Ruining traditional houses should be illegal?

[Scottishshopaholic]

A relative has recently purchased an older house, its Victorian or Edwardian. They have been renovating it and have ripped everything out without restoring any original features or being sympathetic to the original features. Think all original cornicing removed and not replaced, original doors, skirtings and architraves replaced with ultra modern equivalents. Grey LVT flooring laid (I suppose a future owner should be able to rip these up and restore the original floor boards). Think they have also done away with the fireplace. Surely if you want a modern looking house they should have bought a modern style house?

The white, grey and black colour scheme isn’t to my taste, but surely they could have still used those colours but kept original features. It seems like a crime that those original features were over 100 years old but are now gone forever.

My parents’ old house was an old cottage, albeit quite a good sized one. The new owners added beams, where there previously hadn’t been any, so presumably trying to make it look older. But then put a high gloss very modern kitchen in and dreadful grey cladding on the outside of the house. Bizarre choices to me, but I don’t have to live in it! Although I do wince at the cladding when driving past!!

I live in a conservation area. You need planning permission to replace even like for like windows yet people can paint their houses any hideous colour without it.

The Victorians were the OG knock-em-up-and-flog-em identikit developers. There were probably people moaning then that streets of matching properties was soulless.

I personally like Victorian features but c 13% of UK housing stock is from the Victorian era. We are not going to run out of them any time soon.

OP do you know how good the fabric of the building was. If it wasn’t good maybe it was more expensive to restore. Also if the place is better insulated it will be cheaper. As long as a few houses are preserved through listing, I think there should be quite a lot of leeway. A house is a place for that family to live in. Maybe the location and price were just right?

I agree that removing the original features is cultural vandalism and also really bloody stupid from a resale perspective. That said I can’t see how it can possibly be made illegal and in fairness, houses are for living in.

One of my biggest bugbears is people removing their front garden by demolishing the wall, paving over it, and then using it to park multiple cars. Ruins the look of the house and the whole street scene. That said, maybe I’m talking from a privileged position in that I’ve got a driveway that’s big enough.

OP hasn't said they did it to be better insulated? Replacing original features doesn't make it warmer!

They are clearly idiots with no appreciation for heritage. It will devalue the property in the long term.

Good grief!

She said "older".

Edwardian houses could be 130 years old. Not exactly a Barratt Home.

I’m not talking about wallpaper choice, but actual quality features. Good wood, stained glass, handcrafted stuff. There’s a difference between modernising, updating, and trashing.

Yes that’s the thing - your vinyl wrapped marble effect kitchen worktop won’t be around in 100 years time (apart from in landfill) but old things were made to last. They are better quality, more solid, real.

Plus there are a million grey and white new build homes - leave the nice old ones for those of us who actually appreciate them!

I really agree with you, OP. I live in a road of mostly large Victorian houses and ours is now the only one left in this part of the road that hasn’t been butchered. Our neighbours recently moved and the new owners are in the process of ripping out all the internal walls downstairs and adding a featureless box on the back. We’re in the process of moving and have seen lots of newer houses that are open plan by design, but a huge proportion of the older houses we’ve seen have been turned into featureless boxes. We’ve commented to agents when we’ve seen lovely old houses that still have lots of separate rooms and original features thst it’s really nice to see houses that haven’t had all their character ripped out, and every agent has said ‘that’s what everyone says’. I don’t understand why people do this to old houses - why don’t they buy more modern houses that are built as open plan or buy houses that are the right size for them rather than spending another £200,000 on extending and ruining a lovely period property.

It’s really not that hard to understand. Across the country, there are million of Victorian and Edwardian homes. Just in my part of London, there are thousands of streets of Victorian terraces. They are attractive to buyers because of the location, which is often close to transport links. They often sit on larger plots than more modern houses, and tend to have more generous proportions than new built But they were built at a time when (1) insulation and heating were crap - insulation in our house was literally bunched up old newspaper; (2) the kitchen was a tiny space, not for entertainment, and cooking was not considered pleasurable (3) there was no tv and no living rooms - the “parlour” was a small, formal space not meant to be used in day to day life, only when receiving callers (4) hygiene was an afterthought- toilets in the garden a bath once a week. Naturally these houses don’t correspond to ideal modern living conditions. I agree with the PP who mentioned fetichism of old buildings. Just because it’s old doesn’t make it worth embalming. Yes it’s a pity that sometimes features are removed, but there is no shortage of unmodernised homes in this country. Whereas I would argue there is a shortage of houses with good windows and insulation, underfloor heating, solar panels, equal sized bedrooms, properly sized living rooms etc.

Homes are for living in. And that means they need to adapt with how people want to live and what their preferences are. Fireplaces and sash windows and wooden floorboards had a use when these properties were built and we didn’t have any superior building materials and methods of heating and insulation, but what end to preserving outdated technology and materials simply because “looks pretty”? I removed our fireplaces when we remodelled because I live in the twenty first century, I don’t need a reminder that decades ago heating the house used to be dirty and difficult and laborious. Few people in period homes opt to restore their kitchen or bathroom to how it would have looked or functioned when the property was built, or consider if vandalism that they were changed, they recognise that times have moved on, why should other features be fetishised?

What a depressing post. It’s not just about reminding you that people used to need to labour to heat their homes - this is just a bizarre take. It’s about character, the work that went into producing these pieces which are beautiful as well as functional. Your poor house

YANBU. I get so annoyed about this. If you want a new house then buy a new house! Don’t buy a Georgian one and rip out stunning features or tear down walls that have stood for 200 years.

It infuriates me that even if a property is listed you can still often take down internal walls and totally change the back and interior. It shows no respect for the heritage of the property and leaves no houses from 100 years ago with their original footprint, especially nowadays everyone wants a kitchen that looks like a science lab. It really drives me nuts.

Yeah, I think some things should be preserved because they “look pretty”. What a bizarre take.

It’s not even unreasonable - do people not like art? Some of this stuff IS art work

My fil ripped out a mature garden and it's now an environmental desert. He has form for this and he's in his 80s. Breaks my heart...

today I was wondering what to do with the old chimney breast in our kitchen rip out to make space for shiny white cupboards? Or do this? I think i need an Aga

We’re actually debating whether to side return extend or not…

oh yes and then they lay Astro turf over it because apparently they hate bees as well as joy

Not unless it’s listed!

We have just moved into a beautiful Victorian house with loads of original features. It’s a definite project as it’s probably not been decorated this century but we’re trying hard to balance the period features with the need for it to be our family home. It’s possible to do both in my opinion without removing the features.

We have some lovely old buildings in our town centre. They were used by banks, offices, jewellers who kept the decor/windows in line with the style of the building. Now all the banks have closed and the offices have moved to a cheaper location these lovely buildings are leased to vape shops, pawn brokers and fast fashion. Neon signs everywhere they look awful.

I think there’s definitely a balance to be had. We actually sold a Victorian property last year and moved into a larger modern house.

I love our new house but do miss the character of our old place. We actually did quite a lot of work to it, including insulation. It was difficult and we had to get specific companies to do it who were willing to to preserve the cornicing etc. A friend recently put new windows in an older property and paid quite a bit extra to get UPVC sash windows. I guess what I am trying to say is that you can renovate but still maintain the period features.

It gives me the ick that my relative has ripped everything out to turn it into a characterless box.

DH has a new job which means that we will need to move. Transport links mean we are very restricted on where we can move to and the number of houses with Astro turf covered back gardens and monoblocked front gardens is very depressing.

This is design-unsympathetic renovation.

We did a whole home refurb of a house, which was built in 1953. Our designer pointed out we wouldn’t need coving as it was unsympathetic. Shallow skirting with one curve at the top. Mid-century furniture and accents throughout.

It is absolutely superb and that’s largely because it’s in keeping with the period of the property.