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?

YABU! A house without a garage? Madness!

My new build is rather large but the lounge diner is shit and the smallest room! (Go figure)

I also hate the kitchen at the front. I want a kitchen with a back door into the garden, so I don't have to lug rubbish through the house and back again and so my Ds can play in the garden while I cook dinner/lunch whatever.

The gardens in new builds are a complete joke.

No wonder people spend too much time having TV dinners and not enough time outside with the housing being arrange so badly... It's hardly easy to motivate change when the developers are so cheapskate.

Oh, and it's not the architects... It's the developers.
And path to lifetime homes... The HA for mine admitted the lifespan of this house is 25 years!

Wouldn't even consider a house without a garage. New builds near us, 3 and 4 bed detached in an 'exclusive' development, with allocated parking only! No way.....

Our new build had sep garage and kitchen diner but not our neighbours which is just as you describe and it is more expensive which I cannot understand as our garage is just outside but we do have too many en suites which take up too much space and not enough parking for visitors! That's why I am moving to 1950s house with big kitchen diner, lots of parking and only one bathroom although am planning to put one ensuite in. Will miss a bedroom bathroom with a hangover!

why do you need a garage? Since leaving home 20+ years ago I've never had a garage, or indeed off-street parking. I can see the appeal of the latter but why the former? Unless you live somewhere where you get frosty mornings a lot, I don't see why you need it?

I put my car in the garage. DH's lives on the drive.

Completely agree about lounge diners, I'm not keen on ours.

But I completely disagree about the bathrooms- I love them! Couldn't be without a downstairs WC, especially with a toilet training toddlers.

The dcs have their own shared bathroom which is full of toys for them, but dh and I get to have a nice posh luxury ensuite with our nice cosmetics on show away from all the plastic tat and matey bubble bath.

Plus, if we are still here when they are teenagers I do not want to be sharing a bathroom with teenagers.

I was never bothered about ensuite before but now I would always want one. The are actually a real luxury.

And very handy for when night time pregnancy wees

Can live without a garage as long as I have enough parking although it is nice in the winter to drive straight out without defrosting. What amazes me is that we live in a tiny close with everybody having a garage and most taking up space downstairs but people still park in the road which really pisses me off.

At least 2 of my neighbours keep a old banger 'classic car' in the garage and get it out when the sun comes out.

I'd always had an ensuite, downstairs loo and family bathroom until I separated from my exH. I'm now in a house with one loo (well two if you count the one outside) and I don't miss the extra loos at all. I wouldn't want an ensuite again.

My Dad was really shocked when I looked at one house and was going to extend the kitchen into the lounge diner. This for me was a non-negotiable and he was the opposite but then he does not have two kids watching lots of crap sorry educational TV programmes when me and my friends are snacking and drinking wine at the table in the kitchen, hence the need for en suite bathroom later!!

yanbu, we've just been through the property hunting thing and got so fed up with the number of houses with lounge diners. We're renting a house with a lounge / diner the moment and its an awful way to live. No separate space to get any privacy, no sensible space to do arts and crafts / baking. no change of view or scenery.
we have got so fed up looking on rightmove at the way new build properties are designed (the area we are in has limited choice in terms of older stock, its been heavily developed in the last 20 years or so).

I get cross too at the miserably small gardens. and the lack of decent landscaping. We're on a 1980's estate that won awards for its design at present and whilst the houses are offensively small (in 3 beds the 3rd bedroom makes many cupboards look big) the landscaping is amazing with lots of open space and lovely paths for cycling /scooting away from the roads. we will really miss it but the houses are too small to live in. we went to look at a newly built estate and there was hardly any green space and the houses were so densely packed and being all 3 stories it also felt very oppressive

we've managed to buy (well, fingers crossed!) a 1950's house, which has a decent garden and decent proportioned rooms. the living room / dining room/ kitchen have been made semi open plan by folding doors but they are separate spaces too. there aren't many in our area and they always get snapped up within days of going on the market so we feel very lucky. its no mansion, but just far more sensibly (less greedily) designed.

It makes my blood boil that planners don't do more to make the houses being built decent houses for living in. they have so much scope to influence the built fabric but it doesn't even seem to merit comment at planning committees

My new house will have an outside loo too. May need to build a rain cover but a lot less to clean.

It's the opposite here. All the ones being built near us have these huge 'great rooms' at the back that are a kitchen/dining/living room all in one and then separate posh living room at the front. I quite like it but i'm put off by the sheer amount of toilets.

We have a new build.

I hate the fact we have 3 fecking toilets to clean (well, I clean them, his majesty makes the mess).

The garage really is a storage place for us,and is an inbuilt one, but we do have a seperate, lounge and dining room.

Our loft however, has been boarded down by dh, so all our junk goes up there.

Our garden isn't small, it's quite a good size actually.

Our 70s semi was much converted and extended in the ten years before we recently moved in.

We have a big L shaped kitchen-dining room-playroom and a separate French Grey living room. The integral garage would only fit something like a Corsa, but is now our office and a utility room (but in future could become bedroom and bathroom).

Meanwhile there is a garage attached to the side of the house: benefit of a decent plot.

YANBU. Garages that don't fit a car, bedrooms that don't fit a bed, wtf?! We saw plenty of "four bedroom" houses that were one double, one single and two study/nursery rooms and to get squareish rooms of decent proportions we had to go 70s or earlier.

And why are they all either "townhouses" where nearly half of each floor is wasted on stairs, or detached houses where the space between neighbours is scarcely enough to push your wheely bin? Semi detached was popular for a long time because it works, for both space and heating efficiency.

We are buying one of these .

I didn't think I would ever buy a townhouse but the big kitchen diner has swung it. Separate garage.

The number of toilets is LUDICROUS though. We are looking at ways to convert the first floor cloak to a utility.

I am just moving out of townhouse in Wythall funnily enough. Downsizing and moving to good bus route as just me and two kids so did not want to be taxi driver.

I grew up there losing.

You didn't go to St Peter's did you?

No. I don't recall a St Peter's. Either I am old or there are 2 Wythalls.

It was in a neighbouring town but a lot of people used to bus it over. Woodrush is the main school here and it's really good. Famous for the guy who read the lottery and John Taylor out of Duran Duran!

All sounds familiar losing.