1. I’m suddenly doing neighbour bonding . I’m guessing that as non-party animals, we were also fairly trouble-free neighbours in our previous house. But I didn’t have much more contact than “Hi, have a nice evening!” or “I have a package for you” in the apartment complex. Since we live in a terraced house, I suddenly feel the need to build a bond with the neighbours. You may have lived next door to these people for 20/30 years. Then it’s quite nice if you can get along with each other – sometimes literally. We had already had coffee with both neighbours before we moved and I always try to have a chat with the neighbours when I see them outside. That often results in nice conversations (or – in the case of our Indian neighbours – the most delicious snacks).
  2. You take a lot more steps in a house with stairs . Even if I don’t leave the house on a rainy day, I still take quite a few steps. I don’t want to know how many times a day I go up and down the stairs. I’m someone who always leaves things in the attic that I need downstairs, and vice versa. That adds up to quite a few stair climbing sessions a day. I don’t have a pedometer, but if I did, he’d probably be proud of me.
  3. Suddenly you have to lug a vacuum cleaner up the stairs . That is an advantage of a not too big apartment: we could vacuum the entire apartment from one power outlet. That is a different story with three floors. Cleaning and especially vacuuming takes a lot more time. Moreover, I have developed a slight fear of carrying vacuum cleaners up the stairs since I fell down five steps with the vacuum cleaner on day 3. My aunt recently told me that she has a separate vacuum cleaner for upstairs. I used to think that was an unnecessary luxury, but now I can imagine it.
  4. Having the container in front of your door is a luxury. I know these are exaggerated first world problems , but in our apartment I always found taking garbage bags to the container a chore that was very much worth postponing. I had to leave the apartment “all the way”, walk down two flights of stairs, walk three meters outside and open two storage doors. It was still a two minute job at most, but we both felt it was “a lot of effort”. Nowadays, for the same action, we only have to open the front door and throw the bag in the container in front of the door. And yes, that still feels like a luxury every time.
  5. The DIY never stops. Not by itself. Many people had already impressed that upon me with statements such as “A house of your own is never finished”. But now I can also experience for myself that this is not just a cliché, but really true. No matter how much DIY you do or have DIY done in the house, there will always be more jobs that you do not have the time or money for at the moment. For example, we had the entire ground floor renovated, but the garden is a mess after the extension and we still have to buy grass seed to make our gravel garden greener. There is also a garden table that we have to stain, we have bought house numbers that have to be hung up at some point, a threshold still has to be installed at the bathroom, the bathroom needs new sealant edges, we have to paint the banisters again…
  1. An attic is a really nice place to be. When we got the keys to this house, we didn’t have a purpose for the attic yet. It always felt like an “Oh yeah, we have that too” space ( which sounds more decadent than intended ). But since my office isn’t ready to work in yet, I’ve been working in the attic for almost 2 months now. It used to be the junk room, but since the laminate flooring was laid and we put away most of the DIY stuff, I feel really comfortable there. I’d almost say “Swap my pink workspace for the top floor”. Seeing light coming in from two sides, watching the sun set and having a view of Pippa who loves nothing more than to peer out of the attic window – I could get used to it.
  2. Some trees need to be pruned every year. My family has many talented gardeners. My mother has a beautiful garden full of flowers and can keep almost anything that is green and blooming alive. My green fingers are – um – a little less developed. So far, Bart seems to have more talent for garden maintenance than I do. Anyway, thanks to tips from the neighbors, my mother and my father-in-law, we discovered that we have trees in the garden (I have already forgotten the names) that apparently grow completely out of proportion if you do not prune them every winter. Never knew that! Well, that is the downside of a garden. It takes a little more work than the three balcony boxes with plants that we used to have. BUT you also get a lot of nice outdoor space in return.
  3. Stairs can creak. And how! Because I lived in a house without stairs for five years, I had long forgotten that. I only knew creaking stairs from holiday homes in authentic style. But I knew that stairs can creak. Ours made a sound that you couldn’t ignore. When Bart walked downstairs at a leisurely pace, it sounded like someone sprinting down in flip-flops. If there’s one thing that overstimulates me, it’s those kinds of sounds. I’m so glad that we decided to have our stairs renovated. They are now covered with wood-look stuff and the creaking is gone. I still enjoy walking down the stairs silently every day.
  4. Having families with young children living next door is incredibly convenient. I know that our neighbours also get up early in the morning on weekends, because the children think 7 am is a good time to get up. You won’t hear me complaining, because my biological clock also wakes me up around that time. In our old house, I never dared to use vacuum cleaners, smoothie makers and other noisy devices before 10 am. But since I noticed that our neighbours’ children are already bouncing around the living room at 8:30 am, I dare to put my KitchenAid to work making noise around that time.
  5. Running down from the attic when someone rings the doorbell is quite far. That is the disadvantage of having three floors. In our previous house I was at the intercom for the doorbell within 2 seconds. When I work in the attic now, I have to sprint down the stairs as fast as I can in the hope that our lightning-fast parcel delivery person has not yet arrived at the neighbours with my parcel. But you become more skilled at everything. Including going down the stairs quickly without the risk of slipping.
  1. Some costs are much more expensive than you think. The luxury of an apartment is that you often fall under a homeowners’ association and that they arrange the exterior of the house. For example, after living there for 1.5 years, I got new plastic window frames everywhere. How could I know how much it costs if you pay for it yourself! Well, I do realize that now. A lot of money! There are more things that I never really thought about how much they cost. I was most shocked by the price for roof insulation. We considered having that installed in the attic, because our attic is not insulated. But the price quote was just as high as the price for a new well-insulated dormer window. So we put that plan on hold.
  2. Knowing that you want to live somewhere for a very long time is a nice thought. In my apartment, I knew from the start that I would only live there for a limited time. For that reason, I didn’t change many major things in the house, except of course putting in my own furniture, colors and lamps. But because I knew that I would sell the house one day, I never put pink tiles in the toilet and always parked my dream of a herringbone bathroom wall. The fact that I can now go wild with that, is what I like about living somewhere that you know you want to stay for a long time. The kitchen got pink tiles, our toilet is all floral, our hallway is pink with lilac and even the window frames upstairs all have a color.
  3. You never get used to having your own laundry room. Of all the things I looked forward to in a terraced house, this was without a doubt the most important. Call me a homebody, but I really dreamed of not having a clothes rack in the kitchen as standard, which you trip over while cooking and which you try to hide from visitors because otherwise your colleague or father-in-law would have a front-row view of your bras and boyfriend’s boxer shorts. We now have that laundry room! It’s a mini-cubicle in the attic, so don’t imagine a luxury launderette. But it is a separate laundry room and what a luxury it feels. I never have to coordinate the washing machine times with my work calls again, never have to manoeuvre around clothes racks again and the laundry basket is no longer crammed into our former small bathroom as standard.
  4. Without window decorations you are quite a sight to behold. In the evenings I often write blog articles at our bar in the kitchen. I sit there comfortably on my bar stool with a view of our pink tiled kitchen. But when the lights are on here in the evening, you are completely at the sight of three windows right in front of me and a view of the street side. At first I thought that the window decorations could wait a while, but now I am happy that the Veneta man is coming by next week to look at blinds or pleated curtains. Then I can blog from now on without the whole street seeing me as “the one who often sits at the bar in the evenings”.
  5. Choosing your own nameplate is FUN . In our apartment complex we had to make do with a standard white plate with our initials and surnames. But when we walked through home Depot recently, I suddenly realized that as owners of the front facade we can now stick whatever we want on it. So also a cheerful nameplate or a trendy house number. The nice numbers of our house number are already in. We will soon choose that nice address plate. I know one thing: it will not be a white plate with black letters anymore.

What kind of home do you live in? And if you have ever experienced that difference, what do you think is the biggest difference between an apartment and a townhouse?