To think new builds are too small

[Neuroticmillenial]

Especially social housing.

Much prefer old style council houses with the smaller kitchens but larger living rooms and dining rooms.

I’m in a rented new build and I’d trade a hallway/porch and grassy garden for our bigger kitchen (bigger than living room) and downstairs toilet. Our stairs is less than 2 metres from our front door and it’s a pain with the buggy!

Yup😂🤦

And the floor plan is wrong as well. Wrong dimensions to wrong bedroom number.
Notwithstanding that they claim in that design you can fit 2 beds in with space inside....
Lies

Accessible downstairs wcs are a building regulations requirement for new homes so that has to stay I'm afraid.

We are a small country with a growing population, housing will be denser/smaller unless you want to say goodbye to green space.

I always mention this, but when we were looking at houses a few years back, there was a new build estate (Taylor Wimpey) with a 4 bed that had the same footprint as our, then, current 2000 built 3 bed - the 4 bed had a detached garage rather than the integral so there was more space downstairs, but upstairs they had squeezed in a 4th bedroom.

It’s the lack of storage that gets to me. Where does the hoover go? Or the Christmas decs? Or the camping gear? Madness.

Iirc isn't it only just under 10% land in uk developed?

And yes to pp. They can be smart design even on smaller building site

The lounge in ours is a bit small but has four good size double bedrooms no box room

That doesnt make any sense on the floor plan, it shows 2 single beds in a line, that would be over 12 foot long?

But in any case, yes new builds arent just too small, they have a bedsit vibe to my mind, the ground floor is basically quite often a kitchen in a living room, just one big room. Hate that. I like separate rooms even if they are small

Yeah I'm in an apartment and it's 75sqm so not particularly small but the lack of storage...
I have a ridiculous amount of kitchen cupboards so use that for most stuff (14 of them!)
Luckily it's a 2 bed so the spare bedroom is my gym/storage/wardrobe

I miss my 3 bed ex council house - storage cupboards in the porch, under stairs, airing cupboard, storage cupboard on the landing, loft... it was a tardis!

The new build I’m in the process of buying is quite big compared to others I’ve looked at - with windows in toilet and bathrooms, a garden bigger than the house and ample parking as well as 3 good size storage areas upstairs and down. Guess I’m quite lucky with this one then!

There are minimum design standards set by both National and Local Government. Most housebuilders design to the minimum and not beyond. Density is also set by Government.

The combination of density and minimum space standards is why houses are shoe horned into sites. Couple that with not using decent architects to get the best possible internal layouts, site planning and environmental considerations together with a dependency on wet trades and you get the shocking state of modern housing supply in this country.

I used to live in a really lovely spacious new build. Big rooms, built in wardrobe in every bedroom, decent sized kitchen and utility room, big lounge and separate dining room… when we wanted to move closer to the city centre we viewed one new build that felt really cramped in comparison. The master bedroom in particular was a joke. Space for a bed but not much else. Not sure where we would have put the rest of our furniture!! Obviously we didn’t buy it.

So, in summary, some new builds are too small. Some aren’t.

I had loads of storage in my new build. It’s the only thing I miss about it as my current house - built in the 60s - doesn’t have nearly as much.

Yes, new builds are awful. The 3rd bedroom is always too small, never enough storage space and they seem to overstuff the plan with toilets (downstairs loo, family bathroom and en suite bathroom to main bedroom) - how much time do the developers think people spend in a bathroom? 1970s/80s houses all had 1 bathroom but 3 good sized bedrooms and lots of storage space. New builds rarely have storage cupboards, let alone a garage or usable loft space (half of the new builds around where I live are built with bedrooms in the eaves), and a shed would take up half the garden space!

How are they showing 2 x single beds lengthways , they must be toddler beds!

That is so misleading with the furniture pics compared to the measurements. Even the table in the kitchen is dubious

Exactly.
Seems to be a weekly thing.☹️

Not saying that some social & FTB homes aren't small but as someone who has also owned 30's, 50's & 70's houses I can confirm that our NB is the biggest of the lot.
Of course you can't go comparing apples & pears and TBH all our previous houses were a 3-bed semi whereas our NB is a generous 4-bed det which has actually been designed very well with good bedrooms, family space, ample storage, high ceilings etc.
Just putting it out there that not all NB are small.

There definitely ought to be stricter laws. There should be a minimum size for houses and flats, and also for the rooms inside those houses and flats. There should also be laws on sound-proofing and wall thickness. I have known two people driven to suicide attempts by noisy neighbours, and a work colleague ended up on anti-depressants because of the noisy idiots who moved in next door. In fact, there ought to be laws on how many houses you can build within a certain area, and how much distance there must be between them. None of that will happen of course. This country is so crowded, and the demand is so high, that developers get away with murder. They jam us into these horrible rabbit hutches, with no light or space or silence, and then disappear abroad with the profits.😡

Not all are tiny.
Mine has 3 double bedrooms with built in wardrobes.
The small downstairs toilet could easily have fitted a shower in.
The kitchen/diner is so big i was able to set up my sofas and tv etc and make a temporary living room when getting my living room floor done.

Yes they’re too small and the gardens are absolutely terrible for wildlife. Areas with older housing tend to have huge areas of garden so are better for wildlife than the countryside (which is all taken up with heavily sprayed crops). Sorry - that wasn’t what you asked but it’s something that bothers me!

Older properties are not energy efficient and cost more to heat.

No one really uses dining rooms anymore just another room to clean and heat.

I live in a terrace but its warm in winter. One day i might decide to sell and move to a swanky new apartment.

I am luckily to be old and therefore have housing equity. I am used to period houses with big rooms. Anything less than 10x10 in old money should not be a room. It’s too small.

Most people dont have the money for the ones that are a decent size, thats why there is a lot of discussion about it. New builds are hugely overpriced in the first place let alone paying more for 'executive' size houses, most of us cant afford that

In my new job, I sometimes get to go inside council houses built in the 50s and 60s. They are so big! Really decent room sizes and massive gardens, front and back.

I agree, most new builds are utterly pokey.

I agree. My brother has one. No room to extend either.

I have a turn of the century fisherman's cottage - 2 bedrooms so big enough for us. I did have a brief fancy to look at new builds but for £60K more, I'd have had less room.

My daughter lives in a 3 bedroom semi and when you actually break down the amount of space and size of rooms, apart from the garden, we have more.