to be fed up with new builds having lounge diners and in built garages?

[mrscog]

We need to move house at some point in the next 12 months. At the moment we're just at the browsing right move stage, although would move if the correct property came up.

We quite fancy a new build but nearly all the ones I see have inbuilt garages (absolute waste of space in my opinion, we'd be looking to convert it in to more living space asap and just keep cars on the drive and 'household detritus' in a garden shed) and (even worse) lounge diners.

Lounge diners are a pile of fucking shit with a toddler distraughtly looks at carpet stained with sweet potato and yoghurt under the antilop. I want a nice kitchen diner which can be a social space and also have an easily cleaned floor. I know I could put a mat under the high chair in the lounge but it makes the room look even messier than it already is and it's harder to hoover. I hate the fact that the lounge is also a blooming dining room as a result we never eat at the table as the lure of TV slob eating is just too much. I thought kitchen dining was 'in', so why are all the developers near me not building them????

Even 'old builds' are somewhat lacking with this issue.

AIBU to feel positively murderous over this?

There are new builds by my parents' that have garages that you can't actually fit a car in.

Haven't been round a showhome purely for a nose for ages. Do you still have to take your shoes off or wear shower caps on them? And are they still all filled with teeny tiny furniture and bowls of plastic fruit?

All the new builds round here have kitchen diners. Move to Wales? We must be trendy

When houses are built for profit, rather than aesthetics, they tend to be small and ugly. The layout is the most that can be squeezed onto the (tiny) plot whilst still feeling like a home and therefore saleable. An architect hasn't been anywhere near any of them, they're designed by surveyors.

I am completely bemused by the many bathrooms (I realise there needs to be a WC downstairs for lifetime homes, but not an ensuite) but developers are convinced people need a bathroom per bedroom.

In my experience, social housing is more generously proportioned than private housing, as they are required to meet more stringent standards with respect to sustainability and lifetime homes.

And since minimum space standards went in the 80s there is nothing planners can do to avoid houses being poky. Prescott isn't to blame either, the 50 dwellings a hectare guideline (which led to more apartment blocks, rather than increasing the density of houses) was abolished some time ago.

It is entirely profit driven.

we have a newbuild with a garage inbuilt and actually its great. The tumbledryer goes in there for a start and as most newbuild estates only give you a one car driveway and the minimum legal width for roads, the parking situation means we will probably use it for our other car when the estate is finished and full. Agree about unnecessary en-suites. we do have one but the rooms are big so its not instead of storage space, unlike one we viewed which basically had as a master bedroom a room with space for a bed and side tables and that was it, because they'd put in an en-suite, right next to the family bathroom (it was a three bed). I like our kitchen diner though.

I went for a nose yesterday, yes shower caps on shoes or take your shoes off, horrible chemical air freshener everywhere.

I would love to know where they get sofas with one inch arms, shallow and narrow seats. We sat in the chairs and were agog at how small the furniture was. I was convinced a bed in one room was a cot bed or 3/4 sized bed.

I hate all the new builds here. The 2 beds have a downstairs toilet, family bathroom and ensuite. 3 toilets in a 2 bed house?!? The bigger houses have garages either inbuilt or separate which are all too small to get a decent sized car in.
As a PP said, come to Wales all 3/4 bed houses have kitchen diners.
I like a separate living room, kitchen, dining room so looks like I'll be staying in my 70's house for a while.

Deep fried- yes tiny furniture. And the kids rooms never have wardrobes etc to try and make them look bigger.

I have an older house with a lounge/diner. I never really realised it's true value until I had my now 10 month old! It's been awesome with having a baby! Plenty of room for all that baby stuff that inevitably comes along with them!

Don't discount them - please! Mine is massive too - I think that's the key. A separate dining room just wouldn't get used in my house. We'd just end up using it to store stuff in and iron most likely!

Our lay out means we have the living room at the front, which is the smaller of the rooms (square large archway which kind of separates the two rooms). The dining room has the table, sideboard and a tall glass display unit. Then at the back of the room is all the baby stuff - the toys, highchair, playmats etc! (Baby has the tiny box room so his stuff needs to be downstairs!)

He can play at the back of the dining room, and I can sit and watch Tv in the living room, and still see him, and know he is safe. It's perfect!

Agree on the bathroom issue though. It's insane! And I hate cleaning one loo, let alone 3!

That belway house would be better if the main bedroomhad bedroom twos ensuite and the main bedrooms ensuite was wardrobe space and bedroom space. There is no need for a second ensuite.

I much prefer a lounge diner.

Agree that inbuilt garages are shit.

I want more space downstairs than upstairs, not the other way around.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-26954961.html?premiumA=true

I have a lounge diner, it's the only thing I wish was different about our house. But hey you have to get on the ladder somehow.

That one's nice Mortified :)

DF converted her garage into a dinning room, but then were do you put mowers and bikes and the extra freezer and the dead chest of draws etc.

You need a big shed and most new builds have apologies for gardens.

We have a lovely big dinning room, it is craft central, skinning out in front of the TV rules.

Slobbing

Our new build is 2 years old, is semi-detached, has a separate garage, kitchen diner and 3 bathrooms (2 en-suite) and a downstairs cloakroom. It's great, all the rooms are of pretty equal size on three floors, either side of a wide hallway and stairs that go round a stairwell, as opposed to straight up. A benefit with a just walking 15 month old, means he can't tumble more than 4 or 5 at a time .

We could have a separate dining room if we wanted as the layout is planed for the lounge to be on the 1st floor, but we use the big downstairs room as our lounge instead and the upstairs lounge houses our books and a sofa bed for guests!

I always held a bad opinion of new builds from viewing them with my parents in the 80's and they were horrid little boxes, but when I viewed this development I was a convert! We bought off plan and watched our house grow, it was lovely and stress free as we did a part exchange with our old house, so didn't even have all the hassle of selling!

oh I'm with JeanBrodel - I want to gilde elegantly out of the kitchen oozing an aura of calm when having guests, I don't want them to see the bomb site the kitchen is in and and certainly don't want to feel any pressure to clean as I go along....

Also, while I don't know anyone who actually puts a car in a garage, I wouldn't buy a house without one. There's a level of stuff that's too good for the shed, not really house stuff, like bikes, exercise equipment etc that's just right for the garage.

But I hate en suites, that just encourages poo smells to waft into your bedroom.

I saw a show home recently which had no doors on loads of the rooms. As without a door the room felt slightly less pokey. Was shocked at that.

We're in a 4 bed "newbuild" that's 9 years old.

Got downstairs loo, main bathroom and en suite. 4 bed.

But yes, lounge diner and separate kitchen. We're a bit older (dc are 9,11,13) so no toddler mess. And dark oak laminate, easily cleaned.

We don't mind the lounge/diner (we like being in together!) and we only have one tv in lounge. Dc have rooms if they need space. But eventually we want a conservatory/ kitchen/diner and separate lounge.

Integral garage is actually important to us. Ours is fully lined, wired and plumbed behind the walls. I have a mobility issue and might eventually need a downstairs bedroom/wet room. This gives us that possibility in the future.

I want a kitchen diner and a seperate living room. Currently I have a kitchen barely big enough to swing a cat in and a lounge diner. The plus side is that the lounge diner has french doors leading straight into my back garden.

Another thing that drives me potty is the third bedroom/box room, I can't fit a single room in there just a cot. Why the hell don't they make descent sized third bedrooms anymore?

And we've a really decent garden and integral deck which I can manage.

the stupid number of ensuites is because these houses are being built as investment rental properties - 5 young professionals in a house paying top whack for rent don't want to share a bathroom. That's why they have tiny gardens too. It took me ages to realise that the 5 bed new builds with 5 bathrooms and weeny gardens weren't family homes.

Agree garages are pointless. We like 1960s houses but a lot have integrated garages and DH won't consider them, he's very fussyinterested in architecture.