to wonder why people don't just buy a house they like?

[lingle]

You go to someone's house for the first time; they inevitably make disparaging remarks about what the house was like before they bought it. They make it sound as though the architecture/decor were some ghastly aberration which it was important to correct.

Then you hear how stressful the building works were (whilst thinking "well, that's a self-made problem mate").

But the all-time low is still to come. You are yet to hear the rationale for choice of kitchen worksurfaces. What does it say about you if you decide against granite at the last moment? Nothing, my friend, nothing. All built-in kitchens look pretty much the same - sterile.

On one occasion, I was even shown a photo album detailing the renovation works step by ghastly step.

Renovation can be fun, even necessary. The same goes for taking a daily shower, but we wouldn't tell long stories about our choice of shower gel over dinner to virtual strangers, would we? No, we would not.

YANBU for not wanting to hear about other people's renovations but some people enjoy doing up their house / have no option but to buy something cheaper and do the work themselves.

I have kept a photographic record of the work we have done on our house which was a total dump when we bought it but its for my own motivation so that when i think "we still have got X, Y and Z to do", i can see how far we have come if that makes sense.

My inlaws actually set up a blog to detail all the work they were having done on their house in detail. Now, to be fair, they live abroad and presumably did it to show us and other family. But these are the same people that never take pictures of their actual family and have nothing else on the blog except detailed photos of every tile, work surface, etc.

lingle, could not agree more. It's the self righteous tone that grates so much - they imply they are making the world a better place by engaging in all this materialistic nonsense.

It is part & parcel of the general congratulatory tone this country for some reason reserves for homeowners, as if they are of absolutely higher moral standing than those who rent, and the more homeownery behaviour they take part in - including all these pointless renovations - the more saintly they are. No matter how disruptive the endless mechanical midnight floor sanding might be to the people who live below, to nobody's advantage except the people who are doing it, they give you weary false modestly exhausted smiles of self congratulation the next day as if they were up all night nursing sick homeless people or something.

"as if they were up all night nursing sick homeless people "

that's exactly it!!

it is so uncool to demolish a working kitchen. It doesn't matter what decade it hales from.

Ooh, hang on, forgot about another low point. Some people actually tell you the brand name of the paint they used on their walls (begins with F).