To hate the removing of character from old houses?

[Mushrooms0up]

I probably am being unreasonable as it doesn’t actually have anything to do with me. But there is a gorgeous house near where I live on a private road which came up for sale a while ago. It needed a bit of TLC but looked like a lovely, lived in family house.

It’s just come back on market for a lot more money, and I’m so sad at what’s been done. The marble tiled flooring just doesn’t match the house and the character and it just seems so sterile :(
If you like that kind of look why buy a period property? What do you all think?

Here’s the before:

www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=73256386&sale=91032045&country=england

And after: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/118542002#/?channel=RES_BUY

A crime to tear up that lovely parquet flooring!

Looks an abomination now. What are they thinking!

Someone forgot to tell them that grey is no longer in fashion

Its akin to have border round the middle of the room and different wallpaper patterns above and below.

Crikey this is truly awful

What on earth possessed them! There are plenty of newer houses knocking about they could have done this to.

I'm actually depressed now!

I agree with you re ripping out the original features like fireplaces - sacrilege!

However! From a business point of view they have obviously bought it to sell on. The kind of ultra-modern, extended-to-death style they have chosen will fetch a bigger profit. Sad but true.

Things like original fireplaces/cornicing/tiles etc are often damaged and they are very,very,very expensive and time consuming to replace or to get them restored.

It's like people who buy a perfectly "nice" house and knock it down to build a megamansion. People may tut tut and wonder why and the answer is: money! Patching up a dated house that needs new boilers/electric sometimes everything just often isn't worth doing and having a brand spanking new-build will not only be done to their specific taste, it'll also probably be worth more if they sell (usually).

The people who bought the house you posted could've decorated and tarted it up a bit but it just wouldn't be worth as much in the end. It's all about maximising your profit in the property world.

To be honest, other than the fireplaces I don't really see any fabulous original features in the first pictures. It just looks a bit tired. I don't care for the marble either, but its just today's upgrade, just as the first pictures were an upgrade done 20 or so years ago.

Footballers Wives but the footballer plays Third Division.

Is the car taxed?

Is it seen as an aspirational vehicle?

Thanks all - glad it’s not just me! I’m not a stickler for some modernisation and I actually quite like what they’ve done with the loft and bathrooms.

I’m just so sad at the loss of fireplaces, parquet floors, cornicing. It could have been done so nicely with a shaker style kitchen, large French doors and no marble floors. The new hallway in particular reminds me almost of a doctors office.

The jump in house price is also sad (as someone trying to afford a bog standard family house!)

Good grief. Just hideous.

Truly awful!

No books or interesting art, just big flat screen TV’s as the focal point of every room

@PoshPyjamas

Oh god, I didn't realise you'd posted before and afters and. was looking at the before and thinking it wasn't that bad

They've gone full footballer here haven't they? But its not like they're desecrating a medieval monastery or anything. It was only a bog standard victorian terrace beforehand, of which there are many thousands in every single town.

Its a class thing really, and I feel uncomfortable at my own instinctively snooty reaction.

OH SHIT! I didn't realise either, that the first pic was the BEFORE pic and the second was the AFTER.

Sorry @Mushrooms0up yeah on reflection, and actually reading your fucking post properly! (sorry my fault,) I have to say YANBU and I have altered my vote to YANBU.

I was fully expecting you to be being a bit precious even though I’m on your side, but FUCK ME they’ve new-builded that poor house. It’s awful. And would be impossible to reinstate the character without vast expense and shitting all over the environment.

I’m going to hug my fireplaces and stroke my cornice now.

YANBU. I know it's horses for courses byt all the soul is gone. What a pity. It looked so warm and happy. Those lovely floors- ruined. That said, I wouldn't mind having their dressing room space .

I live in an older house- I love the detail, although occasionally the uber frilly skirting boards and a million foot in the air picture rail and ceilings in the heavens make me crave something easier to dust!

Its a class thing really, and I feel uncomfortable at my own instinctively snooty reaction.

No it bloody is not a class thing. I am working class and would never do that to a house!

@5128gap

To be honest, other than the fireplaces I don't really see any fabulous original features in the first pictures. It just looks a bit tired. I don't care for the marble either, but its just today's upgrade, just as the first pictures were an upgrade done 20 or so years ago.

It has a parquet floor in some rooms

Oh no! They're butchered it! Buy a new house if you want a new house. Not ruin a beautiful character home.

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches

Footballers Wives but the footballer plays Third Division.

Just come on this thread to say "League 2 playmaker".

All very 2016.

Why can't I see the before pictures? It's just taking me to the generic sold prices page?

Agree 💯 but then my house is akin to the previous images.

Our previous 1920s home had lovely character features but the new owners have stripped the lot and made some dubious choices on new windows and doors in my opinion. Which is a shame I think as not in keeping with the style.

Our current 60s home could have gone either classic or ultramodern and carried it off either way. We've chosen classic but I can see the next owners going ultramodern in future.

This makes me want to weep. All that character, gone.
We sold my family home (a beloved late Victorian detached, like a 'playschool' house) to an absolutely lovely family and this is what they are doing to it. They like to send me before and after photos, and I tell them how pleased I am that they love it and are making it theirs (because I truly am) but, deep down, I think it now looks bland, sterile and completely characterless and it makes me sad.

I definitely agree in principal. It is a shame so much of the character has gone. However, I live in a house like the before and whilst there is character when you look at it properly there has been no proper upkeep for at least the last 30 years and it’s all had it. Original doors that no longer fit door frames or meet fire standards, skirting that is coming off the wall, damp musty fireplaces, walls ruined by a leaky roof. We are having to remove stuff as it just broken and no longer fit for purpose. However, they definitely could have updated the house a lot more sympathetically!

Yanbu. The previous owners did something similar to my house. Each time I update a little bit I’m trying to bring it back into keeping again!

They’ve ripped up all the grass and turfed it in plastic too, an imprisonable offence