Publication Date: 11-08-2023 09:00
Young family are loving life in their three-storey home in Shirley
A young family believe that three is the magic number when it comes to floors in a house.
Christina Klerides-Maos, her husband Yiannis and their two-year-old daughter Ayla are loving life in their three-storey Cartwright house at Bellway’s Lucas Green development in Shirley, near Solihull.
Christina, a 38-year-old teacher, and Yiannis, a 40-year-old technology CEO, were living in Kings Heath but moved to be nearer to Christina’s family.
“Having three floors and four bedrooms at home really does suit our lifestyle,” said Christina. “We find that the extra storey makes all the difference.
“We needed four bedrooms because Yiannis often works from home and he wanted a dedicated home office. On the third floor there are two bedrooms and a shower room, so he has taken one of the bedrooms as an office. The separation helps him concentrate and keeps his work distinct from our home life.
“The other bedroom up there also means that when guests stay the night they have privacy and their own facilities. It works really well.
“We thought it was a bit over the top having four ‘bathrooms’ in the one house but they are proving to be very convenient. It is great to have a cloakroom on the ground floor, and we love having an en suite in our bedroom on the first floor, while Ayla has her own bedroom and the main bathroom. The top floor facility means that Yiannis does not need to trudge down a flight of stairs.
“Another advantage of having a shower room on the top floor is that when my husband needs to leave home early for work, he can get ready up there without disturbing me or Ayla. It’s wonderful.”
The couple sold Christina’s former three-bedroom house, also a three-storey property, in January 2022 to force themselves to move.
“We knew if we sold my house then we would have to stop talking about moving and actually do it,” said Christina. “We were lucky to know that we could live with my mum and dad before we moved into a new home and the search for a new place was very much on.”
The couple were on their way home after visiting another housebuilder’s development when they saw the sign for Bellway’s Lucas Green site. They made an appointment and went along.
“We got a good vibe as soon as we started talking to the sales advisors Julie and Kate, who were wonderful throughout the whole process. When we were shown the three-floor four-bedroom Cartwright, we knew that was the house for us. We reserved the plot within a week and started to get excited about our new home.”
The family moved into their new £475,000 home in January 2023.
“The driving factors behind the move were for us to be nearer both my parents and my grand-parents and to be closer to better schools for Ayla for when she gets older,” said Christina. “My parents used to be a 15-minute drive away and are now only five minutes away while my grandparents were a 25-minute car journey which has been slashed to just 10 minutes.
“I come from a big Greek-Cypriot family so we like to be close, to help out, to share each other’s lives. Our new house is great because it has a big kitchen/dining room, with French doors to the back garden, where we can entertain. Being very sociable people, we love to have people over.
“We are real foodies and can now be all in the same room while we chat and prep meals. Because we bought the house off-plan we were able to choose the kitchen cabinets and worktops and flooring but we also got a company to install an island in the room, which we use as a breakfast bar. It’s a wonderful space and we spend so much time in there.
“What is also lovely is that there is a separate living room where people can chill or we can watch a movie. It gives us the best of both worlds.”
Christina said that Ayla is enjoying discovering all three floors of her new home.
“She is incredibly inquisitive and loves to explore all the time,” she said. “Ayla absolutely loves to be up on the top floor in daddy’s office looking at all of our old DVDs and CDs and board games.
“The fact that there are three floors for her to discover means that she is being stimulated all the time. They are building a children’s playground just a few minutes’ walk away from our house and I can’t wait for that to be finished so we can start to explore outside too. It’s all very exciting and we are loving life in our new home.”
For more information about the new homes at Lucas Green, visit https://www.bellway.co.uk/new-homes/west-midlands/lucas-green or call the sales team on 0121 756 0770.
