Abbie & Luke

The news that they were expecting their first baby prompted Abbie and Luke to decide to buy their first home together. After discovering The Hedgerows at Pilsley online and visiting our show home, they secured a plot immediately knowing it was the perfect place to raise their daughter.

To be honest, we never thought we’d buy a new build, yet here we are in our dream home which is full of character and not like a new build at all! It totally transformed our opinion of what a new home can be.

Luke and I have been together for nearly five years and were living together in an apartment before we bought here. Finding out we were pregnant with Remi was a bit of a shock and prompted us into buying our first house – there’s no way we could have navigated lifts and a top floor apartment with a baby! So we started looking at what was available around the area.

We were fairly flexible as to where we would buy – although Pilsley is seven minutes from my parents’ house so it’s perfect. Luke found the Pilsley homes online and we made an appointment to visit the show home, which was a complete game changer!

As soon as I walked into the show home, it stole my heart and I said to Luke ‘I want one!’ – it was so beautiful and the space was amazing. Luke loved it too – it had an area to accommodate an office and a great layout – it was just what we needed. A big standout factor for us both was the variety of houses within the development – they are all different and each bring so much character – it totally suited our tastes.

There were so many things we loved – not least the spiral staircase which had always been a dream of mine to have – I couldn’t believe it when I saw it! Also, the black cladding on the exterior is a huge bonus for us. Even now when I’m coming home from a walk with Remi I say to her ‘look at that beautiful house!’ – I can’t believe it’s ours.

It was a done deal for us that day – we just fell in love with the development and everything it provided, and so we committed to buying our home. Forge were absolutely fantastic throughout the entire process – especially as we experienced a few unforeseen problems, with the sale of our apartment falling through on the day we were supposed to sign for the house, and then experiencing complications with our own mortgage.

It was so stressful, but the Forge team were amazing – we explained that we couldn’t get the mortgage we had hoped for, so asked if there was a three-bed plot available which we could have instead. They didn’t hesitate, finding us one that day and showing us round immediately – even delaying timeframes for us, holding the plot for longer than usual and generally just being completely accommodating while we renegotiated our mortgage.

The house is unreal – completely private – so much land, great layout and black cladding – one of only three in this style in the entire neighbourhood – definitely meant to be. It’s our dream home – our forever home, we never want to move!

Despite the stress with our mortgage and being six weeks away from having Remi, the experience with Forge was very smooth. Everything the team said they were going to do, they did – I wouldn’t hesitate to buy from them again (although we have no intention of moving!).

There’s real attention to detail which I appreciate, for example the bins have their own wooden unit around them, hiding them from view. It’s things like that which really make a difference – you can tell everything has been considered from the point of view of the people living in the house.

We’ve just celebrated our first year of living here and we’re incredibly settled. The area is great – perfect to bring up Remi with schools and everything we need close by. We’re also surrounded by beautiful walks and Tesco is a ten-minute drive away. The neighbours are lovely – our next-door neighbour is a window cleaner which is very handy!

This week we’ll celebrate Remi’s first birthday and we can’t wait to do that here in our forever home, where we can continue to make lots of happy memories.