People who design houses should have to live in them!

[SweetMoon]

Went to view a new build yesterday on a new development. Nice looking house but there was a major WTF moment with its design.

It was a town house over 3 floors and had 4 bedrooms. 3 Bedrooms were ensuite. Bedroom 4 was the smallest bedroom and then right next to it a massive family bathroom. But the other bedrooms all had decent size ensuites, including 2 with baths so basically the only bedroom using the massive bathroom would be the small bedroom 4.

Why not just make that en suite aswell? Or better yet, use bedroom 3's big ensuite as the family bathroom (it could be accessed from the landing if a door put in) and have the massive bathroom as another bedroom or a study?

Or am I missing something? There was a seperate toilet on the ground floor for guests, so bathroom wouldn't even be used by a visitor.

Although quite a big house there was also nowhere to store your hoover or a broom or anything as no tall cupboard or even a space where they can stand. That was a little odd. The downstairs loo was huge, so again could easily have been half the size and then a lovely cupboard could have been next to it there.

AIBU to think people that design these new houses should be made to live in them for a month afterwards so they can realise all the little things that are just odd!

The reason for the amount of ensuites is because in order to afford the house you have to take on a few lodgers to be able to afford it

The small room is the box room, you can keep your hoover in there.

We went round a new build which had four door all opening into the same very small hall way that was clearly going to be an issue. Plus the main bedroom was a floor above the other rooms and FIL 6 ft could only stand full height at one point where roof light was. There was nowhere to put a table to eat at or store a pushchair, hoover or ironing board.

We looked round some 1990 builds 3 bedrooms - the third bedroom was too small to get a bed in and other rooms so small storage would be huge issues estate agents kept suggesting we could use it as a dressing room - we were looking round with our two eldest a boy and girl .

Our current house was rejigged by the pervious people it's not big but it is really well laid out with downstairs toilet and shower room and an upstairs family sized bath room. The new builds just down the way were 100,000 more for a worse layout but they sold.

En suite bathrooms. For the kind of person that likes to lie in bed and listen to their partner having a shit.

Attacking new builds isn’t an attack on the people who live in them, it’s an attack on the developers who make no effort to make them good places to live
New builds can be amazing, but all the exemplary new builds near me are being built by social housing developers. The private developers just pack in houses and put little thought into design or comfort.

En suite bathrooms. For the kind of person that likes to lie in bed and listen to their partner having a shit.

When we had an en suite it was pretty much for convenient showers, cleaning up after sex or nighttime wees.
Thankfully neither me or DH were up fot shitting whilst the other is in bed. Bleugh

Though we did do a house viewing where the ensuite didn't even have a door! Just an archway with thr toilet in the centre. Ignoring the door issue, I'd just about ok seeing a shower straight ahead, but a toilet? Who wants to lie in bed and see your DP on thr loo? Very odd.

I don't think it just new builds - we looked round a done up house.

3 bedrooms - 3 toilets - one in bathroom, one in ensuite and one downstairs toilet. The ensuite was huge but the bedroom had no wardrobes and was small and dark.

We have a very well designed newbuild; two receptions, massive dining kitchen, utility, downstairs loo, then five bedrooms (three very big, two doubles), one jack and jill and two bathooms over two upper floors, gaming area on one big landing, office on another, double garage. We also have three walk in storage cupboards and plenty of parking.

I haven't seen an older house that is as well designed for a modern large family.

Its very nice having lots of bathrooms when you have a few teens getting up for school and college or getting ready for a night out.

We've just bought a new build...I have a big cupboard downstairs and another one under my stairs.

We've been able to fit a super king size bed in the main bedroom and love my ensuite and the kids love their bathroom. Yes I have 3 toilets to clean but don't mind.

My garden is huge but I think we lucked out as it seems to be the biggest one on the patch.

Theo my thing about living here is it's still a building site and have plant machinery trundling past...but a plus side of this is it's full of workman who put a extra socket in and did my lights for a few quid.

This isn't our forever home but as new builds go it's spacious and exactly what we wanted to get on the housing ladder

We bought about 15 years ago looking at older houses, and so many had been ruined for us by being ensuiteised - take 4 bed semi and carve out chunks of the two larger bedrooms to squeeze in an ensuite. Or two ensuites, thus making large bedrooms tiny! Estate agents said everyone was doing it but I've no idea who.

When we had a loft conversion to add a large and small bedroom plus nice bathroom, the builders couldn't believe we didn't want the bathroom ensuite. Pointed out we didn't want guest/stepson having to come through large bedroom. They agreed it was sensible, just that no-one was doing that!

Where is this parallel tribe of ensuite obsessives?

Thing is, most people nowadays shower every morning. So in our house that's six people showering between 6.45 and 7.15. Having one, or even two, bathrooms, would make this a lot more stressy. I think you need a bathroom for every two or three people (and yes, I grew up in a tiny house with one bathroom with no lock on the door).

People are always so rude about new builds! ‘The slums of the future’ how melodramatic and insulting!

@Unicorndiscoball it isn't insulting - it is interesting.

You need to look back in recent history and look at what made some housing styles and communities successful, and what didn't work. Poorly designed housing, poorly constructed - largely doesn't work. Big developments without adequate infrastructure and public transport connections (remote from jobs) - largely didn't work. High rise - largely didn't work.

Lots of the post-war blocks that have been pulled down in East London and redeveloped have been replaced with newer, shiny, but smaller apartments. If you think those will stand the test of time better than the post-war blocks... I would be interested to hear your thinking?

Even gorgeous houses can turn into slums over time though; did you catch that recent series following the Georgian house in Liverpool over time? In our own town most of the gorgeous Victorian houses in town have been turned into dodgy flats and its the less nice part of town. And the rest are on the main road, less than ideal for children and dirty and noisy.

Our newbuild is on a quiet estate; kids play out and there are no parking wars. Plus our house is warm and cosy and energy efficiient.

Having a fit of the vapours at the thought of cleaning 4 bathrooms!

And so glad to hear about people who took into consideration a place to put the Christmas tree - estate agents thought I was mad when viewing!

New builds round here are predominantly 3 storey townhouses here with all the problems PPs describe. And they take ages to sell even with incentives.
And there are no new build bungalows, presumably because they take up too much land & developers can’t maximise their profits. Those who castigate older people for failing to downsize might bear in mind the lack of suitable new properties available to downsize to - not everyone wants to move to an apartment, particularly not in the early stages of old age.
(Apologies for the derail).

What I don't understand is making a 3 bed home with one master bedroom, one double bedroom and one single bedroom - what's the point of that in a family home?

^^ this, this, this and THIS

Everyone agrees that there is a housing crisis, HA stock being sold off/not renewed and private rental markets expensive and poorly maintained. New build houses are a necessity and the only opportunity for many to get on the housing ladder. I agree that often they are poorly designed/have a lack of storage etc. But a lot of the comments on this thread have been along the lines of ‘who on earth would be stupid enough to buy a new house’ and an awful lots of ensuite inverse snobbery . And people saying they could never live in a semidetached house because basically ‘yuk other people’. Those comments are rude, plenty of people don’t have a choice. Having looked on rightmove the cheapest detached house in our postcode is £650,000. Bit out of our price bracket...

Well it depends on the new build. We bought a new build 8n a rural town. The developer had a lot of rules to stick to. Mines a three bed semi. I have never heard my adjoining neighbour and they’ve never heard us. Downstairs is very large, big table in the kitchen. Sitting room is huge, 2 giant sofas and loads of chunky furniture. The estate is mostly 4/5 bed detached houses so everything isn’t crammed in, there’s only a handful of 2/3 bedroom semis. I am glad they didn’t go down the town house/terrace route as it’s what put me off a lot of new build estates (we had to have a new build as help to buy was the only way we could get a home).

I think it’s pretty shitty when people spout off about new builds being rubbish, especially when their only experience is driving past/through a development. It’s incredibly rude to insult homes that people are proud of and worked very hard for

When we were looking to buy a few years ago we noticed the same thing. So many bathrooms at the expense of storage space!

Also, in all the three storey houses we saw, there were two bedrooms on the top floor and then one (small) on the ground floor. The thought of trecking up and down two flights of stairs when DC were having nightmares etc...just no!!

Oh and also insufficient parking. Cars everywhere.

It's the lack of garden that gets me. A few (very select) new build houses in my village, all with five bedrooms - and not enough space outside for a trampoline or even a washing line. It's like a mansion with a yard! No wonder kids are all sitting indoors and playing on their Play Stations all the time - where else would they go?

It's pretty easy to understand about not wanting an ensuite for every bathroom: many people would prefer larger bedrooms.

That's not an argument against en-suites, it's an argument for bigger bedrooms. You could have both. A relative had a three bedroom house, all bedrooms with en-suites, the smallest bedroom was about 15 foot square. (This wasn't in the UK though.)

(Middle bedroom was about 20x15 ft and I'd guess the master was something like 30x20.)

Trills - I agree. That's fantasy land thinking - the reality is thousands of homes - some of them old, some new - that don't subscribe to the 'every bedroom should be able to host a kingsize bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, desk, a small zoo and a replica of the empire state building'.

(yes, exaggerating for comic effect )

In the real world, typical families have a double or a kingsize in their master bedroom, and the children's bedrooms range from boxrooms to large singles/smaller sized doubles. I say that as someone who grew up in an above-average sized home, in a double bedroom.

work I would love to know how you got your bed in. I had to send my new one back! Now sleeping on the floor on a mattress waiting for a bed that we will hopefully be able to get up the stairs.

Apart from that I like my new build.

En suite bathrooms. For the kind of person that likes to lie in bed and listen to their partner having a shit.

Arguably this is a problem with build quality, if sound is getting through. You could have a walk-through dressing room separating you from the en-suite which would give you the same separation other properties might have from a family bathroom.

When people say they are "disgusted" by en-suites they remind me of the very old American man I was told about who still lived in the house he grew up in, and refused to have an inside toilet installed because he found it disgusting that people would shit in the same building where they ate and slept.