I once bought a house on the rebound. I was planning to move in with my then boyfriend. I had found a tenant for my flat and starting packing. Then – disaster: a week before the Big Move, he changed his mind. I said goodbye to my boyfriend, cancelled the tenant and unpacked.

The trouble was, the flat I had lived in for more than 10 years no longer felt like home. I had replaced a lot of my old furniture with new, tenant-friendly designs from Ikea so it didn't look the same anymore. More crucially, what had been such a happy place now felt polluted by misery. I just couldn't stay there.

So in a heartbroken daze I went house-hunting. Within weeks I had made an offer on a Victorian terraced property two streets away and found a buyer for my flat. Friends warned me it was ‘too soon’; that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to make such a big decision. I did it anyway.

There’s nothing like the stress of buying and selling, I soon discovered, to distract from a broken heart. Almost every day brought a new problem. The survey on my flat had revealed serious damp and would I drop the price? The vendor kept threatening to pull out (usually after a long lunch; I learned only to speak to him  in the mornings). And my solicitor seemed more interested in the fact that the vendor’s father had a seat in the House of Lords than getting on with my conveyancing.

To be honest, the new house wasn’t really my type. It had woodworm, a miserable little kitchen and a horrible bathroom. I liked it well enough but it certainly wasn’t love at first sight. For once though I was thinking with my head rather than my heart and I could see its potential.

It took a while but the love did come eventually, by which time I’d got rid of the Ikea furniture, sorted out the woodworm and found a much nicer boyfriend.

OM, London

Further information

What makes a house a home and why does it matter so much? Our new series, 'Moving Stories', inspired by Savills new advertising campaign, explores the complex relationship between home and home-owner with funny, sad and bittersweet reflections on moving out, moving in and moving on.

We invite you to submit your own Moving Stories and we will donate £50 to Dreams Come True for every one we publish on Savills UK Blog. We'll also make a donation for every story submitted for consideration.