Is the interior of your house ‘up to date’ and well maintained?

[TheSunShinesBright]

Or is it like mine and a bit rough?
Old kitchen, carpets need replacing, rooms need redecorating...

I’m looking on right move and most houses look like show homes and seem to have brand new kitchens, bathrooms and wallpaper in every room...

I’m starting to think I’m living in a dump.
The walls/ floors are neutral and I have nice furniture but The actual fixtures and fittings are tired. Anyone else?

My living room floor needs replacing (puppy!) but the rest looks okish. Bathroom is being replaced this year (100% needed, I have no idea how old it is) but we definitely have scruffy doors, door frames and skirting boards. They need painting but i kind of block them out….
We have some painting on the outside of the house to do too.

Absolutely not!

I don’t even know what ‘up to date’ means. We have all the usual stuff, and it all works fine, but the dishwasher, TV, cooker etc are certainly not the very latest top-of-the-range models. If the phrase refers to decor & fashion, then definitely not. I don’t even know what the current fashion is, never mind following it.

@Moonshine11

We decorate every year, I keep main theme of the colour scheme the same just freshen up but change feature walls. Woodwork gets done yearly too! Luckily I have a DP who does it all

Surely that takes weeks?

After surviving lockdown, lockdown and lockdown, my house is now looking like me - past it's prime, but generally ok in soft lighting.

We've started the revamp but there's a long way to go. Now life is opening up again I don't want to spend entire weekends doing diy!

@Moonshine11

We decorate every year, I keep main theme of the colour scheme the same just freshen up but change feature walls. Woodwork gets done yearly too! Luckily I have a DP who does it all

God how wasteful! Environmentally and time!!

My house is immaculate and designed (to my taste) to the tiniest detail. It's my hobby. Always has been. And I was so lucky we did a big renovation and extension only 2 yrs ago so I got to do every room pretty much from scratch. I adore my house and it gives us so much pleasure.

When I bought my flat 2 years ago everything was a mess. I'm working through project by project. So far I've done the windows and bathroom and I've decorated nearly everywhere. Left to go is painting the spare room, kitchen and flooring. All in good time!

I do think that people are a bit obsessed with Instagram worthy homes. At the and of the day if everything functions as it should and you're comfy and cosy, why does it matter that things are a bit dated?

We bought our house almost 5 years ago. An old Victorian house. So far decorated 3 rooms (in fairness, they’ve been done to a high standard). The bathrooms were already lovely when we moved in. But still to decorate the kitchen, utility. hall and 4 more rooms... oh and the old lean to conservatory: all of these rooms look like they’ve not been touched since the 90s. (Possibly the 80s for the kitchen.
Mind you, we don’t have the time, money or energy yet to get on with it all. Lockdown wasn’t a lazy time for us: both wfh, studying for professional exams and homeschooling a high maintenance child. So just now, when I’ve got free time I have my nose in a book, relaxing

In short, no.
Took us a year from moving In but we re decorated, new flooring, sorted out window frames, new kitchen. Changed all of the 90s draws door handles and light fittings and switches too.
That sort of stuff bugs me so I didn't want to do it 2 weeks before selling up again, I want to enjoy this place whilst we live in it.

If it's not important to you then don't worry about it !!!

Not at all. Could do with a lock if paint and new sofas. We’ve got 2-3 years left to go on the mortgage, we’ll address the rest then.

@prettyvisitor

No, it's shit. We had a lot done within the first couple of years, new kitchen, windows, bathrooms etc, but now it all looks tired and we are debating whether to sell as is and just buy something better, or commit to staying a few years but we have very different ideas about spending money. DH is only happy replacing things when they've broken 🙄

Yes. My ‘D’H thinks the same way. Either I end up paying for everything myself or we have a ‘discussion’. I believe he genuinely doesn’t notice. He’s quite happy with the way things are.

When I was house hunting, the pictures of rooms were very deceiving. They don’t show up the black damp patches, scruffy wallpaper etc etc.

Eventually I found a beautiful grade 2 listed cottage in very good order, @1800 so has beamed ceilings and inglenook fireplaces, original slate floors, so you can’t get much more dated than that 😂

I’ve furnished it with antique furniture such as chaise longues, davenport desk, IKEA items is definitely out. So it’ll stay dated and in the past. After all, I can’t change it, and wouldn’t want to. A lick of paint is all it’ll get 😊

Moved in last summer and currently have a gaping hole where we ripped out the hideous 1970s gas fire, textured 80s wallpaper in every room, 2 layers of Lino badly stuck down over a lumpy mixture of original tiles and badly poured concrete in the kitchen, nice smeg cooker from previous house balanced on a bit of scaffolding board where the floor’s uneven, falling down porch at the back, geriatric boiler, artex ceiling in the kitchen, and stuff still in boxes where we plan to build in storage but haven’t yet.

It’s hideous but like others, we’d rather do stuff slowly and have a little bit of money for the odd take away/family day out than throw all our time and money at the house and lose out on family time and fun. It’s warm, dry and safe so everything else can happen when it happens.

I will be so, so glad when it looks nicer though. Does get me down.

I’ve just taken pictures of each room. The photos make it look lovely. The camera doesn’t pick up the chipped woodwork, uneven, scuffed walls, damp patch from leaking bath, worn carpets and the fact that the kitchen is falling apart

And that's why everything looks so good on Rightmove!
Honestly, we viewed a HUGE number of properties when moving. I'm embarrassed to say how many. Seriously, Rightmove pictures are not an accurate representation. The camera never lies eh? Perhaps most of the time it doesn't because it's saving all its lies up to tell Rightmove Whoppers

Our decorations are around 20 years old, kitchen is 25. If we keep everything long enough it will come back into fashion no doubt.

Don't believe in changing things just for the sake of it.

When our youngest moves out we may redecorate hall stairs & landing but not much point before then.

I keep telling myself, "I just need to hire an enormous skip," then realise, no need to hire, I actually live inside the skip.
I actually am developing house rage. It's stressful, living in a dump that DH is perfectly fine in. Our crumbling kitchen was last renovated in the '90s. It's being held together by cobwebs, mouse droppings, a Zimmer frame, and the vague memories of the Blur/Oasis rivalry, I am sure.
I'm married to Miss Havisham. DH is a collector of medical antiques. Never marry a collector. It's glorified hoarding.

@SheepyToaster Nope, DPs in the trade so it doesn’t take long.

@Littlefluffyclouds13 I’m sure what we buy doesn’t make a serious effect on the environment 😂
Regarding time, DP is in trade so he’s quick.

TheVanguardSix

Ours is a mixture. We had a new kitchen three years ago so that still looks great. On the other hand the spare room is getting a bit shabby (last redecorated 13 or 14 years ago). The other rooms are on a sliding scale in between. This summer we're planning to do up one of the bathrooms.

DH is really good at keeping on top of maintenance type issues though. And I'm a declutterer not a hoarder.

@Moonshine11

We decorate every year, I keep main theme of the colour scheme the same just freshen up but change feature walls. Woodwork gets done yearly too! Luckily I have a DP who does it all

Every year - bloody hell!

@Musmerian I know, from this thread it’s made me think 😂 but guess because DP is in the trade he can get through it quick.
Would probably be a lot different if he wasn’t.

Mine is also "in need of attention" peeling wallpaper in 1 room, bare plaster in the kitchen. Carpets needing replacing in the front room. I can just about manage as a single mother, I don't yet have the money for this stuff.

Ours has just gone on the market and the photos make the house look fab. Major things that we did though to prepare was a major declutter, we got rid of a skip full of stuff, and packed a lot of personal belongings in to storage. Our house is v small so we had to really work on minimising belongings that were out to show off the proportions of the room to their best.

It now looks like we only keep a select few ornaments on our shelves, where as before they were packed full of normal day to day stuff.

We positioned furniture to maximise the space, not how we generally had it, and made sure the windows were sparkling clean. Jet washing the front and back paving also made a huge difference, as did getting the kitchen floor tiles deep cleaned.

The only actual decorating we did was reglossing the downstairs woodwork and a new carpet in the living room, we have dogs and those areas looked particularly worn out and grubby.

It worked, we had an above asking price offer within 2 days of going live.

We moved in January to a house built in the late 90s (I call it a new build as we came from an 1880 property) it hadn't been touched since it was built other than a lick of paint on the walls.

We have done the bedrooms and the bathroom. I am desperate for the kitchen to be done as it is hideous and the cupboards are peeling and falling apart. Can't afford that yet so saving to get it done. The living areas are next as that is decoration and flooring only.

We probably decorate every 5 years or so.

We’ve been in our house for 7 years and have very slowly been doing one room at a time.

I’m the only one that does any decorating / tidying / maintaining so it feels like we’re never going to get on top of it and finish the house.