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As an old house owner, I see myself as the caretaker; hopefully, the house will be around for a long time after I'm gone. If I'm emotional, it would be because I'm worried that either, a future owner won't feel the same way as I do about preservation, and damage the historic character of the house to suit their immediate needs, or future owners will fall on hard times, and the house wall fall back into disrepair, and eventually be demolished.
The minute the house is under contract, I am able to easily detach from it.
I'm from a military family and have moved often throughout my life. I'm more attached to my "stuff" than to any four walls that surround that stuff.
That being said, I have a recurring dream that I've had all my life. In that dream I go from one childhood home to another, walking the neighborhoods, looking for my former friends who have of course all moved.
No once the house is sold I'm withdrawn from it and I'm sure way before that I have started packing . When I leave this house I will be going to my retirement home so I will take one or two rose bushes from here and that will be it . we have changed a lot about this house since we moved in a year ago and I'm sure I saw the former owners drive by one day , see that wont happen with me because I'm retiring out of state so I don't care what the new owners do to it ...
Well I haven't lived in too many houses. I would love to have a peek at my childhood home again, but I've never seen it listed for sale online. The house we built I saw for sale last year. Aside from some repainting it looked the same. But no, not so attached to them.
I was nostalgic for my grandparent's old home in Westchester, NY since I remembered so many happy days there when I was a child, and all its wonderful (to me as a child) nooks and crannies. It seemed so large too back then. When my grandparents passed away, my mother and her two sisters sold the house - and I (still young) was very, very sad that they did. Many years later I went to that little street and walked up to the door and told the current owners I had spent many happy days in their house ... and they invited me in to have a look around.
The actual footprint had not changed but that was just not the same house I remembered at all. The smell was completely different. The rooms were much smaller. The furniture was not 'ours'. I could no longer see my grandfather sitting at his desk or my grandmother having tea on the sun porch. I have no idea how we ever got beds into some of the smaller rooms upstairs where we kids slept, much less how they crammed my parents in when we came to visit. And my grandfather's rose and strawberry gardens were gone. The old 'cook shack' (aka the kid's fort) that my aunt had lovingly built down the back garden was gone. Even the fireplace in front of which we youngsters often took our supper on cold nights had been refaced. My grandparents were no longer there.
I was much better off with my memories. It is better not to go back.
I now face selling off my property in NC that has family memories as well. It has 'character' and family built right into its walls and land. It is difficult to let go of it but I will. But, I will just take my memories with me this time and never return.
We just moved from our family home of 12 years to a downsized condo. Our 8 y.o. daughter swears she's going to buy our former home when she is a grown up because she misses it.
We biked past it the other day and noticed a few changes already apparent from the outside and it has only been a few months. I don't particularly miss the house but we think it is cute how our daughter feels the way she does about it. Kids can really wear their emotions on their sleeves.
I guess everyone is different. My parents were in their first home for over 38 years and they have a lot of good memories with that home. It has sold twice since they sold it in 2003 and they have kept up with each sale. I guess out of nostalgia.
We have been in our home for going on 6 years and love where we live with no intentions of moving. We met the woman that lived a couple doors down. She had inherited the home from an aunt. The home was beautifully kept up with probably the best yard on the street. It has been upgraded, new windows, kitchen, bath remodels. She decided to move about 10 or so miles away. Sold the home and then every so often would drive by, and I am talking once a month or every other month. The people that bought it from her did not keep up with the yard. They did not even live in it full time. It has been a couple years and they have finally moved in. The yard was ripped out and they are working on an asian themed yard with rocks and trees, and other kind of plants. The former owner hated that as well. She was really attached to that home. After they ripped out the yard and started changing it the former owner stopped driving by.
I admit that it can be hard for me to detach from previous homes because I invest so much of me into the homes. The houses are often entirely different than when I purchased them. For a while, I used to take a route home from work that passed by my old house just to conjure up the warm memories again.
Nope, won't miss it a bit. We can make a home on the side of a glacier in a teepee.
While I agree one can always make a new home anywhere and still make it feel like home I guess for me it was the MEMORIES made in that home (especially raising children) that makes me have sentimental feelings over just brick, wood and stone. So yes, I will always miss my former homes and the memories made in them and it's especially sad when you see a home that was once very loved neglected. It's as if my old home is crying when I drive by and asking me why I left her
My wife has an unusual attachment to our home. Meanwhile it is just a small 1954 Split Level. She will never sell. Right now I am in Florida but still have the home.
But all the homes prior owners have a unusual attachment to the home . I am the fourth owner of house and the prior three owners bought it as their first home and all raised their children in the house. I have met all three prior owners of the house.
The original owner who bought it brand new in 1954 was a real surprise. Back in 2012 my house was badly damaged in Hurricane Sandy, the house took on five feet of water, and had a ton of damage. A large top of the line Mercedes pulls up to house and two men in their late 50s or early knock on my door. They tell me they grew up in the house and their Mother wants to come in. This rich women in her 80s gets out of car and says Thank God My House Survived. She said she had her sons drive her out of Manhattan to make sure her house survived.
She came in and told us how she bought it brand new, the house next door was model, she was a newlwed, she had her two sons and her Husband was extremely successful and was the Richest man in town. She said they could afford to move but she loved it, her one son in my front bedroom in the hippie era started designing clothers and went to FIT in Manhattan and became a multimillionaire fashion designer. We assured her we were putting in all the repairs and it was in progress. She came out while power was still out, house had no heat and town was under marital law. But she cared.
The second owner came by after we bought house the son. He was up from the South visiting. He had very fond memories, he learned to swim in the above ground pool. He wanted to see his old bedroom. After Sandy he was in NY around 2015 and also came by to see if His house survived.
I was at a party a few years ago with some strangers who asked where I lived, turns out she know original owner. The old women who came by and said she was the nicest, baked cookies, threw parties also knew story about son.
The owner I bought from told me the proudest moment in his life was buying house. He was a Russian emigrant. He got married, started some dry cleaners, but still lived in his small dumpy apt, when his daughter was 10 they bought the house and moved to surburbs. Sadly his dry cleaners went to pot and his business died and he was forced to sell after his daughter graduated. He was very sad he had to leave. I apolgized for buying it, he was I have to sell I can't make payments and have debt to pay but he was happy his daughters bedroom would once again be enjoyed by a new child.
When we do sell, the next family will feel the same way. Right now I share my house with my family and the prior three families, if only in their memories.
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