Is this what you’d consider to be a ‘middle class’ style house?

This would probably break that poster.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/169545983?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=commercial-buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=COM_BUY

The book thing is nonsense. We’ve all had Kindles for the last 15 years!

I like the pic 34 book nook.

Yeah the book thing is nonsense, it’s an old stereotype; like old money wearing old clothes and driving beat up cars. Life isn’t a jilly cooper novel. The middle classes read on iPads or kindles. It’s lower working class who are more likely to have paperbacks, and upper middle class now, with libraries. Books are not something people have cluttering their homes now, if they can afford it, it’s done electronically. Sure some middle class do, but its not the norm any more.

we are solidly middle class. In a much grander house than the op is asking about and we do have books, a few hardbacks on the coffee table, that are browsed, biographies etc, and we have books , in a closed cupboard, we wish to keep, they aren’t displayed, generally reading is done electronically, and it’s the same for all our friends.

maybe but now the same highly successful professionals can not necessarily afford a middle class lifestyle. So what is even middle class you can go to private school on a scholarship for example.

also the thing about books is a bit daft imo because this is from before the internet and computer as a way to get knowledge and be educated. But you don’t need books to be educated now. Having a house full of fiction novels is not a marker of being middle class imo.

That’s just such a lot of rubbish. I have always lived an entirely middle class entity. We don’t have book cases, I have all my books on my kindle as do my kids. I don’t have a piano - the children have guitars and drum kits in their bedrooms. No clarinets, no flutes and our art is modern (and expensive) and we do have art from where we have travelled.

we are highly successful professionals, 3rd gen uni grads, I never set foot in a state school as a child. Am I not middle class?

I live in an expensive area. This would be around one million, maybe more. I would say firmly middle class I suppose but I don't really think middle class is to do with house value exactly.

I live in an expensive area. This would be around one million, maybe more. I would say firmly middle class I suppose but I don't really think middle class is to do with house value exactly.

The responses do seem to write themselves but to me they are along the lines of:

MC people read books, travel to interesting places, hang good art on their walls, are interested in history.

WC people are crass yobs who don't read, don't know anything about history, put "laugh live love" signs on their walls and love nothing better than sitting in a hot tub.

The out-loud ignorance and prejudice is almost funny.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166723985

Here's a house for sale that is undoubtedly not middle class. 14th century, Grade 1 listed and in the same family for 700 years. I note it both has an island in the kitchen and whilst the featured rooms are certainly tidy, there are books in the bookcases. And I'd lay money on the furniture being 'vendor's own' not supplied by the estate agent. Sadly we don't get photos of the domestic offices so can't form a view from presence or absence dog beds, or an ironing pile.

I don't think the £44m Belgravia house works well as an illustration of the UK property market any more than Ripley Castle does. It's almost certainly not anyone's home and won't be bought as a home either- it'll be be an investment for a ridiculously rich international buyer and no doubt was dressed/curated/feng shuied before launch- because this kind of property market is different from mainstream residential sales. But that's not how it will have worked for a middle-income house in Derbyshire, except that this one might have been a furnished rental property hence bland interiors and lack of personal touches.

Because this is Mumsnet, the responses almost write themselves. Q: Is this what you would consider a middle class style house? Those who consider their own home superior (in whatever way) describe it as WC or LMC. Those who think it's better than theirs judge it as MC or UMC. And then everyone has to retrofit their reasoning, which generally comes down to intangibles such as taste and evidence of travels, cultural capital etc.

A kindle tbh.

Rubbish.

I’m not sure that’s true any more. On the books, I think it’s an old trope people struggle to move away from. With electronic reading, books are no longer the hall mark of the middle class. I’d say it’s more working class, paperback novels, dvd players etc.

upper class sure fhey have libraries, but of all the middle class families I know, and it’s many, from solid old money upper middle to the sort of doctor lawyer type, none of their homes are stuff with books. I think it’s an image thay people have, like all French women are slim and stylish and far from reality.

Agree with Bohemianrhapsody, a truly middle class house would have piles of books, and overstuffed book cases, interesting rather than generic art on the walls, possibly a piano or other musical instrument lying around, fresh flowers and houseplants, this is all very grey and bland and suburban. I mean it's perfectly pleasant, and looks like it's been well maintained, but I wouldnt say it was a reflection of a typical middle class family. More working class made good. God, it all sounds so snobbish written down, and I really don't mean it to be, sorry!

Well aren't you rude. 'The sort of person?'
Actually I'm above middle class and I don't give a stuff about paint colours. My staff do that.

Try not to insult other women with your acid tongue. It's not good manners.

You're contradicting yourself. On the one hand you say that houses should be emptied of books because buyers would struggle to imagine it being their own home otherwise. On the other, if somebody cannot imagine their own possessions in an empty space they lack imagination. Does imagination only work one way then, to add rather than remove?

If that's the case then hopefully you won't want to be selling your house ever. Because if buyers are put off by the sight of mere possessions, they're going to have a real issue with the prospect of ripping out dog baths.

At the end of the day the US and UK markets are very different in many ways. This is an example of how a MC UK home should be "styled" for the market https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/174610352#/?channel=RES_BUY

In parts of West London it'd be a multi millionaires house, other places not so much

You're literally the person making the argument that all houses should be emptied out and staged as neutrally as possible in order to sell them, which is fundamentally at odds with what you've just posted. You're also kind of rude.

By the way, we have a library. If we took all the books out it would look very odd, indeed. And I've never had a problem selling a house.

Well then, you sound like the sort of person who’d pass on their dream home because they don’t like the paint color, which says more about your lack of imagination than anything else. If you were as well off as you claim, you’d know that bookshelves—or literally anything else you might want—can be added. I show my dogs and wanted a house with a proper grooming room and built-in dog baths. Obviously I couldn’t find one like that so I added it myself.

So what is recommended if you're looking to house 1000 books in your new home?
Fwiw I don't buy houses without bookcases or somewhere to put them. It's called a library wall. Don't get me started on colour blocking them either, my author mother would turn in her grave!
And yes I have owned multiple £1m houses in my time @pinck

The English do love their books, tat and bone shaker Agas!

I just found it amusingly ironic.

You are using AI to write your posts. There are several unmistakable signs. I'd bet my very small house and my DFS sofa on it.

"You're a bot" is the absolute bottom of the barrel when you've run out of actual arguments. And let's be real: books aren't clutter in a home, but they absolutely are when you're trying to sell your house. Buyers want a blank canvas, not to stare at your personal collection of dust-gathering paperbacks. If you want to sell, clear your shit out. HTH.

Oh, don't worry, there's a simple algorithm: if your walls aren't lined with books you’ve clearly never read and you’re branded a "footballer’s wife."