Their small back room was converted into our bedsit, complete with dining table & chairs, single bed with mattress resting on suitcases one side to make bed slightly larger, and soon after, a cot in the corner! I remember being so happy there, we had wonderful dinner parties with our friends in that tiny room!
Oh phew. I read the first sentence and immediately thought of that Hayley Mills film The Family Way 
so I’m glad it worked out well. I think perhaps the elderly doctor had seen that film!
A two bed terraced house in North London. We scraped together enough for the deposit and almost immediately mortgage rates rose repeatedly and steeply. We almost lost the house more than once, and I became quite adept at dodging debt collectors and bailiffs. But we got through it and eventually bought our second home (3 bed terrace) in the same road. We stayed there for 25 years till we moved to our present home.
It was a long time ago 1959. I was in a bedsit in a house in Hackney and he moved in with me. asked permission from the ladlady first.
Then we both got jobs in Manchester and moved into a rented ground floor flat in Salford, Leicester road. just around the corner from Bury New road where you lived Jane Ainsworth.
ps Jane - I think it was Cheetham Hill Road around the coener, where I got the bus to work.
We started off in a two-up two-down terrace in Long Eaton which DH thought would be a good move after co-habiting in an old Victorian house which had been converted into flats. It was a lovely little home and cost £7,000 which was a good buy.
In a rented room in a flat abroad where we were both working. There was a shop on the corner selling just-baked bread rolls which we had for breakfast every day with lovely coffee. We didn’t have much space but we didn’t have many belongings and we planned on seeing more of the world before we settled down. It would be another three and a half years before we came home and lived in mother-in-law’s box room while we worked to save for a deposit on a tiny flat.
There are some lovely little terrace houses in Long Eaton aren’t there. I’ve often driven round some of the little side streets looking at the houses in them.
We were originally supposed to be renting a house off the OH's boss but got back from honeymoon to find that the boss had moved back in as he ha fallen out with the woman he had been living with !
6 weeks later, the boss had moved his bedroom downstairs to what had been the parlour . we had no central heating and he had disconnected the gas fire so there was an open fire in the living room. We bought a convector heater from John Lewis for our bedroom (that still works 40 years later) - good thing we did as it was one of the coldest winters on record!
We shared the kitchen and bathroom and when the boss moved in his latest girlfriend, we worked out a system to share the cooking and laundry facilities !
Only been married 5 years we live in what was previously my home a penthouse apartment with a nature reserve giving us fabulous views to hills in the North
When we were first married, we had to live in a police house. We were spoiled as it was a lovely wee three bedroom bungalow. A woman at my work was absolutely furious that I was living “rent free” (her words). When we were allowed to buy our own home, less than two years later, the price was about £14,000 more than when we were married. So much for “free rent”!
First 3 months were spent in a bed-sit in Chiswick. Really just the large front bedroom of a typical Victorian semi with the smaller window area partitioned off to provide a rudimentary kitchen. The bathroom was on a different level and used by the household. I managed to get this room by pleading with the landlady that we needed somewhere to live and that it needed to be in that area so I could get to my first teaching post and my husband-to-be could get to his job in a bank. She was reluctant at first because the room had been set up to accommodate 2 single people (pair of divans) and not a married couple. We assured her that we would provide our own bed (in-laws 'put-you-up') and she kindly agreed to make room for one of the divans downstairs in her sitting room while the other one could be used by us as a sofa.
What really 'tipped the balance' in our favour was the fact of her own daughter also getting married at that time.
She was a lovely lady and really looked after us, even lending me her big shopping basket trolley to cart our laundry round to the laundrette.
After 3 months a semi-basement flat in Ealing came available so we moved in for the next year and a half until we got a bank mortgage ( very favourable rate) and a new job for me outside London. We were very happy to move on to our own house and out of the extremely damp flat. Waking on a winter morning to find actual frost on the blankets and mould in the wardrobe was a little uncomfortable to say the least. The landlady there was a dear old lady who became a bit too dependent on us.
A one bedroom furnished first floor flat. Freezing cold, just an electric fire in living room. Mould on the walls in bathroom and loo. No access to garden. Two bus journeys to work for me.
We had saved enough after two years to put £1500 down on our first house, a three bedroom semi, 10 minutes walk from the school I taught in. Had no furniture, but were happy!
How interesting some of these reminiscences are. 'Young People of Today' should be made to read them!!!
We were very young and equally determined to buy our own house and saved every penny (no buying tights, taking the bus or practically eating) for a year until we had enough money as a deposit on a very modern three-story townhouse. It had a utility room (unheard of in those days) and a built in 'fridge (although minute) in the fitted kitchen. This was 1968.
Unfortunately, we could not afford to buy anything in our own locality so had to move 30 miles away for this house - no car, incidentally - and took the bus at 7.00 am to travel into London for our jobs. We arrived home twelve hours later, exhausted but... it was all ours.
Actually, our mortgage was initially rescinded as there was a problem with the general money supply, three weeks before completion (which was on the eve of our wedding).
My mother rang the building society and asked to withdraw her savings. When asked why, she explained she would be funding our house purchase as the mortgage offer had just been revoked and five minutes later, our mortgage was reinstated!
I remember standing outside the building society for our mortgage interview, trembling - I could not stop shaking, as it was so important to prove to everyone that although young, we were responsible. We did it!
We only stayed in the house for eighteen months or so as we missed our friends, who happily travelled up to see us for the first time but it became a problem after that and I think we were just worn out with the travelling, so we moved back to our own turf, buying a brand new two-bedroomed maisonette - half the size of the house for twice the price. We moved twice since then and have been in our current home for over forty years now.
Oh, the good old days!
I had the upstairs of a semi which had been converted into two flats each with a separate entrance. We had a sitting room, bedroom, box room, tiny kitchen and bathroom.
When we married, he moved in. We bought our first home, a three-bed terrace in Birmingham the following year. It cost us £7k...we got a 100% mortgage over 10 years from the Council. And worried about the repayments.
Three years later, we sold it and bought a semi round the corner from his parents. We thought we had arrived because it had central heating, and a garage at the bottom of the garden..was on the market for £22k.
We sold that in the early 1990s and bought a three bed detached in a cul-de-sac about a mile away. That cost £50k.
We still have that, and we are mortgage-free...although at present we live in a house which is tied to my work.
We married in 1967 and bought a two bedroom mid terrace cottage. No central heating no fitted carpets, we bought a new bed and a cooker and everything else was second hand or wedding presents.
The mortgage was crippling, 15% and I got pregnant after eight months of marriage.
We stayed there for four years and moved to a new build when I was expecting my second baby. The cottage was one street away from the football stadium and it became unbearable on a Saturday, people parked both sides of the street and in the back lane completely blocking any access to our home
A Military house - camouflage patterned carpets, camouflage patterned sofa, camouflage patterned curtains. However, the furniture issues was all G plan (wish I had it now). We had to pay a lot in rental (yes, the military have to pay for their housing) however, it was a roof over our heads.
We married straight from Uni and into our first jobs, teaching. With all our money spent on moving states, from NSW to Launceston, Tasmania. All we could find to rent was a one bedroom unfurnished unit. We slept a foam mattress on the floor.
When we decided to have a dinner party, my husband brought home the desks and chairs from his classroom, on loan. It was very funny, we made such wonderful memories by making do with very little but loads of youth, love and laughter. And our first baby arrived whilst we lived in this rental. Stories to tell our now, in comparison affluent children.
I was in the Army when aI got married,we had already bought a 3bedroom semi in North Birmingham.I earnt far more than my husband then,in 1974.
All our furniture was given to us by friends,but we did buy a shag pile cream carpet.
When I left the Army I got a large leaving bonus,a lot of that we frittered away on luxury items.We only lived in that house a short time as we left to live in Italy.
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