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Original poster

Do You, Or Anyone You Know Live In One Of Those Houses You See In Magazines?

89 replies

QuootiepieTheNewYearsAss · 30/12/2006 17:08

Just been flicking through a home magazine, and im at them really. Do normal people live in them? There was some woman who did up her house, I saw total cost £250,000 - thought that was the whole lot, buying house and all (tiny place). No, was the cost of decorating! Baths at £2,500, wallpaper maybe £100 odd a roll... I just can't think who could live a life like that! Apart from a celebrity. How normal is it, being that wealthy? And having homes like that? Obviously, I dream of having a big house, and decorated nicely etc. etc. but this seems pretty off the scale! And it's the same in most magazines... Am I really poor or something ? Don't even get me started on style magazines though... £1000 being a bargain for a whole outfit? That wouldn't even buy the handbag though!

Please tell me im not alone in this!

OP posts:
Smurfgirl · 30/12/2006 19:50

My mum and dads house is a v.normal 4 bed detatahced thing, but inside it is v.magaziney, always imacualate, they don't spend a fortune on furniture or anything just have a good eye I think.

foxtrot · 30/12/2006 19:55

the houses are decluttered and styled for the pictures though, no-one actually lives that way (do they?). The giveaway is when they havn't bothered to iron the 'fresh out the packet' duvet covers and the artfully arranged, colour co-ordinated shelves.

Carmenere · 30/12/2006 19:56

I grew up in one, my dsis lives in one, as does my db and my parents and I intend to live in one in the future.

Building a beautiful place to live is an ambition of mine but that is not surprising as my dad is an architect.

SmileysPeople · 30/12/2006 20:05

Ever wish you hadn't asked Quootie

FrostyTheSnowMarsLady · 30/12/2006 20:07

Yes! (not me sadly)

Original poster
QuootiepieTheNewYearsAss · 30/12/2006 20:28

Yes smileys. Bad day on MN, everyone has large, tastefully decorated houses and wonderful husbands today

OP posts:
SmileysPeople · 30/12/2006 20:50

But are they fulfilled?
Oh God, don't ask, they probably are...

HazelnutsRoastingOnAnOpenFire · 30/12/2006 21:20

I don't live like that Quootie.

I wish I had more money, just living is hard with what I have each week to live on
I would love a bigger house with all new fixtures and fittings. With a good size garden. Can always dream

But like you, if I won the lotto I would give most of it away. I would get myself a nice home, Not a really big one though. Just bigger than I have now. With all new bits that we need to live. Nothing OTT or silly things that you have just b/c of the money. Then enough in the bank to live on and rainy days. The rest would go. I would not want to live in a house with wall paper that is over £100 per roll, or rooms that are the size of a house.

All I really dream of is a nice size house to live in, a bedroom for each of the DC (3 of) and a nice size room for me,2 bathrooms, lounge, dinning room, playroom, kitchen (good size) washing room, back house, and a good size garden back for the dc to play in (boys and football) and a small garden at the front (to make it look good) With Xmas bits to cover the house at Xmas time. If I ever got that, then my dreams would come true.

Like I said before.......... A girl can dream.

Wallace · 30/12/2006 21:28

suedonim - the wires thing! My house has a multitude of tangled wires, yet I never notice trailing tangles of cables in other people's houses!

twinsetandpearls · 30/12/2006 21:32

I used to live like that and mixed with people who all live like that, quite glad to be out of it. AfterI left that environment true friends said to me thatthey always felt a bit uncomfortable in my apartment/house as if they were runing the decor or cluttering the place.

My new place is nothing like that, half decorated, c huge pileof ironing in the kitchen and a healthy amount of clutter and mess.

Skribble · 30/12/2006 21:43

My house is somewhat eclectic and have cables trailing everywhere, still have loads of handme downs we collected when we first moved in.

I think even if I did have a big house it would still be full of stuff and would still have trailing cables and nothing that matches. Still couldn't bring myself to fork our £2500 for a bath, but I would love a big plush kitchen. Our first flat cost £25,000 and I always found it unbelivable that people could pay that for a kitchen, mine cost £600 to fit out.

MrsJohnCusack · 30/12/2006 21:58

not me - but was highly entertained to be leafing through '20 Beautiful Homes' or whatever it's called and see a friend and his wife's home featured. Not my taste at all, but she was very proud of it.
know a gay couple in Canada whose home is straight out of Homes and Gardens and has been featured in mags as is a beautifully restored period house (obviously no kids there though, it's stuffed full of breakables and antiques that make me too scared too move anywhere in case my arse swipes something off a surface).
And lots of people where I grew up (Blackheath/Greenwich) hired out their houses for film and TV (particularly thrilling when they filmed Dempsey and Makepeace next to one friend's house, and The Little Princess where another friend lived. We had Nigel Havers for tea!)
So yes real people do live like that. But not everyone spends such hideous amounts on the furnishing. You can still have a lovely house furnished cheaply and from second hand/charity shops and it'll probably be a lot more individual. My favourite houses I've been in to have hardly ever been stuffed with conventional, expensive things.

Skribble · 30/12/2006 22:00

My house just has so many things in it to ever look like that. Dropped DD daughter off at a party and the house was barren, V strange. I will let her off as they have not long moved it and hasn't had time to fill it up yet.

Original poster
QuootiepieTheNewYearsAss · 30/12/2006 22:05

My house is getting nicely done... but it's so mind boggling people live in such big houses, with so much money to splash about, and the kind of living is mind boggling. I mean, my parents, looking back were quite rich, I had a horse, lived in a big detached house in Windsor, private road etc. etc. but nothing like those magazines! Our house was "normal". And my mum would sooner go to a charity shop than spend £1000 on a normal outfit (although she's been known to spend £500 on a suit for work) and she earns I think triple the average UK salary. I find it very surreal. I think id hate living in London! (Seems worse there!)

OP posts:
Judy1234 · 30/12/2006 22:05

Two separate issues on the thread though - clutter and big houses which aren't linked. I can't bear clutter so probably some rooms do look barren but I prefer it like that. I can think more clearly. Found second son's bed time difficult because he wouldn't have his toys on the bedroom floor tidied up.

Some people just don't mind mess and others do. I am not sure it has much to do with the size of the house.

One thing I noticed moving here was it was easier to be tidier because there were more places to put things away. Still don't have a bed room per child though not that I think that matters. I shared a room until I was 14.

Judy1234 · 30/12/2006 22:06

...and a lot of people in big houses don't waste money - it's one reason they can afford the houses and many of us absolutely hate the footballers wife house look which we'd avoid like the plague.

janeite · 30/12/2006 22:14

Some of the houses they feature in "Ideal Home" are very "ordinary" - ie: not big and posh but look lovely. I think it's to do with having a good eye for how things go together and, of course, they are styled for the photographs too - clutter removed, flowers to coordinate with the candles etc.

The one thing that always makes me worry though, is how few books most of the houses featured seem to have. Our house isn't very cluttery but we do have lots and lots and lots of books - at least one bookcase in every room in the house except the loos.

And I agree with whoever said that it's much easier to have a tidy, more styled looking house if each child has their own room. We moved earlier this year so that the girls didn't need to share any more and it's made such a difference.

OTickletownofbethlehem · 30/12/2006 22:42

Ooh the wires! so true!

and skribble - are you living in my house somewhere, under our handmedowns ???

But my dsis is a stylist in Australia, and her old flat and current house have looked fab in several magazines. Dying to know how it goes, now they have 6mo dd. Unfortunately house has looked immaculate on every baby shot

But dsis will regularly ship in furniture and fittings in her style for a shoot. So those magazine homes are not as perfect as all that.

Hope for the rest of us

brimfull · 30/12/2006 22:54

good point janeite,one of my fav games is to watch cribs on mtv and play "spot the book".
There are never any.

Skribble · 30/12/2006 22:55

I still jump in when people say Oh I have a chest of drawers going begging, anyone want it. I have to stop myself now. DH's grandad died when we were buying our first house so we inherited loads of furniture, crockery and other things fromhim, I found it hard to turn anything down, firstly because we were so hard up and secondly I didn't want to offend anyone. His uncle died when we were having first baby so once again we got loads of stuff from him. So I am only now starting to lose the "Old man 1970's" look gorgeous though it is. We are sort of care home meets Ikea now, such class.

MrsJohnCusack · 30/12/2006 22:57

oooh janeite exactly
all our houses have been held up with books, and houses without books (like my in-laws - what books they have are actually DH's) make me really nervous

Skribble · 30/12/2006 22:59

I have some books but not loads I hand them back into the charity shop once I read them if fiction, do have entire shelves of Natiol Geographic and reference books too. I devour novels when in the mood but don't read them twice. Kept all my Roald Dahl ones adult and child and other classics.

brimfull · 30/12/2006 23:01

we have bookcases all over the house,love my books have even colour coded one bookcase

Judy1234 · 30/12/2006 23:45

Ah yes, the books issue. My study has lots of books and when we moved here we put all the other books into bookcases in what was the spare room which now houses the twins. I think I'd quite like them to be in some kind of enclosed space. It's hard to make them look clear, sleek and clean lined as they're all different sizes and get taken out and pushed back a lot.

notanotter · 30/12/2006 23:55

xenia

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