Ruining traditional houses should be illegal?

It’s not even unreasonable - do people not like art? Some of this stuff IS art work

Yeah, I think some things should be preserved because they “look pretty”. What a bizarre take.

YANBU. I get so annoyed about this. If you want a new house then buy a new house! Don’t buy a Georgian one and rip out stunning features or tear down walls that have stood for 200 years.

It infuriates me that even if a property is listed you can still often take down internal walls and totally change the back and interior. It shows no respect for the heritage of the property and leaves no houses from 100 years ago with their original footprint, especially nowadays everyone wants a kitchen that looks like a science lab. It really drives me nuts.

What a depressing post. It’s not just about reminding you that people used to need to labour to heat their homes - this is just a bizarre take. It’s about character, the work that went into producing these pieces which are beautiful as well as functional. Your poor house

Homes are for living in. And that means they need to adapt with how people want to live and what their preferences are. Fireplaces and sash windows and wooden floorboards had a use when these properties were built and we didn’t have any superior building materials and methods of heating and insulation, but what end to preserving outdated technology and materials simply because “looks pretty”? I removed our fireplaces when we remodelled because I live in the twenty first century, I don’t need a reminder that decades ago heating the house used to be dirty and difficult and laborious. Few people in period homes opt to restore their kitchen or bathroom to how it would have looked or functioned when the property was built, or consider if vandalism that they were changed, they recognise that times have moved on, why should other features be fetishised?

It’s really not that hard to understand. Across the country, there are million of Victorian and Edwardian homes. Just in my part of London, there are thousands of streets of Victorian terraces. They are attractive to buyers because of the location, which is often close to transport links. They often sit on larger plots than more modern houses, and tend to have more generous proportions than new built But they were built at a time when (1) insulation and heating were crap - insulation in our house was literally bunched up old newspaper; (2) the kitchen was a tiny space, not for entertainment, and cooking was not considered pleasurable (3) there was no tv and no living rooms - the “parlour” was a small, formal space not meant to be used in day to day life, only when receiving callers (4) hygiene was an afterthought- toilets in the garden a bath once a week. Naturally these houses don’t correspond to ideal modern living conditions. I agree with the PP who mentioned fetichism of old buildings. Just because it’s old doesn’t make it worth embalming. Yes it’s a pity that sometimes features are removed, but there is no shortage of unmodernised homes in this country. Whereas I would argue there is a shortage of houses with good windows and insulation, underfloor heating, solar panels, equal sized bedrooms, properly sized living rooms etc.

I really agree with you, OP. I live in a road of mostly large Victorian houses and ours is now the only one left in this part of the road that hasn’t been butchered. Our neighbours recently moved and the new owners are in the process of ripping out all the internal walls downstairs and adding a featureless box on the back. We’re in the process of moving and have seen lots of newer houses that are open plan by design, but a huge proportion of the older houses we’ve seen have been turned into featureless boxes. We’ve commented to agents when we’ve seen lovely old houses that still have lots of separate rooms and original features thst it’s really nice to see houses that haven’t had all their character ripped out, and every agent has said ‘that’s what everyone says’. I don’t understand why people do this to old houses - why don’t they buy more modern houses that are built as open plan or buy houses that are the right size for them rather than spending another £200,000 on extending and ruining a lovely period property.

Yes that’s the thing - your vinyl wrapped marble effect kitchen worktop won’t be around in 100 years time (apart from in landfill) but old things were made to last. They are better quality, more solid, real.

Plus there are a million grey and white new build homes - leave the nice old ones for those of us who actually appreciate them!

I’m not talking about wallpaper choice, but actual quality features. Good wood, stained glass, handcrafted stuff. There’s a difference between modernising, updating, and trashing.

Good grief!

She said "older".

Edwardian houses could be 130 years old. Not exactly a Barratt Home.

OP hasn't said they did it to be better insulated? Replacing original features doesn't make it warmer!

They are clearly idiots with no appreciation for heritage. It will devalue the property in the long term.

I agree that removing the original features is cultural vandalism and also really bloody stupid from a resale perspective. That said I can’t see how it can possibly be made illegal and in fairness, houses are for living in.

One of my biggest bugbears is people removing their front garden by demolishing the wall, paving over it, and then using it to park multiple cars. Ruins the look of the house and the whole street scene. That said, maybe I’m talking from a privileged position in that I’ve got a driveway that’s big enough.

OP do you know how good the fabric of the building was. If it wasn’t good maybe it was more expensive to restore. Also if the place is better insulated it will be cheaper. As long as a few houses are preserved through listing, I think there should be quite a lot of leeway. A house is a place for that family to live in. Maybe the location and price were just right?

The Victorians were the OG knock-em-up-and-flog-em identikit developers. There were probably people moaning then that streets of matching properties was soulless.

I personally like Victorian features but c 13% of UK housing stock is from the Victorian era. We are not going to run out of them any time soon.

I live in a conservation area. You need planning permission to replace even like for like windows yet people can paint their houses any hideous colour without it.

My parents’ old house was an old cottage, albeit quite a good sized one. The new owners added beams, where there previously hadn’t been any, so presumably trying to make it look older. But then put a high gloss very modern kitchen in and dreadful grey cladding on the outside of the house. Bizarre choices to me, but I don’t have to live in it! Although I do wince at the cladding when driving past!!

YABVU. Of course it is sad to see period features removed from old houses, but really, making it illegal is just ridiculous. You can't have something made illegal just because you don't like it. 😂

Edwardian houses are not old. Not in the context of the U.K.

No not yet, but they will be one day and if none are protected then all could potentially disappear forever.

Agree OP, such a shame to remove period features. Houses are also ruined when they become HMOs and the layout is also ruined. Destroying a beautiful room to make it two soulless bedrooms.

I really dislike this too. Up to them I suppose but still makes me shudder when I see it on Rightmove while browsing houses I can’t afford

I don’t think it should be illegal, but I agree it’s a shame when people do this. I don’t understand why people bother buying period homes, and then remove the period features.

It didn’t lose its personality though, it lost your dad’s personality. No one wants to live in a relic of a previous owner.

It’s not listed so it’s not of particular historical note. People have always changed their homes, it’s not a new phenomenon. Lots of features were ripped out in the 70s, different things added in the 80s, ugly pvc window in the 90s. It’s not new.

At the end of the day a person can do whatever they want to their home, it’s their taste that matters not yours. I can’t stand people who think they have a higher opinion than anyone around them.

My dad built a really characterful house. After we sold up, a couple gutted it and painted it grey. All the features, the woodwork, torn out. Beautiful things we left because they were “part of the house”, all trashed. Such a pity. Don’t get me wrong, they rearranged a few things that worked really well, but it lost all personality- all maturity. Even the garden. They dug everything out and replaced it with new, small shrubs groomed to within an inch of their lives. Totally soulless.

I think many materials were objectively better. E.g. quality and strength of timber 100 years ago vs the same type of timber today is generally much better.

So ripping out some things, to replace with inferior products is simply short-sighted.

However, that is why I bought a listed house. As much as it is not to my taste, your house, your choice does apply (outside of the listed status).