John and Debbie Ridout spent years building their dream home in Sevenoaks, Kent.
The five-bedroom, three-bathroom house complete with solar panels, underfloor heating and an outdoor office was built from scratch in a project that took 14 months and cost £550,000. At one point John, 61, and Debbie, 62, spent nine months living in a caravan in the garden while the work went on.
They bought the original dilapidated two-bedroom bungalow in July 2020 for £620,000, selling their flat in Greenwich in southeast London to find more space during the pandemic.
Three years on, with the last of their grown-up daughters moving away from Kent after her husband got a new job in Cornwall, they’ve now decided to downsize.
“It’s five bedrooms and there are two of us and a dog,” said John, who retired from his job as a sales director at a software company at the start of this year.
