Is this what you’d consider to be a ‘middle class’ style house?

[Inburess]

or is it just run of the mill these days?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/174843149#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166723985

Here's a house for sale that is undoubtedly not middle class. 14th century, Grade 1 listed and in the same family for 700 years. I note it both has an island in the kitchen and whilst the featured rooms are certainly tidy, there are books in the bookcases. And I'd lay money on the furniture being 'vendor's own' not supplied by the estate agent. Sadly we don't get photos of the domestic offices so can't form a view from presence or absence dog beds, or an ironing pile.

I don't think the £44m Belgravia house works well as an illustration of the UK property market any more than Ripley Castle does. It's almost certainly not anyone's home and won't be bought as a home either- it'll be be an investment for a ridiculously rich international buyer and no doubt was dressed/curated/feng shuied before launch- because this kind of property market is different from mainstream residential sales. But that's not how it will have worked for a middle-income house in Derbyshire, except that this one might have been a furnished rental property hence bland interiors and lack of personal touches.

The responses do seem to write themselves but to me they are along the lines of:

MC people read books, travel to interesting places, hang good art on their walls, are interested in history.

WC people are crass yobs who don't read, don't know anything about history, put "laugh live love" signs on their walls and love nothing better than sitting in a hot tub.

The out-loud ignorance and prejudice is almost funny.

I live in an expensive area. This would be around one million, maybe more. I would say firmly middle class I suppose but I don't really think middle class is to do with house value exactly.

I live in an expensive area. This would be around one million, maybe more. I would say firmly middle class I suppose but I don't really think middle class is to do with house value exactly.

That’s just such a lot of rubbish. I have always lived an entirely middle class entity. We don’t have book cases, I have all my books on my kindle as do my kids. I don’t have a piano - the children have guitars and drum kits in their bedrooms. No clarinets, no flutes and our art is modern (and expensive) and we do have art from where we have travelled.

we are highly successful professionals, 3rd gen uni grads, I never set foot in a state school as a child. Am I not middle class?

maybe but now the same highly successful professionals can not necessarily afford a middle class lifestyle. So what is even middle class you can go to private school on a scholarship for example.

also the thing about books is a bit daft imo because this is from before the internet and computer as a way to get knowledge and be educated. But you don’t need books to be educated now. Having a house full of fiction novels is not a marker of being middle class imo.

Yeah the book thing is nonsense, it’s an old stereotype; like old money wearing old clothes and driving beat up cars. Life isn’t a jilly cooper novel. The middle classes read on iPads or kindles. It’s lower working class who are more likely to have paperbacks, and upper middle class now, with libraries. Books are not something people have cluttering their homes now, if they can afford it, it’s done electronically. Sure some middle class do, but its not the norm any more.

we are solidly middle class. In a much grander house than the op is asking about and we do have books, a few hardbacks on the coffee table, that are browsed, biographies etc, and we have books , in a closed cupboard, we wish to keep, they aren’t displayed, generally reading is done electronically, and it’s the same for all our friends.

I like the pic 34 book nook.

The book thing is nonsense. We’ve all had Kindles for the last 15 years!

This would probably break that poster.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/169545983?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=commercial-buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=COM_BUY

Yikes!

You should have seen it before it was staged to be neutral 😂

Yes, they have a warehouse full of dolls ready to deploy for the photo shoot

Only the very best stagers have those resources to hand

Is that a toaster on the hob?

The furniture no, house yes

Yes, I wondered this. Is class so important to you OP? I think that you'd find that many people who live in relatively expensive houses don't give a damn about how they are perceived.

I live alone in a 2 bed terrace within walking distance to the centre of one of the most beautiful towns in the UK. It cost me 400k. So perhaps because it is cheaper then it could be perceived as working class, if you really wanted to try to categorise. It is anything but working class. The love that I give it, the art that I choose when I can afford it, the music (which I can always afford), the furniture, the colours, make people smile, and to visit again and again, and I don't spend a huge fortune on it. Just a very small one.

You do not gain perceived class status by buying a large house. To be honest though, who gives a damn about class? I don't.

I always struggle with how MN users define middle class. Using this definition, I’d say this house is definitely middle class

I’d say upper middle class. I love it.

I love it. It's right near my birthplace (Buxton)

Richard Campbell-Black didn't read. He always drove expensive flashy cars and wore expensive well fitting clothes. He had labradors and lurchers. He had expensive art on the wall, which he took for granted. He possibly had a library which he never entered.
I think he was upper class.

Horror film. Conservatory very out of place imo.

Do you mean Rupert? I believe he was a great devotee of Horse & Hound. And I'm pretty sure he had sex in the library.

House, possibly, although more Nouveau Riche than Middle Class tbh.
Interior, no, it's more Dunhelm Mills than it is John Lewis.

Yes Rupert. Typo.
In the later books he studied o level literature. But he was generally an ignoramus, expelled from boarding school I believe. Part of his charm. Don't remember him having sex in the library, but he probably did.