Has your current house made you reconsider any interior wants/needs?

[caddywally]

Not the catchiest title, but have any of you really wanted a house with a certain feature ... until you actually live in a house with that feature and realise it's a pain in the arse?!

For me it's wooden floors - they're cold, I've had more than a few splinters in my feet, and I find carpets so much easier to keep looking clean. It seems no matter how much I clean, my floors always look tatty because of the old wooden floorboards. I wanted "character" before I moved into this house, but now I just want an almost clincal white/grey box that looks neat with minimal effort.

We were the opposite with the bathrooms. We had an upstairs bathroom and hated it. After having an apartment we thought we wanted the traditional house. You’d put the toddler to bed and then couldn’t shower as the noise would wake her up. Likewise having to drag the dog upstairs for a bath.

We’ve now moved into a house with a downstairs bathroom and upstairs toilet and my goodness it’s so much better. Muddy dogs go straight from outside into the bath, dirty children the same and we can shower without fear of waking up the house (husband works shifts so he showers odd times) the toilet upstairs is just a simple toilet if anyone needs to go in the night and so much better for us.

ILoveAnOwl Hopefully it'll all be worth it when the work is done. I think I'd go a bit crazy living somewhere that was always like a building site, but eventually it'll all be brand spanking new AND the rooms will be big.

Sammy867 I dream of a house with 2 toilets!

I've realised that I need a Georgian style house but new build so it doesn't have any of the draughts and other problems Georgian houses usually have. Our 70s house is incredibly ugly but very easy to live in. I am very glad that we ended up in this one and not the one which had had all of the living rooms knocked through.

Don't get an open plan, kitchen/diner/living room. It doesn't make for as quiet life. The washing machine and dishwasher can't be used until we've gone to bed. Plus, my teenagers clatter about On the kitchen when I'm trying to watch TV with my DP. We're looking to move next year 😶

A listed house. I ALWAYS wanted an old house and I love ours most of the time. But I hate that it's so expensive and takes ages to do anything. (Ours needs tons of work and though I knew it would be tricky I didnt totally realise the extent of it). And that everyone has an opinion on it (mother im looking at you-I like my bloody modern light fittings and that's the end of it).
We also have wood panels in our lounge which I love in winter and especially at Christmas-but in summer it's so dark and we never sit in there as a result.
I'm not sure I'd buy such an old house again...

We rent, usually for about 4-5 years at a time, so we've had a few occasions of moving into a new place, being excited about xyz, and subsequently realising it wasn't the dog's bollocks we thought it would be.

Off top of my head -
Last house - open plan kitchen/sitting room, with high ceiling in kitchen, it was much bigger than the apartment we'd moved out of. I was thrilled. Reality - sitting room stank of cooking dinner, kitchen part was so dark at night making whole space feel cold, kitchen ceiling was at roof height, so when rain hammered off the roof, we couldn't hear a thing in sitting room.

Current house has separate dining room - I planned elegant soirees. Reality - no utility room, so dining room now features a range of pants drying on clothes horses.

Storage! We have a lot of crap, and have never had enough built in storage. I wander round ikea making grand plans for when we have our own place. a skip would be a better plan

We bought our house with landscaped gardens.
Absolutely gorgeous, fruit trees, landscaped cultivated shaped lawns. Amazing flowers/plants/shrubs, established and stunning.
The gardens literally took over my life. Days off work were spent, morning noon and night trying to keep it tidy and looking so lovely.
All of my spare time was spent trying and failing to keep on top of them.
Previous owners were a retired couple who just did gardening ALL THE BLINKING TIME.
Obviously we have changed the gardens completely by extending the house and building a garage.

I had dark brown carpet tiles in my previous apartment, mostly because it was cheap. Dirt was hard to spot on that floor so I never knew if I had cleaned it up completely. Also it was like velcro for hair and fur. Not doing that again. Going with something that masks dirt, but doesn't hide it completely.

I lived across a stairwell that all the residents used so the door across from my apartment was opening and closing at all hours and it squeeked. My balcony was too small to comfortably place a chair on and it was all day in the shade. I perdiodically had to removed weeds growing from underneath the tiles.

Also it lacked privacy. My neighbors across from me could see into my appartment.

My current appartment has windows on three side where I can look out off without being seen. My balcony is still small, but goes around that corner and that offers enough room for a chair. Also I have sunlight on my balcony in the evening. I can also reach all of my windows now, whereas before I had one window that was impossible to reach and clean on the outside. It was always grimy.

Parking is also a big thing. This building has a bigger parking lot and I don't have to pay for a parking permit either.

After years of grotty badly fitted Lino in rented houses, I wanted nice tiled bathroom floors when we bought our house. We've had the en suite completely tiled in gorgeous big thick tiles. Looks lovely but it's bloody freezing! I will be looking at an alternative for the main bathroom floor! I do love my en suite though, more than I thought I would and I'd definitely hope to have one again if we moved.

Spent a year with a house with a swimming pool. A massive pain, so much maintenance for so little gain.

En suite. Totally overrated. Poo smells drift into the bedroom even with the door shut and window open.

I wouldn't get a new build again!
Much bigger kitchen!
No carpet in hall

Lots of things...

Open plan... Maybe fab for toddlers and primary school supervising homework etc. But teens and adults need separate space where you can have a chat, friends etc

Dining kitchen... friends all stand around getting in the way while you're trying to get food on the table and minimise smells and mess, never again!

Ensuite, would rather an extra family bathroom or loo at least. Woken in the night when DH gets up, and the smell as pp mentioned

Black granite kitchen worktops, look amazing but are an absolute pain to wipe and polish every fingerprint off.

My biggest bugbear is grouting between floor tiles. We have travertine , slate and terracotta in various rooms and the grouting always looks grubby.
Lack of a utility room for drying and airing clothes, dog stuff and a non food preparation sink. Our washing machine is in the downstairs loo but I have to dry clothes on airers in the kitchen if it is wet outside.
Lack of storage ... I feel as if I live in a junk shop most of the time.
I do love heated towel rails and wood burning stoves however !
And have developed a grudging liking for a downstairs shower as pp says, no need to wake the whole household if you work unsocial hours.
We have a holiday home with a serving hatch..., it's great! I would never have put it in. In my mind it was rather old fashioned , from an era of hostess trolleys, little pink frilly aprons and sweet sherry but it turns out that it is a real bonus for light, watching small people and joining in socially without the inconvenience of open plan.

We live in a lovely house but it has three bathrooms and a downstairs loo - so that’s two toilets each (ds still in nappies)

All that cleaning!!! Why so many bloody bathrooms???

I never thought that stairs leading off the lounge would bother me, but it did. Sold that house, bought another one with..... stairs leading off the lounge! However this house had the room to make a proper hallway with the stairs in there so all ok now.
Lived for years in my parents house with a downstairs bathroom, never bothered me then. Wouldn't have one now, unless there's a toilet upstairs.

Like @crosser62 the massive garden. It's lovely, but it is now my full time job. The previous owners had a full time gardener.

I love having the space, being outside and I do love plants BUT I can't help but think I'd have so much time if I didn't have so much garden.

Yy open plan, fine if it’s a kitchen/diner with separate living room but definitely a deal breaker if no separate space.
Also fully tiled bathrooms with heated towel rails are freezing, would never have again.
Also totally plain carpets, are stuff of nightmares show every single bits of fluff/ marks.

We live in an old listed building and yes the windows are draughty and the floor boards cold.

Upstairs is carpeted and it's always warm, downstairs isn't. When we moved in I realised very quickly the floor boards being bare was a no go, dust coming up from the cellar, and they were cold and hard to walk on. So I put a huge rug down. When we bought we were both in awe of the floor. Sigh. We were quickly put right on that score.

Logically I know I could cover them up, but they are original oak, and everyone says " ffs, you can't cover that, it's beautiful", even the friggen guy I got to quote for kardean in a fit of " I need to sort this" walked in, his jaw dropped open and he said "you can't seriously want to cover that floor up".

So now I am bowing to the weight of folks judgement and still have a cold downstairs. Yes it's beautiful, but it's cold. COLD.

Yy. period front door, it’s very pretty the colours in the glass are beautiful, but you might as well leave it open it’s an ornament, not a door that keeps out the cold/draughts.

I may need to reconsider the wooden floors and knocking a wall down to make an open plan kitchen/diner then...

Actually no! I Things need done to it, (it’s very old) but that’s not your question. I would like a new kitchen, but it’s fine as it is. stripped the original floor boards and no splinters for me - yay!

Only a downstairs bathroom, which I worried would be annoying but it isn’t.

On reflection, thanks for the thread as I have just realised that how happy I am with the house. Maybe, for me, it’s the perfect house 😊

I don't get the heated towel rail appeal, yes it warms the towel but not the room so if you're in there just for the loo then it's freezing.
We've got them in 2 of the 3 bathrooms and in the winter when the heating is on I only use the one with the radiator because it has warm towels and warm air.

Also hated the black gloss worktop in the kitchen, it was impossible to keep looking clean.

I've renovated my house so I've designed in most of what I wanted but I messed up on the kitchen - I need power on the island! (I told the builder I didn't, big mistake) I also wish I had paid the extra for bifold doors, sensible head cut them from the plans when we had overruns, and actually, the garden is way too big, even though we build 40 sq metres in it. Otherwise the house is fine. Ps how do you get splinters off floors, just sand them then oil