To ask if anyone has moved from a victorian house to a ex council house and prefers it ?

[Getoverits]

We moved from a four storey victorian house with original features , sash windows etc in a cheaper area to a 1940 ish ex council house in an area of outstanding beauty.
The idea was ut was a future proof house . Ie plastic windows compared to expensive to maintain wood sash etc .

My dh loves it . It meant we have no mortgage .
As for me - i agreed to compromise , but 3 years down the line i crave and miss the character and beauty of a Victorian town house.

I have no attachment to this house . Feel like it is someone else's house .

Please can anyone who has made this transition guide me into the pleasures and benefits of this type of house.
I really need to appreciate and be grateful it and not yearn .

If we go back to a victorian i would feel i was bu especially as it means we would have to move from a beautiful place .

My Victorian was just so cold and had an unfixable patch of damp. My 70s house is so much warmer, so bright and well proportioned. I would never swap back!

Not exactly what you asked, but I live in a 200 year old townhouse and I love all the features and history BUT I find the layout so frustrating for hosting. It's got a typical terrace layout and a small kitchen at the back. We're currently extending it but I have a feeling that in 5 years time I will want a modern house with a square lounge you can fit lots of seating in, and a large open plan kitchen. I think features will matter less if I can host the people who are important to me

You really made me laugh 😂

If you enjoy period features etc, maybe you’d feel more attached to your house if you really embraced the 1940s? We have a 1930s house and are filling it with 30s art deco and mid century stuff. The look I’m going for is kind of “we moved here when it was built and spent twenty years filling it up”.

So for your house you could get 40s and 50s style furnishings?

I had to move out of a beautiful large Victorian to a small modern flat. Decorating it and making it my own helped me to love it!

Moved from Victorian to a new build in a much nicer area.

Pros of old house
Striking to look at, massive high ceilings and cornices and all that shit, huge quirky garden, massive double cellar

Cons
Fucking freezing, draughty, odd layout, cellar regularly flooded, fucking stream through the massive garden was actually a pond in wet weather, no storage, did I mention fucking freezing.

Pros of new house
Warm, dry, better layout, no fucking massive windows an odd shape to find curtain poles for, walls don't fall off when I decorate, small manageable garden, not big enough for DH so he fucks off to the allotment regularly enough to stop me killing him

Cons
I'm perimenopausal and did I mention it's warm?

You could not pay me enough to move back to an older property, not unless it had been massively renovated and modernised with propert insulation, window dressings and fitted bedroom furniture.

I really miss my Victorian terrace with its original bannisters, coving, skirts and the high ceilings and big bay windows. I love my new garden, drive, greenhouse sewing room etc but the room proportions in this thirties bungalow are just off somehow. Like you I'm now mortgage free and love the new area we call it big sky country but in my heart I yearn for the beauty of the old house.
My husband has put up hallway panelling, laid oak flooring restored as much character as he can and the new bathroom lifts my heart so i never say anything but I'm always on Rightmove 'just looking'

Agree w others that Victorian houses are a money pit and hard to maintain, although the spaces are beautiful. Is it worth making a Pinterest-type board of mid century design, so you can get excited about painting and furnishing the newer property you’re in?

It’s hard when your heart isn’t in your current house, but seeing how other people have used that 1940s space might help you see how you could make it your own. Good luck, OP.

I made a very similar move - although I miss the lovely old house, what we tried to do was embrace the era that our new house was built in, so it is still a period house. We have had to put some features, such as fireplace, back in, but I think it works, and I love living here.

I live in a ground floor Victorian flat - with wooden flooring, high ceilings, original working fireplace in the living room, south facing garden. However I am selling it. I'd like to think that I have kept on top of most jobs that needs doing (always jobs to be done!) but it's going to take a bit of work even just to get it sale ready. This is because most people expect their houses, to be warm, draught proof, no damp, no gaps between the floorboards etc.
It is cold (despite double glazing throughout) and it has a lot of 'characteristics' - things I am used to because they work in a certain way but are not particularly normal!
I am going to buy a more modern house, like you describe. I always look wistfully at people who are sitting in T shirts during zoom meetings whilst I readjust my heated blanket under the desk! I'll miss the character but not the functionality (or lack of)

I’ve never missed an Edwardian I had years ago. There was a damp patch that appeared when it rained that no one could ever get to the bottom of, something inside the chimney wasn’t right. Tiny kitchen, no shower in bathroom. Features were great, but living it in was stressful.

Our house now is 30 years old and even that is quite the money pit, with wooden windows that need replacing now and bathrooms all needed updating to our style. If we do move again, we’re both agreed that it won’t be an older property or a doer-upper - for retirement we definitely want low maintenance, warm and dry.

I would focus on decorating everywhere to your style and also work on the garden if that’s your thing. Make it yours, basically, so it feels like home.

I feel your pain OP. Left a Victorian property that was going to cost a fortune to rebuild modernize and went for a newish build, thinking about heating, lack of needing to do work. Couldn't wait not to have slugs on the kitchen worktops (used to have to check the kettle before turning it on 😩) and no buckets of condensation on windowsills every day.

Fast-forward two years and I really miss our old house. This new house has ZERO character. Everything feels so cheap, the floorboards are like lollypop sticks, if someone farts on the third floor you can hear it. Even the slugs don't want to come in! It feels like a holiday let. In the summer after our holiday I accidently drove from the airport to our old house. My 'homing' system is still very much set there.

On the plus side, the house feels warm. In two years there is only one cobweb forming now (we used to have cobweb 'pelmets' about every three days). We don't have a yearly resident family of mice. Everything looks so much cleaner. I don't wake up to massive cracks in the wall.

But my God if I had the money I'd be back to my old house in a shot 😭

I agree.

I think for some it’s snobbery- a notion that there is prestige to owning a Victorian house as if it’s been in your wealthy family for generations-inherited from an Earl or something- a sign of your social status…lots of romanticising over who might have lived there in the past.

Then there’s the stigma of owing an Ex Council house (bearing in mind they’re often far more well built and centuries old with plenty of history) as if it’s beneath you.
I don’t understand it at all 😂
Why not fill your home with historical relics and artwork if you crave the beauty and history of an era?
Take all the money you haven’t thrown at your Victorian pile and put in some quality flooring and soundproofing?

I’m generalising obviously but I know some people that fall over themselves to let everyone know they own a dilapidated VICTORIAN property as if every house built after that era is “soulless” and devoid of the holy grail ; CHARACTER.
Its a badge of honour to laugh about how it’s falling apart and has rats and brambles growing through the floor but gosh you love it’s character.

I’ll freely admit I’m baffled by it.

My advice would be to remind yourself daily why you sold your Victorian house and stopped romanticising it- it’s just bricks and mortar.

I think a PP has nailed it by suggesting you embrace the characteristics of your new place ... rather than constantly feeling sad that it doesn't have what your old one did. I'm about to make a similar move, possibly into a 60/70s build, and I'm looking forward to the uninterrupted wall space and the huge windows letting in the light, and the lack of £3k a year fuel bills! You don't have to go full on for the era your home was built, unless you want to, but allow yourself to make the most of, and enjoy, what it offers.

I totally get this. I have lived in period properties at various points throughout my whole life. Rented a Tudor property for a few years before purchasing our current late Victorian property.

We're looking at moving in a few years. For the first time ever we're considering new-ish builds and the fact that they don't have period 'character' isn't even registering as a factor in my mind.

I'd go for the area above all else now!

I'll also add that our current Victorian house is actually also ex-council. No idea how the ex council part is relevant to anything tbh except for the fact that it's a very sturdy build!

You need to focus on the cons of the old house and pros of the new house. You've also said it was a money pit and you couldn't afford it now. Imagine being there and struggling for money and the effect that might have on your family/relationship. That would be awful.

Focus on making your new house as lovely as you can. Invest in lovely furniture and paintings that you love. Get the garden looking lovely. Get your lovely house vibe from visiting historic houses and museums.

We live in a 70s box. It wasn't what I envisaged for my life. I would love a cottage painted in Farrow & Ball colours and a beautiful garden with views. It ain't happening at least not at the moment! The upside is that we are mortgage free in an AONB in a lovely village with good neighbours. I am very grateful for all of that.

Ive also wondered why mid terrace vic houses are several more than senis in the same area .. is it an aesthetic vibe / snib value ?

I think light and colour are the ways forward here. Embrace mid-century modernism and look at sites and books about that style. It can be really beautiful.

This.