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We pride ourselves on delivering a service worthy of our continued industry recognition for excellence.

Pennyfarthing Blogs

28 Apr Tornado could not stop Hampshire couple from downsizing to their dream bungalow

Posted at 03:38 in by bryonyowen | No Comments | 0 Likes |

Even a tornado could not stop Mike (66) and Julie Lock (70) moving to their dream bungalow at Alexandra Meadows in Lymington. With everything on one level, a bungalow makes life easier for many couples like Mike and Julie, downsizing from a larger home with a staircase. Their large three-bedroom chalet bungalow in Barton-on-Sea had become less and less manageable but finding the right bungalow in the right place was proving a problem until they viewed Alexandra Meadows.

As Julie Lock explains, the couple had decided it was time for them to downsize to one level: “Our chalet bungalow was considerably bigger, so it was challenging to manage. We were right on the sea at Barton, so we were very exposed and after 27 years the maintenance costs were getting very high, even my sewing needles were rusting over!

“The one thing we were sure of is that we wanted a bungalow, with no stairs, rather than a chalet bungalow and one that was a lot less exposed to the sea. Ours had gone under offer and so we had to start looking and in fact found our Pennyfarthing bungalow in a week. We had to look fairly intensively once our house went under offer but both being retired, we had the time.”

Mike and Julie looked at quite a lot of other properties before coming across Alexandra Meadows, almost by accident. With the supply of bungalows not meeting demand they were delighted to find that Pennyfarthing Homes were building bungalows in Lymington, which offered the perfect choice for them. With their house under offer they snapped it up:

“We had been looking but didn’t see anything that we liked. We went into a local Estate Agent in New Milton who told us about the Pennyfarthing Homes bungalow, and we went to have a look at it. I loved the south facing garden and the location was nice and central, away from the sea and all the damage it can cause, but still walkable with amenities on our doorstep. We wanted three bedrooms and luckily, of the five bungalows at Alexandra Meadows, there was one with three bedrooms still available, so it all fell in to place. We knew we had found the perfect one for us and just in time. Although, our sale very nearly fell through when in January, a tornado blew the roof off the house we were selling a week before we were due to exchange. The purchasers wouldn’t proceed until we repaired the roof. We flew around sorting it out and managed to get it repaired in time, the purchaser was happy, and we were able to complete our purchase with Pennyfarthing Homes. We were very relieved to finally move in.”

Julie celebrated her 70th birthday the week after they moved, renting a big country house in the nearby New Forest for all their large family to join them and she and Mike have been very happy since in their stylish and contemporary new home.

“We love it. Being about a mile from the sea, we are much more sheltered so won’t have to worry about the roof being blown off again! We’re delighted in every respect. We’ve got the position we wanted in Lymington. It’s warm and comfortable and everything is brand new. All the carpets and the lighting were done so other than ordering shutters for the windows we were able to just move. There are some beautiful walks in this area where we can go with our dog Gareth. Being an Old English Sheep dog, people often stop and ask us about him. He is a great talking point and a good way to meet people.

“We’ve got our beautiful garden to enjoy too, the exact size garden we wanted, not too big and not too small and lovely and sunny. Being hit by the tornado really threw us but we managed to pull it off in the end with minutes to spare and we’re delighted to be here.”

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