What is the most wasted feature of your home?

[bb20038]

Bath tub only the shower part

I don’t think there is an inch of our flat that we don’t use but the garage is our weak spot. It is too small to put the family car in. On the other hand, we cannot really use it for storage as sometimes we have to put the other car in out of desperation (parking is terrible) and then the driver has to wiggle out of the very tight spot to exit!

This thread has inspired me to find out whether I could decode/unlock the keysafe that has been on the side of our house since we moved in over 10 years ago and estate agents didn't know the code. It took me maybe 5 minutes (it's a push-button one, not a wheel like others up thread) as it was tricky at first to discern the difference between the feel of the buttons, but I did it.
Feeling very proud now 😁

The piano.

I am currently contemplating getting rid of one of the radiators in the kitchen. DH reckons we need it but we are restructuring (knocking two rooms into one) and it would be expensive to relocate it. I don’t think we need it!

There is nothing sadder than a neglected piano. Go and play it immediately!

It makes you realise that they are not 'safe' at all.

It would seem that any thief who has access to YouTube can find out how to open one, maybe it's time to put the spare key back under the mat or flowerpot!

Large, cast iron framed Victorian conservatory. Freezing in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer, despite fitting sun shade blinds. Summer house in the garden, waste of money and is used to store junk.

Conservatory and garden.

Conservatory was built by the previous owners in (we think) 1991. It was probably the cheapest they could buy, and has not stood the test of time well. It's essentially a large sieve for the elements. Boiling in the summer, freezing in the winter. It's going to cost us tens of thousands to make it usable. Or replace. Or my preferred option, knock it down and extend the living room. It's now full of junk and my tumble dryer.

The garden is both the fault of the previous owners, and ourselves. Previous owners had built not one, but two large lean tos in the garden, bricked up the remaining area, and built a ramp down to the public path. That plus the conservatory meant there wasn't a lot of garden left. We ripped out the lean tos, and paved the area the larger lean to had been on. It felt like a good idea at the time, but now we have two small children. So now the garden feels like a death trap. Plus with brick and glass bordering the garden on three sides, zero shade from late morning to dusk, it's a literal oven in the summer.

I want to move, but we're going to be stuck here forever as DH doesn't want to.

Dh's study/studio. It's absolutely full of allotment-related clutter to the point where you can barely turn round in it. He works in there, from an eye-wateringly messy desk, but I just don't go in there because it's so messy I can barely breathe. We have my dad's beautiful piano in there but we can't play it because it has piles of boxes/planters/seed trays in front of it. DH has always loved gardening and I suggested getting an allotment so we'd have less of this stuff at home, but he's filled the allotment shed to the roof with cardboard (we're doing no-dig) and there's actually ten times more stuff here. It's also technically our spare room but we can't have anyone to stay because there's no space to pull out the sofa-bed. I shouldn't complain, though, because the allotment will feed us for most of the winter.

Bathtub in the en-suite as well as the main bathroom. It’s coming out in lieu of a large walk-in shower.

Our house was extended some time in the 70s we think and the living and dining rooms
knocked through, to make the kitchen bigger and square off the back of the house. It’s left a weird space about 2m square that’s open to the kitchen on one edge, the dining room on another and the door to the garden is on another side. The previous owners had a sofa against the wall facing into one end of the kitchen so I can’t imagine anyone actually sat there.
I am determined to think of a better layout for downstairs that will actually make use of the floor space instead of making every room feel like a corridor to somewhere else.

This is a really interesting thread. I do wonder if property programmes and Instagram have skewed our views of what is necessary in a house.... and how many extra years we have to work to pay for them!

We decided not to extend and to reconfigure the space to make in work better. You are all making me feel better about that and about not having a bath! I opted to keep the massive cupboard outside the bathroom instead of making it bigger.

We definitely use every bit of our three bed terrace but the summer house is probably a different story. It was great when the stupid layout meant I couldn't see the garden but now I can watch the kids with my feet up in the house I never go near it!

I do think the energy crisis will be changing how we use our houses and be interesting to see the new trends that come out of it.

😂😂😂

I am determined to think of a better layout for downstairs that will actually make use of the floor space instead of making every room feel like a corridor to somewhere else.

It's why I like the corridor here - despite DH family thinking it's dead space - we don't sit in it but frequently move through it and store coats and shoes. It means none of the rooms have to have walk through space and doors to room mean noise and heat and kept in a bit more.

IL took a similar set up out their hallway does lead to stairs but just one door to room have to walk through to get to kitchen and have knocked though two rooms to make one larger living/dinning one- but they have a brick side passage shared with neighbours they frequent use and often leave house via back kitchen door rather than front - which isn't an option here.

It worries me if it is so easy to get into a key safe - thinking of all the elderly people living alone with a key safe for carers to let themselves in.

I've just had a new kitchen put in and declined a cooker hood as I never used the one I had in my old house. It just gathered dust and took up room.

I don't really use the hob that much anyway so I thought it was an expense I could do without when planning the new kitchen.

**I've just had a new kitchen put in and declined a cooker hood as I never used the one I had in my old house. It just gathered dust and took up room.

I don't really use the hob that much anyway so I thought it was an expense I could do without when planning the new kitchen.**

Really? We use our hob and extractor hood 5+ times a day. I've never heard of someone not having and using one. I do wonder if a buyer would pick up on that as an issue in the future. Out of curiosity what do you cook / eat if you don't use your hob?

The view. My house is at the top of a hill and from the front you can see for miles and miles, right out to sea. Completely wasted by the layout, stairs and the smallest bedroom are at the front of the house, lounge looks out on north facing back garden. Had the same in my old house, again at the top of a hill with incredible sea views and tiny crappy windows at the front, total travesty.

@NewHouseNewMe

Ooo yes please! Where do I find you. Yes very broke hahah

I will also add our under stairs cupboard... not technically a wasted space completely as we store stuff in there but its ICE cold all year round.

I think it was the original pantry (what is now the livingroom which it joins would have been the kitched before it was extended) and its honestly colder than any refrigerater we have owned, it also has the gas meter in so has one of those breathing bricks with holes in that doesnt help.

I considered turning the space into an office (im sure previous people have too as its already carpeted, wallpapered, electrically wired up and has a fitted desk in) but you litrally can't stay in for more than a few minutes or you loose feeling in your extremities. Its not just shove a heater in or stick on a jumper cold its bitterly cold and bites at your skin.

So it just hold old boxes, a printed, some coats/shoes, the hoover etc... now.

We live over 15 miles inland but on a mountain so our old house upstairs bedroom use to have a view of the sea... I dont think we ever looked out at it though, we had blackout blinds that we kept shut mostly because we had a newborn who napped in there.

I would love a house with a beautiful view from the conservatory or something but I find a bedroom view pretty wasted.

Shrubbery.
Just never go down there.

Mumsnet.com/Talk/property and the thread is Extensions 2022. I will warn you that no-one graduates quickly 😬

Beautiful raised vegetable garden that I can't be fucked to put a garden into. Just not really into gardening. Ditto plum tree, lemon tree. Both unloved.

My neighbour had an entire wind turbine installed in their garden about 10 years ago. It never worked! I don't think it ever got turned on.

That wins, doesn't it?