Pretty or practical, what did/would you go for when buying your house?

[NotAnotherNewNappy]

I'm very excited as a house that ticks all our boxes has finally come onto the market: right area, three good size bedrooms, big child friendly garden, nice size lounge and potential to knock through kitchen and dining room to create a great kitchen diner and, most importantly, we can actually afford it

The problem? It is fugly. I keep looking at it and squinting, just trying to imagine it painted and covered in ivy! So what did you go for when buying your house, pretty or practical? And have you come to regret or appreciate your choice?

Practical all the way.

We have a 1960's ex council house, so fugly too.

But it works for us, and let's face it, who sits on the pavement and admires their house form the outside? You can make any house lovely on the inside.

And I've appreciated the affordability aspect more this year than I ever thought possible due to 2 unplanned for, yet financially life changing events - I've given birth to twins (one baby was planned, two were not!) and was made redundant the same week.

I'm more grateful than ever that we're not mortgaged to the hilt, and we have a warm, comfortable, practical and affordable roof over our heads.

Practical over pretty. Although, I do think the views from the windows are important too. Have lived in flats and houses with amazing views. Don't have a "view" atm but still have open outlook and lots of sky. What the house looks like from the outside really doesn't matter to me.

Both, fortunately! Actually probably slightly more pretty than practical but it fulfilled all the requirements I had set for myself - 2-3 bedrooms, bathroom upstairs, garden, working fireplace - fantastic. The good looks of the place were a bonus. :)
Didn't have its own car parking space to begin with but I sorted that out.

Another one here who had to move down south and trade beautiful Georgian Rectory for fugly 50s box. Went through a good five years of wishing it was pretty on the outside, but the good points are:

1. Located in chocolate village in Area of Outstanding Beauty, nice walks all around

1. Big. 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 receptions

1. Beautiful half acre garden, looking onto countryside

1. Because it's not listed, don't have all the aggravation of maintenance at mega bucks.

1. We have made it a little less fugly with evergreen clematis, wisteria etc so not quite as boxy as it was before.

It's been a bit like an arranged marriage - hated it at first but gradually got to appreciate the good bits.

Oh yes, and the Georgian rectory in Yorks sold for less than half of what we had to pay for this one

practical - dont care if fugly on outside - spcae inside/garden/location more important to me

Pretty all the way! I used to drive past our house and think that who ever lived in it was very lucky indeed. It's a very handsome 3 story Edwardian semi with bags of space for us all. It has a 150ft drive way which winds up to the house but the best part is where it is. It's opposite a beautiful old church complete with graveyard and rectory, in a lovely family friendly area. However the central heating bills cost me a fortune, the first quarter gas bill we ever had was over £1k and I nearly cried and it is still very draughty. 3 years later we are still pouring money into it and it is a money pit which seems never ending! If I had my time again I would still chose this house over the 1960s semi we nearly
bought, when I have finished my 15 day at work and drive up the drive I still love it :)

Our house was very ugly when we moved in but after a few renovations to the exterior is now one of the best looking houses on the road. The outside of the house is much more easily fixed then interior problems like lack of space or major remodelling or rewiring.

what are some ideas for improving exteriors? The one we are buying (I hope) is modern, 8y old, has that modern, boxy, bland look. The garage is attached but sticks out at the front, which I find fugly asI think houses look better symetrical. Ugly grey brick.

Inside great layout for us, 6 beds over 3 storey with family room and large kitchen/diner which is why we went for it - I have 3 lovely dc but feel the need for some adult space and am conscious they will be 3 surly teenagers one day. It does have a gated drive and quite a bit of space out front so I think there is stuff we can do.

We are planning to convert the garage to a playroom and put a window in instead of the garage door which will help I think.

What else?

I think the lack of "kerb appeal" kept the price down a bit which was helpful - not many people viewed it and it was "deceptively spacious" as the estate agents say.

What about rendering some or all of it if the bricks are ugly then softening it with some form of planting? Bay trees either side of the door are nice as are buxus balls (at least i think thats what they are called!) What about the surrounding houses are they the same and have they managed to make them look prettier? What about these www.boulegazon.com we put them either side of our bay and they very nice :)

yes I thought about white rendering. Does that need planning permission? It is identical to the house next door but mirror immage, and then all the others on the street are all different. Next door has done exactly what you suggested with the planting and it does look much better so we will definitely do that at least - thanks! Any other ideas welcome.

I am also thinking about white shutters as I love them and hate curtains, but will they look ok on a non-period property?

pretty. our house wasn't even on the market. it was so amazing, modern and far too trendy for us, love at first sight. everyone else freaked out over the open stairs so it was all ours. it ticked all the other boxes though and despite being told there's no way we can live here with small children we now have 3 kids running/crawling around quite happily. 5 sets of stairs isn't the easiest to live with though

I am always amazed how little more the pretty houses with stunning historical features go for. When I started watching the market I kept getting depressed at the price of ugly houses, thinking 'If they're asking this much for a horrible house of the size we want, how will we ever afford a nice one?' but it has turned out as lovely houses come onto the market, that they have not actually gone for more or any faster than the ones that seem special to me.

I have obsessively been working out price per square foot and comparing it to how much they sell for, and the ones that sell easily seem to be the ones that are cheap per square foot, not the nice ones.

Where I am, there is a stunning Georgian rectory-type house and a gorgeous stone-built 17th century house with wood panelling and a garden full of topiary, and neither seems that expensive and yet they have sat on the market for ages, while quite characterless ex-farmhouses have sold.

I therefore conclude that most people (in my area at least) take a more practical view - they either don't care about prettiness or they're put off by the hassle and cost of having a lovely listed house.

Our house had white badly damaged render when we moved in and the paint work on the door and porch was in bad condition. We had all the render removed and replaced and painted a cream colour. Then we stripped down the paint work on the door and porch and repainted. Finally we replaced the gravel and patchy mud driveway with block paving which makes the front of the house much tidier.

We chose pretty over practical 13 years ago. Lovely, characterful small Victorian semi, no of street parking (not much on street parking either), small rooms, cold, draughty, but with period features and oodles of charm.

After the first 5 years the impracticalities began to grate. We lived with them for anothehr 6 years. We then, last year, sold up and bought practical - 1953 semi, 3 usuable bedrooms, garage, driveway, but fugly. We are slowly turning it into 'our' home and I do love the sheer simplicity of living here.

(although part of me will always hanker after quirky features and open fires)

Sorry, not helping much. Upshot I guess is that we eventually regretted the pretty-but-not-practical choice.

gah, off street, not of...

Yay, I'm very pleased to see this thread has taken off.

We made an offer on the FUGLY house. Won't find out the upshot until Monday, keep your fingers crossed for me.

It was much nicer in person. Ironically, it is actually in a conservation area (think rural council house type architecture). I've been reading the council's guidance on preserving/restoring the original character and am now desperate to be the proud owner of one FUGLY little cottage.

I've done both. The fugliest biggest compromise house I've ever bought really made me miserable. I don't think it was helped by the fact that we'd just missed out on my perfect house having offered asking price, but it turned into a bidding war and we lost. Went with the fugly house in resignation having looked at soooo many and regretted it. Did some work to improve it but never felt right.

On the other hand we moved out of the prettiest house I've ever lived in because it just wasn't practical enough.

Right now we're in the middle that works much better for me. I'm loving it more and more as we do stuff to it.

Another one in fugly 50s council house. Previous owners painted the outside blue and maroon which is a hideous combination IMO and the interior colour scheme wasn't much better. But we have decent sized rooms and a huge garden, 5mins walk from two pretty villages and half an hour's walk to an amazing beach and a lovely seaside town. It's not perfect but it's our home and I love it (and it's far cheaper and easier to pretty up cosmetic faults than structural ones).
Good luck - hope you get it and can be as happy as we are!

some of the nicest houses in my village are old council houses. They're well-built and pleasant and built round a green - quite idyllic in a way.

Elderberry Do you really think that's a lot? Even when there has been lots of other interest?

DH would have offered 225k, my mum and my sister both told me to offer the asking price - I thought I was being stingy at 220k! None of us really know anything about buying houses (Dsis paid 10k over for hers because it was 'the one'* and DM bought her council house for about 50p back in the day).

I do think it's worth 220k and I suppose you have to pay what you think it's worth. I am hoping that as FTB we'll trump all other offers. We did lurk outside for a bit and saw that most of the viewers seemed to be older people (who won't be FTB or won't fancy taking on the work involved) plus one german couple who looked far too glam to want my fugly little cottage.

*In fairness it is gorgeous and she was 8m PG.

Oops, sorry, wrong thread.

We went for pretty and impractical....well, sort of.

We could have had a bigger house with more space for the same price...particularly in this area, but the house we bought is so quirky and really old, and totally reflects our personality as a family. The garden is absolutely fantastic as well....it's really mature and quite large and has fantastic views. We compromised on space and accepted a smaller kitchen that I would have liked, in order to live in this period, characteristic house.
It's cold and draughty, and needs constant maintenance.

Regrets? No way! We LOVE our house!

We are buying a house that i would not go and have a look at for ages because it was fugly. It is a huge 30's semi but the owners have put dreadful double glazing in and taken out the 30's stained glass door and put a naice 1980's 'georgian' thing in. It took me months to go and look at it because it just looked so wrong but just having the right shaped windows in makes a very big difference.

We have looked at a very large number of house and have found nothing better, it 'feels' nice and has a great layout- very practical - it has 5 beds (4 doubles) and 3 reception rooms - I am expecting baby number 5 so we do need the space. I really wished I had looked at it before and saved myself all the bother. I know too we can make it pretty or at least as it should be rather than with its 80's 'upgrade'

All that said would rather stick pins in my eyes than live in a brand new built Barratt/Persimmon/etc place no matter how practical - that is my hard limit!