to think that unless you spend £££, houses in the UK are not very functional??

[PussinJimmyChoos]

Seriously...what is it with houses in this bloody country (and yes, I am English!)...they are so NOT designed for family life....poxy pokey 3rd bedrooms, kitchens you can't swing a cat in, only one bathroom in most houses and no space for entertaining....

It pisses me off!! Struggling with space in our house atm and just thinking that if a bit more thought went into the design of it, it wouldn't be as much of an issue

And why are so many new builds so small?!!!!

I have an outside loo. I have just bought what is known as a 'project'. I have never used it (brrruggghhh). Though my DH HAS. Dirty fekker.

Roll-on builders...

florencerose we live in Hampshire, on the South Coast. It's not a posh area at all but we have the sea on one side (pebble beach a mile away), the Meon Valley on the other side and are fairly close to Portsmouth, Southampton, Chichester, Winchester etc.

The downside to our house is that the older part of the house (that hasn't been extended) has very few power sockets - our large lounge has just 2 double sockets, both at one end of the room. There are none in the hall or on the landing. So when we redecorate the lounge we need to put in more sockets.

Older houses weren't designed with 21st century living in mind so if you're wanting more mod cons eg double glazing, more power points, better electrics etc then it costs.

I mean, honestly, the shower is not a new or expensive invention. Even off a mains, they are efficient to run and plumb. Ditto mixer taps. I've been in many rather not so nice hotels and flats in not so nice places on the Continent and in other nations, the type where you slept in your own sleeping bag and pillow because of bugs, and, well, there were showers and mixer taps and even bidets.

I don't understand.

It's 2010.

My niece has just acquired a new-build. It has walls the width of a paper towel. Every room is tiny. The square footage would be about the same size as an average double garage. There is no shower, not enough room in the kitchen to eat and a garden the size of an average to large hankerchief. It cost around £400k. Absurd.

I'm not sure that houses in England are that much worse than any where else. We moved from the UK to New York and then to Canada, and whilst houses are different, that just means that the issues are different IMO. So my complaints might be more about why the plumbing is so weak (loos get blocked way more frequently); why washing machines, whilst vast aren't very good at actually getting clothes clean (plus they are always in some poky cupboard with no light and no room to sort after cleaning); why heating systems are all warm air, which you can't control room by room and where your upstairs is always much warmer than your downstairs (where the heating vents are in the ceiling, so surprise surprise don't really work at keeping the room warm, what with hot air rising); why houses are always built into the ground, so that they are dark and dank downstairs; and more I could probably think of if I tried.

I've yet to move into a house and not start to imagine redesigning it within months.

You know, what a lot of people seem to be complaining about is that unmodernised houses are unmodernised. I live in a 120 year old house. I've mixer taps on every basin, 2 bathrooms for 4 beds, underfloor heating in the extended kitchen, radiators in every room, cat6 cabling throughout etc. There is a basement that the washing machine (and dryer when we get one) is in.

Oh and a shower in each bathroom and enough pressure and hot water to run them both at once.

"I think hygiene seems to come down low on house designing in the UK....I mean it wasn't that long ago that baths were off of the kitchen and some loos were outside!"

- no, not that long ago if you consider 100 + years ago to be recent in terms of housebuilding

Not that long ago - I vaguely remember the excitement when my gran had her bathroom installed, and I am only 30.

Wukter - not into a new house/flat though. Outside plumbing would only have been in old houses that the owners hadn't modernised.

'You know, what a lot of people seem to be complaining about is that unmodernised houses are unmodernised. I live in a 120 year old house. I've mixer taps on every basin, 2 bathrooms for 4 beds, underfloor heating in the extended kitchen, radiators in every room, cat6 cabling throughout etc. There is a basement that the washing machine (and dryer when we get one) is in.'

Yes, and for all this it is ££££. Hence, the thread title. Without £££, you can expect a backwards, delapidated piece of shite unless you're lucky enough to score an ex-council that is hopefully all bought out no chance of neighbours like the ones we've had.

Old houses can be very lovely. If they are modernised. That doesn't come cheap, especially not here.

Housing is expensive - [shock!]

And tenancy laws are shite .

True, the Coalition.
Just shows the difference in standards though in 25 years.

Don't get me started on windowless, paperwalled ensuites. Real bloody passionkillers, they are.

I'm moving to where Sidge lives

High house prices benefit such a tiny sector of the population (basically those downsizing considerably only) that's what needs to change
though it wont solve the problem of new builds not fit for purpose they will at least be cheap new builds

I'm always moaning about lack of cupboards but then I remember that I live in a victorian flat and not a posh one. No bugger would have had anything to store!

I think one of the peculiarities of the uk housing market is the fact that developers make the law.
in most other countries (at least the other countries I have lived in) houses are mostly build by the people themselves.
they (the developers) of course want to make as big a profit as possible by squeezing in as many units as they can. and of course they oppose minimun standards by law as that would mean they could get less bedrooms into the shoebox.
I would love to get my hands on a plot (ec london anyone?) and build a house myself. size is not so much of an issue but proper plumbing and practicality is.

I wonder sometimes if people's expectations are influenced by TV.

I read a lovely article somewhere a few years ago where they took the houses/flats used in TV and film and calculated whether the characters would really be able to live there. EG there is NO way that a chef and a waitress would be able to rent a New York apartment like Monica and Rachel's in Friends. It would literally cost millions. They would be living somewhere where you could touch all four walls at the same time.

I know someone who lives in the "real" Albert Square in Hackney. (The square they based it on and were going to film in until they realised it would be too difficult). He lives in one of the Victorian houses on the square, like most of the characters in EE do. It is worth a fucking FORTUNE. There is just no way that someone who worked in a cafe during the day and looked after someone's market stall once in a while could even dream about it - that's renting OR buying.

No, Riven, it's not the same in the US and Canada. Because plumbing is more modern, even in trailer parks, housing stock isn't allowed to get so old and delapidated by most councils (even shacks), they have more space geographically, and we all know you like to bleat on about how horrible it was because you have a real bee in your bonnet about it, that much is obvious from many of your posts and threads.

I was working poor a lot of the time, even had to get food from food banks. I never lived in a trailer park or a shack. I lived in an apartment. Many who live in trailer parks own their own home there. Many live in trailers on their own land because planning permission to live on your own land isn't so restrictive. Many more build their own homes.

And it's like any other place, there are some real shitholes.

'But you seem to be making out all UK housing is shitty. It isn't. Some is, some isn't'.

Because unless you've got really deep pockets, proportionally, it really is compared to every other place I've lived, and that includes 11 countries.

I mean, we've heard from people whose husbands are from Russia and Syrian, not exactly wealthy nations, where things like showers and mixer taps and more modern plumbing are standard.