My partner and I fell in love with our first home — a two-story 1980s residence in Edinburgh — before we’d even gone inside.
Sitting in a network of courtyards, each with a shared, central garden, we stepped through the wrought-iron gates to see its huge, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a patch of trees and immediately thought, “Oh, we’ve found our house.”
Even though it was just slightly over 950 square feet, it had everything on my wish list: a small private garden, an attic, a study, and even a conservatory I could fill with plants.
Sure, it had its flaws, and it wasn’t as close to the heart of the city, but we didn’t have the finances for perfection, so we were willing to overlook any blemishes.
Unfortunately, our dream did not match reality.
Right away, the costs kept adding up
My wife and I knew from the start that owning a house would be more expensive for us than living in an apartment — and the older a home is, the more repairs they tend to need.
The problem was that our understanding of an old house was warped by the experiences we’d had living in historic cities like London and Edinburgh.
To us, an “old house” meant the Victorian-era dwelling my grandparents lived in or the 18th-century tenement flats our friends rented, not something built in the 1980s.
Maybe it’s the millennial in me, perpetually convinced the ’80s were only 20 years ago, but this place seemed closer to the new build I’d grown up in than the vision of an “old house” I had in my head.
So, I was shocked by how much work — and money — it took to maintain this nearly 50-year-old home.
For example, when part of our roof came off after a big storm, we had to replace a bunch of the tiles — which made my stomach and my bank account ache.
Other repairs, like fixing the boiler and filling cracks in the walls with plaster, were smaller and less costly, but it still felt like something was always breaking or in need of an upgrade.
We also realized that having our own space — rather than living in a building with other people — comes with higher energy costs than we anticipated.
One of our favorite things about living in an apartment was relying on our downstairs neighbors’ heat rising to our unit, so we didn’t need to turn ours up very high. It helped keep our heating bill low, and we missed that luxury when we moved into our house.
Because of the way our house was designed, all the heat warmed the upstairs, but left the downstairs freezing. Fixing these issues would require extensive and expensive renovations.
Again, we knew the costs would fall solely on our shoulders, but the frequency of repairs needed on this home made it much more challenging.
The stairs in our 2-story home proved to be uniquely challenging for me
The last straw that made us return to an apartment was the lack of accessibility in our home.
My mobility began to deteriorate significantly about six months after we moved in, making everything in our suburban neighborhood feel impossibly far.
Due to a previous diagnosis years earlier, I’d known this was a possibility when we purchased the home. However, I’d assumed the deterioration would happen much more slowly.
Instead, it happened rapidly over a few months, and suddenly, I was effectively trapped in parts of the house, unless I had assistance.
The garden I’d been so excited about was left to its own devices, since I was physically unable to care for it, and my wife was too busy to step in.
Additionally, the stairs, which were shallow and carpeted with narrow turns, became my nemesis. The worst part was that I couldn’t avoid them, since the bathroom and kitchen were on separate floors.
Having to navigate these steps several times a day made me fantasize about moving, especially since I knew I’d likely need a wheelchair someday and learned that installing a stairlift would be difficult because of the house’s design.
So, we thought it was better to make a move right away rather than put more time, money, and labor into a place that wasn’t working for us.
Ultimately, after living there for a little over two years, we decided that even though the house seemed close to perfect on paper, it wasn’t perfect for us.
In the end, a single-family house just wasn’t the right fit for us
Six weeks after selling our house, we ended up buying a modern apartment near the center of Edinburgh, with public transportation moments from our door.
Now, we can’t imagine living anywhere else.
There’s still a staircase in my life, but it’s not inside the apartment itself, so if I’m having a wobbly day, I can just stay home. And since everything I need is on the same floor, I no longer feel trapped in one area when I’m alone.
Financially, it’s been a godsend.
For one, our new place is more energy-efficient, meaning much cheaper utility bills. Although upgrades and repairs within our apartment will still be our responsibility, the building’s exterior maintenance costs are split between all the other units, so I’ll never have to worry about paying for an entire roof again.
Even though we no longer have a garden, we’re closer to most of our friends and everything the city has to offer, like restaurants, cultural events, and public transit. And that’s made us a lot happier, too.
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