To feel sad when I see my old house?

[avenueaspirr]

I sold my house in April 2020 and then saw that it was again on RightMove and now sold - so obviously I had a look.

They’d change quite a bit but I’d seen they’d ripped out the shutters in the bedroom that I’d paid £1000 for and replaced them with floral curtains - that one stung

I know I’m being unreasonable and it’s not mine! It was just sad to relive the memories I’d made there and see the changes. Anyone else felt like this?

Yes, not because they've changed anything, but because they've changed literally not a single thing and are selling 2yrs later for 30% more 😭

@OhRene

My old farm cottage had a beautiful garden with a stunning climbing rose bush hanging over the dry stone wall at the bottom of the garden, a tall hedge that was filled with birds and their babies every year, separating the cottage from an ugly building works a field away, a huge 50+ year old rhododendron near the car parking that would be alive in the summer with thousands of lovely bees (who never bothered anyone nor left the bush) and two gigantic old trees beside it. I think they must have been at least 50 to 60ft tall at least. No neighbours to bother with leaves of lack of light etc and they were healthy and quite a way from the house. It was lovely. And as it was all plants that took care of themselves, gardening was as complicated as getting a lawnmower out every now and then and a quick once over with some hedge trimmers every couple of years.

New people bought it and ripped everything out. Goodbye bees, bye bye little conifer and rose bushes in the garden. See ya later wall climbing roses. The hedge? Gone. Even the trees were cut down for the new wood burner they installed. There is NOTHING but grass and road planings now. Not a single plant or flower surrounding the entire once picturesque cottage. It's not even nicely done either. It just looks tatty and bare. There is no neatly trimmed lawn and fancy deck, patio or gravel. Just roadworks stone chips chucked down.

I don't understand why people want to move to the countryside into a pretty, really old cottage and then make it look like it's in a concrete housing estate.

That would eat me up far more than any internal changes 🙈☹️. I totally agree, why move to the country and destroy a beautiful garden?

My childhood home was very old fashioned . When mum died we had to sell it and the buyer made out it was for him but he was actually a developer. The estate agent allowed us in to look at it when it went back on the market. I knew it had potential and it was good to see what it could have been . It helped with the sadness of selling it as it just wasn’t my home any more . The next owners added a huge conservatory but I still wonder how as the garden had a big slope!

Our first home together was a tiny, period, 2 bed cottage. We loved it but once DD arrived it was just too small so we put it on the market.

It was bought by someone I’d known as a teenager and I actually followed her on Instagram.

We’d put up a wallpaper in the living room which was from the same period of the house and we loved.

After a couple of months the new owner put a post on Instagram showing her ripping it down and repainting the wall. I was ok with that, as everyone has different tastes and wants to put their own spin on their home. But in the comments she was telling her followers how much she hated the wallpaper and how glad she was it was gone 😳

They sold the property after a few years and the pictures on rightmove show that they painted our lovely light, airy cottage in dark grey in practically every room 😕

DH recently shows me a photo of his childhood home, which his parents still live in. The photo was from the late 70s, showing the front of the house and a stretch of neighboring houses too.

I couldn’t believe it - the whole street looked stunning, an charming row of period homes with crisp red brick exteriors and bay windows and planted front gardens.

In the intervening 40+ years, residents (my in-laws included) has slowly “individualised” their houses with render, pebbledash, UPVC windows and carports where their gardens used to be. The whole area looks like shit now.

I commented that the street should have been listed. DH sort of guffawed but I wasn’t joking. I think it’s a terrible shame that areas like this get ruined like this and it contributes to the general decay of the area.

Not the sort of listing that makes a hideous nightmare, just something that protects the facade of the house, preserving the look of the street.

Our old house went back on the market about 18 months after we’d left. Pretty sure the estate agent used photos that were taken the day we moved out. House was unfurnished, but all the curtains and blind etc were the ones we left and the washing machine instructions were still on the side where I left them.
Cheekiest thing was the details described the new kitchen. We had the house 14 years and it was there when we bought the place. It was not a new kitchen by any stretch of the imagination.
The second lot of owners after we left completely ripped out all the roses and fruit trees in the back garden, which was a little upsetting.

My childhood home which I was born in many moons ago. My dad planted a flowering cherry tree in the middle of the front lawn for 'Plant one more '74' (a follow up to 'Plant a tree '73')
It always flowered around the time of my birthday and was always stunning (I thought so anyway).
I had a look on Rightmove a couple of years ago and it's no longer there, I felt an overwhelming sadness that someone had trashed 'my' tree. Sometimes it's better to keep good memories tucked away safely in your mind.

@OhRene that's heartbreaking. What bastards to kill that wildlife habitat and strip out all of the beauty

I've been on the other side of this. After a week after we moved in to our current house we ripped out the huge wooden deck that had taken over half the garden, replacing it with lawn and big wooden swing/slide set for our kids. Much more practical and safe.

The NDN told the previous owners and apparently they were gutted as they'd been so proud of it. I did feel for them a bit but the swing set has been fantastic and we wouldn't have used the deck half as much.

*about a week after

DM lived in her last house for 18 years. She still pops back when she’s in the area to visit her old neighbor who she’s friends with. She often has a nosey in the windows of her old house and details all the new things they have been installed or ripped out. It does upset her to know they’ve changed it as she did love that house but as I tell her it’s their house now and they can do what they like! I’ve seen my childhood home on right move also and they’ve obviously changed quite a bit inside the house but the garden looks almost identical to how we left it! The garden shed that my long dead grandad put up is actually still in the garden! It must be 35-40yrs old by now! It did bring me back a lot of nostalgia seeing it.

Our first home is currently for sale and they’ve made it gorgeous inside! So pleased to see how lovely it looks and DH and I have realised just how bad we are at internal decor 😂

@Paddingtonthebear

I’ve looked up all my previous homes including childhood homes on Rightmove

Looked up my first childhood home and it hasn't been sold since we moved out in 1998!

Our old house just went up for sale. It’s over 5 years and they’ve barely changed a thing internally except for redecorating the kids bedrooms. Can’t believe some of that wallpaper is still up.
But like other posters I was devastated about the garden. The hard landscaping is the same but we left some gorgeous established plants including a stunning wisteria that I’d revived from deaths door 15 years earlier; all have been ripped out and the beds are empty. Wish I’d dug them out and brought with us now. 😭

Sorry @TheDivineOddity I might be about to do similar. There are 2 large flowering cherries in our garden that look about that age. I love hate them. Block the best sun, flower for 2 days then make the steps a hazard in spring when they cover in blossom so need sweeping daily or it turns to gunge and then again with leaves in autumn, plus are just too close the house. I have left it this long feeling guilty that the previous owners probably loved them, but they make me hate our garden.

I've seen my childhood home on Rightmove and it broke my heart - I didn't recognise the inside at all!
I still often dream about it though and everything is as it should be there!

It happens on here, many times I see a RM post and the suggestion of what people would do, many are awful and destroy the integrity of the design of the house, and the some of the open plan ideas and floor plans, make it look clinical and just boring.

And yes, rip out plants and trees for shitty plastic grass!

This is almost the reverse - When we were kids/teens we used to visit an elderly relative who lived in a really dilapidated house but in quite an idyllic location. After they died the house was sold and was completely renovated...but I dont think has been sold since. For years I was dying to see what the new owners did and how nice it could have been!

My pet hate is when original Features are ripped out Criminal

I get windows if they are sympathetically replaced as old windows are cold and drafty

The garden being ripped out would break my heart too.

We have a Victorian house and I've kept as many features as I can while making it modern and warm and comfortable inside.

Kept floors fires doors etc

When I met my now husband I moved In to his very run down terraced house. It wasn't a spectacular period property but it was in a lovely location.
Five years later and after the birth of our first child we needed more space so decided to sell. In those five years we had poured every single spare penny into the house and in my opinion it was bloody gorgeous We had very little money so it had been quite the labour of love for us.
Anyway a very young 20 something couple bought the house off us and they commented that one of the reasons they bought it was because it was so lovely they could move straight in and start a family....how lovely!
About 3 years after we sold it they put it up for sale so I had a good nosey, the place was so rundown it broke my heart. They had obviously put their time and energy into raising their family but it saddened me to see wallpaper hanging off the walls, the beautiful expensive kitchen we put in looking grubby and very very untidy. The bathroom tiles we put in where mouldy and the lounge was filled with tatty furniture and overgrown house plants. The only consolation I had was that they sold it for £18k less than they paid us for it and no, house prices hadn't dropped in our area.
As for my childhood home, couldn't give a toss!

I would love to see my old childhood home, but it was sold 15 years ago by us and not again since!!

Inspired by this thread I have just looked up my childhood home and am gutted that they have replaces all the 70s orange and brown wallpaper, the orange carpet and built in mirrored wardrobes

No I don’t feel like this, I drive past one of my old homes regularly ans they have hugely improved the front and I think wow I should habe thought of that, but they still have my curtains up, and I do think Christ they should really change them, 😂

TheDivineOddity, they may have had no choice but to remove the cherry tree.
My house had a stunning 40 year old flowering cherry that arched over the entire driveway. Unfortunately, it rooted into and destroyed the main sewer from the house to the road. It cost me £3,000 to have the whole length of the path dug up, a new sewer installed, and the path relaid. The tree was throwing up suckers as far as fifty feet away, and was starting to crack my neighbour’s driveway. I’m afraid it had to be felled and the stump poisoned.

We've had the people who lived in the house for 20 of years and raised their 5 kids here come back for a look around. Someone else lived in it between us and them, so we could blame them for the stuff they didn't like. I think they were somewhat disappointed. We still had the same living room and hallway curtains though They were gutted we had redecorated the bathroom which had been floor to ceiling flowery tiles with matching curtains and matching massive pelmets - imagine that picture of Boris and Carrie's new sofa and matching wallpaper- it was that but blue not red. We were not fans! Also it didn't help that the husband the wife brought round wasn't the same one she'd lived in for half of the twenty years she'd lived there so kept reminding him of things and he kept on saying that wasn't him and 'other husband, dear.' I don't know whether it was a good thing or bad that they came.