New build remorsers- unite!

[GunpowderGelatine]

It's taking me a lot to confess what I'm about to confess and I don't like feeling this way, but...my name is GunpowderGelatine and I hate my new build house.

Yes this is a massive first world problem. Sorry, but I am wondering if others have the same buyers remorse.

At the time we bought it seemed to tick all the boxes - good size garden, enough bedrooms, conservatory, detached, utility room, downstairs loo etc. It was new in that it was only 2 years old. The original owners had heath issues and had to move. But I wish we'd been brave and gone for an old house. I think Brit's are sold a lie about new builds though!

How do I loathe thee new build? Let me count the reasons:

1. Everything is square and beige. The walls, the bath, the sink, the kitchen cupboards, everything. Even when we paint and wallpaper in colours it somehow looks boring and bland.

1. No charming features or intricate details. Just boringness

1. The walls may as well be made from tissue paper. If I'm downstairs at one end of the house I can hear people having a wee in the bathroom at the other end of the house and up the stairs. Not great with small kids!

1. En suites. Who'd want one?! It's basically a tiny loo in your bedroom and you can't really use the shower if one of you is asleep as it's so disruptive and noisy because of point 3 above.

1. The street is like some zoetrope, every bland house looks the same as the one next to it, it is Stepford Street.

1. Wonky bloody garden. All the houses have one, so if it rains we get the water trickling from next door, and down into the other next doors garden. We've spent a small fortune getting draining installed in the (bland) garden but it's still boggy as hell in heavy rain.

1. Whilst we have a good gap to the adjacent houses, in the back garden we are overlooked by about 6 homes. Not very private, no doubt in an effort by the developers to cram as many homes in as possible.

1. The numbers aren't odd on one side and even on the other, in fact they aren't even in any sort of order. Say we are no 44, next door and round the corner a bit is number 73. So anyone coming round for the first time gets sent on a wild goose chase

I was watching some property show the other day and the Georgian style house they featured looked amazing, with all the quirks and original features, funny shaped rooms and huge staircases, they were stunning. The garden looked flat and a decent size and very private. Am I alone on regretting buying a new build? I want to move 😫

I didn't mean for this to sound like a stealth boast I promise I do really hate my house!

Ugh we are the same! I can hear my neighbour turn over in bed as the mattress creaks! If I am downstairs I can hear dh in the bathroom above me! Awful! Also we have an odd shaped garden.

Having said that it is super easy to clean and everything looks very neat and new. That's the only positive I can think of.

Oh and just to add as ours was built much later that the top half of the street, you turn left and to top of rd to get to say number 28 and turn right and down the street to get to number 30. No one ever knows where to find us!

Urgh. Must say it doesn’t sound appealing.

Still, if it makes you feel better a friend bought a new build backing onto train tracks. Cue frequent high speed trains thundering past 🤦‍♀️

You get used to trains though. I quite like them.

Yes!!! I hate the paper thin plaster walls. I can’t put up loo roll holders without them eventually chiselling away the plaster and falling out. There is no storage and the rooms are small.

You’ve all chosen the wrong builder and the wrong house.

I love mine.. I’m looking at my dark blue kitchen cupboards now.

Would it look totally ridiculous if you put in some clever features?

I'm thinking picture rails, coving, cornices, ceiling roses?

My Victorian house was modernised (by a couple into 80s throwbacks, apparently ) so we're working on restoring a bit of the character. Fortunately they left the lovely fireplace intact, and did some smart things too.

There are only a very few newbuild houses in our area due to conservation rules, and even though they're new, they're modelled on Victorian houses.

We live in an 18th Century farmhouse. At the very last minute, it looked like the sale may fall through, so ww looked at a new build.
On the face of it, it was okay.
I sent dh upstairs and told him to have a chat to himself. I could hear every word, at that point we beat a hasty retreat.
Now I live in a money pit, not sure what is worse.

I live in a Georgian flat and i can clearly hear my next door neighbour who is in an entirely different building to me.

Can you convert the en suite in to a walk in wardrobe?

The vast majority of British New builds a horrendous (speaking as a previous new build owner). Low ceilings, tissue paper walls, poor drainage (our entire estate turned into a bog the winter before we sold), lack of trees, footpaths on only one side of the road, overinsulated. It’s downright depressing. Currently living my best life in a poorly maintain draughty Georgian flat. I love it.

Grass is greener and all that... we chose our leaky, cold, single glazed Victorian semi over a new build and I kick my own arse every day. Period features count for shit when everything is leaking and the roof needs replacing and there's nowhere to park and it never looks clean or neat even when it's freshly decorated. I hate it.

We walked around a new build house before it was fully finished and vowed never to buy one. The electrics were all still exposed as the walls were not fully finished . Holes just punched through for wires, not cleanly cut ( looked like a hammer job )
My bil works for a plumbing / bathroom wholesaler and the radiators,bathrooms,kitchens purchased wholesale are extremely cheap for new builds.

We bought a very renovated house that had had the heart ripped out of it. It looked like a new build.

We massively improved it with

Lights from Jim Lawrence
Interesting curtains and blinds
New door handles on room doors and kitchen cupboards
New curtain poles
1920s ish brass plant pots and that sort of thing
Pictures in old/antique frames

Etc etc. It’s all the little bits that you don’t notice that add to the feel I think.

Our previous house was a new build and was perfect, and we swore we'd never have anything other than a new build in the future.
When job move meant moving house we looked at old and new and ended up buying present house when it was little more than a set of foundations.
Big mistake.
Our previous house was built by a quality company, the builder of this one did the basics and didn't care about the finish. Cheapskate

Doesn't sound great, you have my sympathy.

If it helps, we are in a Georgian house and issues include:

• it's freezing, properly cold and very hard to heat
• it needs a new roof and new windows
• all the windows are single glazed so no noise or heat insulation
• it's a money pit, everything has to be specialist/bespoke/expensive: door hinges, shutter hinges, door sizes, light switches, paints, windows
• everything is wonky: my tv is at an angle, our sofa leans, there is a valley rather than a flat floor in the bathroom
• did I mention the cold?

I was in a terrace, could hear next door sneeze. Now in an end new build and I've never heard my neighbours. The house is fricken tiny though

Lived in one a couple of years ago and agree with everything you say.

Thin walls.
Noisy.
Small bedrooms just to cram an extra one in.

They are not a good buy.

I hate me new build house with a passion too.
I moved from a solid 1930s house, to a noisy, square, bland house.
All three of my toilets have cheap 'guts' and all three have broken at the same time. These are not easy to fix as the builders went for these wanky concealed cisterns.

If I accidently brush the wall with the Hoover pipe, there's a dent in the plaster.
The curtain poles fall off of the walls as they've used the thinnest, cheapest plaster board and even when using the correct plaster board fixings, they're just not man enough for the job.
And don't get me started on the cheap high gloss kitchen.

I so want to move