Bought the Century-Old House of Our Dreams, Not Worth It Years Later

When my partner and I bought our first house together eight years ago, we knew we wanted a place with character.

We’d both lived in new builds before and dreamed of owning a place with more charm and a real history. Then, we found exactly what we were looking for in a four-story house built in the early 1900s.

We fell in love with its high ceilings, spacious rooms, old stone garden wall, and semi-rural location, and we purchased it.

Eight years later, our relationship with the house is a lot more complicated.

After a few dreamy months, the reality of living in a century-old house set in

At first, living in our historic Edwardian house was everything we’d hoped it would be.

Our neighbors shared stories of the people who’d lived here before us and of what the area used to be like when it was mostly farmland. We felt a strong connection to the house and all its previous inhabitants.

We loved the exposed beams in the attic rooms and the sandstone on the exterior walls — even the narrow, steep staircases had their charm.

The two of us loved village life, and still do, actually. It was satisfying to realize our dreams of living in a period property.

Before moving in, we had several projects on our list that needed to be completed. For example, replacing the old windows and doors and converting an old stable at the bottom of the garden into an office.

However, those projects got pushed to the back burner as things we hadn’t anticipated started to go wrong, and new problems began to drain our bank account.

Big issues are tough, but the little grievances really add up

Being a homeowner isn’t cheap, especially not in an old home.

A few years after moving in, a fire broke out in the fuse box in our basement kitchen.

Thankfully, it was small and contained — but when the electrician began repairs, he discovered that the wiring had been cobbled together and was still hazardous. We ended up rewiring the entire kitchen.

One day, while I was showering, my partner ran in and said water was pouring into the living room below. The leaks were horrible, and we had to redo our bathroom.

However, what really makes this house more of a nightmare than a dream is all the little issues that rumble on and on.

It’s drafty and hard to heat in the winter, perhaps because of those lovely high ceilings and certainly because of cracks and gaps in the walls.

It’s damp, and mold grows on many of the walls in the cold seasons. We’re constantly battling with it, wiping mold off surfaces and painting walls to keep them looking fresh.

Corners are crumbling, and our clothes in drawers and wardrobes smell stale with the damp if we haven’t worn them for a few weeks.

There’s no parking space outside as these old houses weren’t built with cars in mind. This means we have to park on the road, and the once-quiet road is now getting busier and busier.

And I’ve never lived in a house with so many creepy crawlies invading our space. Spiders, flies, and beetles wander freely around our rooms. I guess they’re getting in the same way the drafts do, through all those small cracks and holes.

We didn’t truly freak out until one night when my partner went down to the basement kitchen for a drink of water and stepped on a slug with his bare feet.

Since then, we’ve noticed slug trails on our living room carpets and have found slugs on our bathroom tiles.

The honeymoon period is officially over

For us, the reality of living in an old house is far removed from our dreams. We romanticized having a period property, but we didn’t properly consider the issues that a house over 100 years old would have.

Houses were built differently then, and we aren’t benefiting from modern designs or upgraded ways of doing things; we’re stuck in the past.

I must admit that I still love the character of old houses, but we now look longingly at modern homes with efficient heating, driveways, and no mold.

Looking back, I wish we’d tried to strike a balance. We love the individuality of our home that is far from cookie-cutter, but it’d be nice to have a property with good wiring, proper insulation, and fewer maintenance requirements.