Those cool, messy, usually wealthy mums

Oh yeah, so it does....

It reminds me of the house in Ghosts.

Before it falls down 🫣

Blimey, that house. Absolutely beautiful but what a money pit. I watched the whole of her video. It was a bit baffling, I would only sell it for love, and obvious subtext, I am out of money someone please buy.

I am sure it is rather romantic on a hot summers day. I dread to think how awful it would be on a bleak, wet Lincolnshire winter.

I mean if someone on a low income made their kids live like that, social services would get involved.

I mean it looks fantastic in pics but that is some serious structural movement and you very much get the sense that they’re not living in very much of it. Scaffolding as architectural feature…..

but at least it’s not UPVC, dahlings

I can't help feeling some people take on big old houses that need a shit ton of work, get overwhelmed and then decide to just sort of camp in them. It becomes a 'lifestyle' because that's easier than admitting you bit off more than you could chew.
That's a beautiful house too, with stacks of character, but it wants a LOT of work. Leaving gaping holes in the plaster, etc, isn't good structurally for houses not to mention open invitations for rats and mice. You wonder what we can't see that the survey throws up.

It would be nice to think it will be bought by someone who will lovingly restore it to former glory. I would love to see 'after' pictures.

As a home educator I very much relate to this!

What utter pretentious shite. There is nothing virtuous about living in a shit hole. It's not bohemian and arty. It's scruffy and usually has a repellant smell.

A friend sold her house through Inigo. They actually come out and decide whether your house is beautiful enough to go on their books. I had to leave the room when they clasped both hands to their cheeks and swooned over 'the elegant way the light fell like a damask curtain across the floor.' Or some such nonsense.

I mean I grew up in a property older than that one and it had the requisite bumpy plaster, wonky floors etc.. but you know it wasn't falling down or dirty.

I did a full body cringe reading it.

Am I the only one who eyerolled at this whole thing, especially "The difference to her is that where one sanitises, the other accepts, respects and makes allowances for."? Lots of us live in old properties but apparently making them clean and liveable is uncool.

I think I have found the ultimate example of this type:

https://inigo.com/almanac/dropping-by-sophie-wilson-1690-crowland-manor

and here is said house

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/141025991#/?channel=RES_BUY

I absolutely refuse to believe she and her childrne live there full time.

They're apparently underpinned by an attitude in far too many posters that if someone takes a lifestyle decision that's radically different from their own, this is somehow a personal affront.

This is so true! I some fairly radical choices in my life. It's not for everyone (nor most people, tbh) but it was great for me. A huge number of people (not all, but a large minority) saw it as almost a personal insult, my saying that their life is not good enough, that they are not good enough parents/friends/people/whatever.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that I don't give a shiny shit about how anyone else lives their life, and I can imagine myself in any one of their lives, possibly even happy in those choices.

But I chose something else. And it worked for me, and I'm happy. And I sincerely hope that everyone else is happy with their choices too, and I really want them to work out for them.

No idea why that's so hard to grasp, but it seems to be.

Oh, phonedown, that made me laugh. Very true.

This thread is hilarious. Folk are just adding anything that irks them...

"Yeah and they also take the last loo rolloff the shelf at the supermarket"

" oh yes I know one of these, they don't give blood on a monthly basis".

They always have a tutor for their child but never mention it. When it does get mentioned, they claim its because their child has some kind of fashionable learning need. It's never because they're a pushy parent.

This is soo true!

I just listened to Changing Lives on R4. Baroness Rachel Watkyn talks about being an impoverished aristocrat. Living in a mansion but having no money to buy clothes, she always stank of urine as she shared a bed with her bed wetting sister, and at school she was known as 'fleabag' due to how unkempt she was. But still, her parents didn't allow her to mix with local children or speak to them as they were "peasants".

I can appreciate both arty bohemian and minimalist brutally clean. I have a lovely friend who creates such a warm welcoming home she’s a serial mover partly due to financial circumstances but every house of hers has such a great feel to it. Even dc pick up on that from quite a young age both speak fondly of happy times at this particular friends house. Such a gift to have.

Good reading! I have enjoyed reading the later pages of this, and especially the discussions of aesthetics.

I just came across this in another context and it made me think of the original subject of this thread (apologies for the derail BTW).
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/19924031.readers-react-homes-brighton-named-dirtiest-uk/

I agree with you from every political and moral perspective, I really do. But I can’t force myself not to hate it on an aesthetic level, like I couldn’t force myself to eat cottage cheese without throwing up. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it. So I have trained myself to look away. And I’m being absolutely honest, this is not some horrific Hackney-style humblebrag 😂

Taken me a few days to finish the thread and I don’t want to be an arsehole, BUT, I reckon I’m allowed cos we are as far as I can tell, loosely from the same ilk.

When you say ‘no one would have ever come to East London’ that ‘no one’ is doing a lot of work. Hackney was not uninhabited in 1992. It just wasn’t inhabited by rich white people like it is now, (the ‘someones’ as it were) and it’s a bit horrible what’s happened to a lot of bits of London in the gentrification sense. So I don’t really think we get to hold onto our delicate aesthetic sensitivities about UPVC. I don’t like it either don’t get me wrong but maybe the UPVC belongs to one of the remaining few people who didn’t pay a million for their house and can’t afford to go conservation reno, or reno at all, so I think it’s a bit offensive to be upset about. Like, even anonymously or internally. I need to get over it, basically, is my approach. It’s not a special super aesthetic taste, it’s a bias and it’s not cool for me to have it, in the circumstances.

NAMALT = Not All Men Are Like That

@SerafinasGoose I am sorry you have had that experience. What's NAMALT?
I think people do get defensive of their own positions. Earlier in the thread, I was unreasonable about a reasonable post. I had misread the tone. I was pulled up on it , and rightly so. Sometimes judgement isn't intended and on the internet, you aren't seeing the facial cues or hearing the inflections that indicate the tone of the remarks, which is one of many reasons why internet discussions can be so heated.
But sometimes people are judgemental of those who make different choices to suit their own needs. It may be because they are insecure about their own decisions, or genuinely believe they are right, that there is one way to live, and there's is it.
I do think class has a relevance in this thread in the sense that perceptions of social status affect the way two people from different classes doing the same thing are perceived differently. It shouldn't be that way, but as people have pointed out, it still is. There IS a difference between how the sort of people the OP refers to are seen, versus the equivalent in the poorer sectors of society.
Yes, Arts and culture are for all, and part of that inclusivity is ensuring that one section of society does not dictate to another what arts and culture should look like to them. As you say (you sound a great teacher) it's lovely to read different perspectives on the same theme, which we only get by not seeing our own as definitively correct, not just for us, but for everyone else.
Every reader becomes an author when they read, because their own life experience is brought to their perception of the characters. One reason why readers may be disappointed by a film adaptation. It's not the book they read, it's the book someone else read. The same book, but not the same. The same with a painting, sculpture, similar visual art. The artist creates, the viewer views with a different life experience to the artist. It's the beauty of all art. It is still being created, sometimes hundreds of years later, just by the act of somebody new seeing it with their own life behind it.