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.

Agree, those grey laminate floors 😱
Also, it’s worse than that, if the house has high ceilings, which many of these beautiful Victorian houses - (do maybe 2.8 m-3m) they take all the floors out and put a third one in, creating little cells, i.e. what was a three bedroom family house is now an eight bedroom hmo

Agree. I’ve never understood why, if people want a modern house, they don’t just buy a new build. I don’t really see the point in spending so much money trying to modernise an old property — it will always end up looking a bit strange.We’re currently spending a fortune redoing our old house because the previous owner “modernised” it — destroyed the fireplaces, painted the beams, and put ugly carpet over beautiful wooden floors.
I love houses with history and I have quite an antique taste. A grey, ultra-modern house filled with plastic IKEA furniture is my absolute nightmare. I understand that people have different tastes, but an old house will always look a bit bizarre when it’s filled with modern features.

When I was a kid in the late sixties and seventies, there was this DIY bloke who had a page in the weekly TV Times - Barry Bucknell, I think - telling you how to cover up oak panelled doors with two-ply and how to take out tiled Victorian fireplaces and break them up to be carted away. Picture rails were the work of the devil and leaded light windows were tantamount to a big sign saying 'we're so oldfashioned we've got consumption'. You couldn't give away a Victorian house back then. Nobody could believe that in the modern world anyone would want to live in such a monstrosity.

When the OH and I bought an Edwardian house thirty years later, we spent the first two years seeking out and refitting old fireplaces and restoring picture rails.

Fashions change. I agree that it's a pity that original features are torn out. I also think it a shame when Georgian-style windows are put in a Sixties bungalow.

But I don't see how you can legislate against it. And I don't think that it would be fair to do so. Because who would then adjudicate as to what could be done and what couldn't? It'd be an administrative labyrinth and cost a fortune.

🫣 you’ve just described my house. We did lose a horrible wooden conservatory though 😬

It’s a form of ventilation too which is a good thing 😊

You can do what you like with the garden and interior, so ripping up of the fabric means it’s probably lost forever (unless someone can be bothered to pay a fortune to have it all reinstated). Even the exterior can be altered to a large extent, it depends of the council is willing to take action.

Such a shame!

Horrible black windows and awful dormer extensions that ruin the character of the home and wonder if there is breach of planning

also cutting down trees in gardens is another bugbear

I’d love a Dormer loft conversion for the extra bedroom but I have a 1930s semi and every house that’s had it done up the street looks shit.

That’s true. We’ve had a listed property and you can’t do much.

Meh each to their own. We were advised to remove our Victorian fireplaces because they weren’t uk to building standards. Were cheap and poorer quality because we’re just in a bid standard Victoria terrace which was a worker house back then and often it was the apprentice builders that built and finished the upstairs…. Nothings straight and flat. It’s a bit of a nightmare when the kids play marble run!

we tried in the past to sand and use the original floorboards but the sofa fell through then one day. We’ve been warned the ceiling will probably also fall down upstairs at some point in the future so next time we decorate I think we will take it down anyway

My parents have a victorian house, I actually couldn't believe it when I last visited and saw dad's knocked out all 6 fireplaces. I think it's only the hall tiles that are still original. It's really sad.

I trust all these people who are restoring traditional houses are ripping out the bathrooms and kitchens, having the electricity and gas disconnected then investing in oil lamps, we need to be authentic you know.

People don't want new builds as the rooms are smaller.

Oh bore off you know that’s not the point of the thread you’re just being facetious for no reason

The endless rows of Victorian terraces lining street after street across the UK - so monotonous and dreary.

Maybe there should be a simpler way or an annual invitation for buildings to be listed. A process where anyone can propose buildings, whole streets etc.

A step above a conservation area.

If you have this, there needs to be meaningful penalties for a breach. In very extreme cases, you lose ownership of the property.