To think a great big semi or detached house must be SO lovely?!

[NeverYouMind123]

Terraced here. It's okay most of the time but I dream of living in a house with no fucking neighbour noise whatsoever. These walls are so thin I can hear the microwave next door. I dream of buying a semi detached in a few years with hallways next to each other separating the living rooms or when I'm really feeling ambitious I dream of a detached house, which must be the mother of all awesomeness. I know there is still 'area noise' but I'm not really a garden person so kids playing outside and lawnmowers etc don't phase me so much. But oh to wake up with no 'house noise' and to know I can sit in the lounge or lie in bed and have PURE SILENCE all day and not hear a dog bark or a door slam or an argument or a television. Is it as great as I think it is?

Gosh this has made me realize how much we take for granted. We live on the other side of the world and pretty much everyone lives in a detached house or flat, the majority I’d say. Thank you for making me pull my head in and appreciate what we have more!

I think it can be abit house dependent though. My mum lives in one of those modern 'detached' houses where there is only the width of a small path on either side. Despite being quite expensive it's built out of cardboard and mastic (I'm guessing) and you can hear everything through the walls, every time I stay I feel like I'm joining the neighbours for breakfast as I can almost hear their conversations in the kitchens next door. It made our old Edwardian terrace sound like a library in comparison.
We now have a victorian semi & only can hear next doors grandfather clock through the wall.

I live in a detached house with a big garden and still the bastards at the back made our life misery last year with their music. It shook our house even with windows and doors closed a throughout the summer.
So you need a detached house with lots of space around you. Or decent neighbours.

Detached house over a mile to the nearest neighbour, plenty of wildlife noise but so quiet apart from that. I love it, no dogs barking, arguing or noisy kids. On the rare occasions we want to be noisy then it would be fine, no one to annoy or complain. We were having building work done and no need to worry about upsetting anyone.

There are downsides such as it’s harder to get work, can’t get a taxi ad hoc, going to the shops is a longer drive, no one would know if anything bad happened, but it suits us.

When I had a flat year she ago, it was the detached house opposite that made me sleep deprived. The owner would come back several times a week between 1am and 3am and have a solo house party. Opening his patio door and making so much noise, I was over the road, so must have been worse for his direct neighbors

I dream of buying a semi detached in a few years with hallways next to each other separating the living rooms

Sadly, that kind of sensible design is vanishingly rare - or at least in my area. We are thinking of moving to a smaller house, but, as you say, don't want to lose the privacy/ lack of noisy neighbours we have, but despite regularly trawling RightMove it is incredibly rare to find a semi that is built the sensible way round - ie without the main living areas touching each area.

We are in a terrace but it's huge and Victorian. One side we hear no noise as that's the side with the hallway. The other has a crying baby so we have come to the agreement that we'll feel sorry for them if they feel sorry for us when we have to shout PUT YOUR SHOES ON NOW.
I do try and reduce frank arguments between the DCs, and shrieking by DD, in the garden.
The thick walls help a lot. In our old place (end of terrace) again the hallway was on the adjoining wall but we could smell them smoking both tobacco and weed.

If you do get that semi make sure the living areas are not joined as I heard my old neighbours kids in my old house. It wasn't awful but I'm much happier in the detached.

Yes it is, I have a detached double fronted house , we don't have road noise either , lovely .. If never downsize unless I really had to , we've got 3 children and I struggle to see how people cope with one bathroom , it's just be crap ! I'd get so annoyed at road noise /noisy neighbours too x the downside is we have a very old house and it's so expensive to heat, maintain etc there are always things to do in a big old house x

It is lovely, but it's also expensive. My previous house was the same size but an end terrace, the detached one cost 33% more than the end terrace and all we gained was a bigger garden and a gap between us and the neighbours...
It was worth it for us for the garden and to move to the same street as my sister but sometimes I think I'd rather hear a neighbour occasionally than pay through the nose to heat the house, my terraced houses were always so cheap to heat, this one costs me almost double

Glad we live in the NE of England ......space ...gardens ..etc...!

Still noise in big detached- if on modern estate/development. If you want noise-proof you need individual/separated house or an old house. They are more distanced

You are right to keep your dream in mind. My first home was a tiny terraced place with electricity and water (Belfast sink) - no gas - no bathroom and an outside loo in the garden. After two divorces my fortunes have been ravaged but at the end I've still got a detached property - I kept my dream alive throughout and it has been worth it!
Best of luck.

Ours is a semi. Well, end terrace. We can still hear our neighbours but it doesn't bother us. If you don't want to hear neighbours at all, you need detached, not semi.

We live in a 1920s terrace, the walls are pretty thick so dont hear too much noise. We have no neighbours one side and a young couple with a little baby the other. Luckily our living areas are set out opposite.

My son is a musician so practices in the evenings mainly, next door sit and listen to him often but it's still relatively wioet and with their tv on they wouldnt hear him. We hear their baby crying now and then but it would never wake you up or disturb you.

I think it is partly that the older houses definitely keep the noise out more and also that we have great neighbours. I am dreading who moves in next door.

We live in a large semi. We have 2 small DCs and I do not like the house. It's too big, costs alot to run, has little character and needs a lot of work doing. Why live here, you say? My mum lived her with us for 3.5 years so was bought to accommodate that. Now she has moved out there is so much dead space and I have no inclination to spend money on it. This isn't necessarily about the type of house but more my feelings towards it. However, I will never move into a terrace house now after living in a quiet structure with one adjoining and very kind family. The neighbours are the main reason we stay as all are so lovely!

I've only ever lived in terrace houses or flats. I kinda like hearing signs of life tbh. I cant hear much when I'm inside the house in our current house. Theres a fair few kids in this street but they seem fairly well behaved so that's a blessing.

It really depends on the age an quality of the house! We lived in an old Victorian terraced house (in a pretty grim area) yet we never got any noise from neighbours because I swear the walls were bomb proof or something! Thick, soundproof walls, well built house just a shame about tiny paved garden and the dreadful area it was in. Our current house is a large 3 bed semi with big garden overlooking the woodland at the back. Sounds idyllic right?? Except for it's a 1970s house which I actually believe is made out of cardboard and chewing gum I hear my neighbours fart. Thank God they are reasonably quiet as in not ravers or anything but I can hear them getting up in the morning, hear their bedroom light switch, hear them laughing at tv, hear their dog bark etc etc.

I stayed in a new build small semi air bnb but what confused me was the stairs were on the outer walls if that makes sense so most rooms were connected to the other house.

I've lived in lots of semis and always had stairs & hallways on the connected walls so that most rooms in the house were not connected. I assumed that was normal?

I grew up in a ‘30s semi and could hear my neighbours having sex (although I didn’t know that’s what it was until I was older 😆) through the bedroom walls. My first home with my hubby was a 60s terrace. We had amazing neighbours but one was a smoker and you could smell the smoke in the morning in our bedroom. We moved to the other bedroom and the neighbour on the otherside, who was a train driver, woke us up at 3:30am every day with his morning wee. We now live in a detached and whilst we have no noise from being attached have an absolute tw@t of a neighbour who we ended up getting a CPN against. It’s all about the neighbours and how lucky you are.

Our is a 1960s semi and we can hear everything from next door. I can hear the neighbour talk on his phone through the walls.

I want to know where all of you in lovely big well designed detacheds and semis actually live! I dream of a bigger house with thicker walls and bigger garden but we live and work in London so it seems the impossible dream! So I'm starting to fantasise about making the move out of London before the kids are secondary age (in about 8 years). Interested to know where people would recommend in the UK where you can buy a house for under £350K and bring up kids in a diverse community.

There are good and bad bits to owning a bigger house. I love the house and location, nr Hampton Court with great access to massive parks and and the river. But. We haemorrhage money.

We are incredibly careful, but wow the outgoings will make most people gulp, it does me.

My mum (if she were alive) would dream of a house like we are in - 1930's slightly ArtDeco style, massive garden semi. At night it is so quite, esp now as Heathrow and the roads are so less busy.

I still dream of my simplistic life in Bristol with small outgoings...

First floor flat- no garden, 2 babies....I'm shamelessly jealous of you all....

Off grid home (so no utility bills) on 20 beautiful country acres. It's glorious.