If you live in a pretty house, does it make you happy?

[beatricequimby]

DD pointed out a lovely country cottage on our way to school today, roses round the door type of place. Apparently she is going to live there when she is grown-up.

We live in a 1950s pebble-dash semi and will probably be here for years. I like it on the inside but it is not pretty from the outside and is never really going to be. I do wonder what it would be like to live in a really pretty house. Does it make you happy, or do you just forgot about what it looks like from the outside?

We live in a stunning old farmhouse. The garden is immaculate and people often stop to photograph and paint or draw it. Inside it needs total gutting and is like a building site, so right now nope it doesn't make me happy, but I'm sure in the future it will, not because its beautiful but because I'll be able to make it a home.

My house isn't pretty but it is a house that is beautiful to look out of and we are really privelidged to live here . It does make me very happy

We live in a dump right now. I'm happy, but I know I will be happier in a pretty house! House-hunting right now, and requirements are:

1. garden
2. pretty house! :)

We live in a beautiful farmhouse, it's very old and has bags of character. I do love it, and I'll admit to sitting and looking at it and the garden and having big happy sigh moments...but these tend to be when I'm happy anyway. I think if I wasn't happy in myself it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference where I lived tbh.

Weirdly, as I have been house hunting, I've realised that a lot of the houses I am drawn to are 60s/70s style. I was a bit confused at first, but eventually realised it's because there are bigger windows/more light, so they are brighter inside. In contrast, the character houses that we saw were narrow Edwardian semis/terraced houses which consequently had fewer/smaller windows and a more awkward layout inside.

We've ended up offering on a pretty ugly 70s semi-detached. However, it's on a lovely street, with lots of different types of houses including period homes. The living room looks right out onto the garden, which is also lovely.

My house is OK. But I've lost interest in it now. I'm ready to move on again. So I find it hard to be postive about it.

My house isn't pretty, it's an 80s shed but, particularly as Australian houses go, it has more individuality, and lovely gardens front and back.

I love my house, we have a conservatory that we can see the road and often have people stopping their cars to look at it. One man even reversed to get a better look.
Everytime I come home I think how lucky I am to live here.

I live in a country cottage. It looks truly inviting and has climbing roses and a real cottage garden, front and back. I love coming home. It's so pretty outside and gorgeous and quirky inside. It is quite small though and costs a fortune to heat due to so many inexplicable drafts.

Our last house, despite being bigger and nicely decorated inside, was very ugly. I hadn't realised how important it was to me to live somewhere I thought was beautiful from all angles, although it makes no sense, as others have said, you don't spend much time looking at the exterior of the house.

We currently live in a lovely-inside Edwardian maisonette - tonnes of space and storage but not terribly pretty from the outside. We're selling up and hoping to buy the bottom two storeys of a Victorian coaching house in London - beautiful exteriors with floor to ceiling french doors at the back and windows to the front. Shame the insides are so horrible after years of poor maintenance and tenants with large and incontient dogs - but it will be lovely inside once we've fixed it up! TBH I'd be very happy with lovely interiors and more happy to compromise on exteriors. There are some huge 70's townhouses near us on four stories with floor to ceiling windows which look amazing to live in.

Am I the only person on Mumsnet who lives in a cheap, bog standard semi that is worth under £200,000?!

I live in a 700+yr old house that started life as a single story medieval hall house and has evolved over the years. It has stone walls that are 1m thick. It is in a beautiful village that is a conservation area. It has roses growing up the outside.

Yes, it does make me happy - but... I travel over 2 hours to get to work so I can live where I do. I get up just after 5.00am every morning and get back pretty late.

Would also say that house has downsides too - principally lots of damp that I just cannot cure.

Approaching our mid terrace with neat bush and black front door makes me happy, it looks like a tiny London Town house

We live in a bog standard 1930s semi, not pretty, but big enough for 5 of us, extended by us and with a beautiful (neglected) garden. But the best thing is the location. We love living where we are, the inside and out will be made pretty over time.
It makes me happy that we finally managed to buy a house in this area, because it makes our lives easier.

struggling100

You are not the only one. We live in a 3 bed end of terrace. It is pretty enough on the inside and outside. We have put our stamp on it.

I read posts where families have £6/700k to spend on a house and think even £300k would be fine for us.

We live in a very old, pretty house. It has salmon pink walls and red shutters and red terracotta tiles inside and out. Inside, we have two open fireplaces, beams everywhere and a mezzanine balcony. It's in a huge garden with lots of fruit trees. The sky seems very big round here and we have beautiful sunsets. It makes me very happy in summer. It's bloody high maintenance. Freezing cold in winter. Everything goes wrong all the time. It's like living in a picture and for the rest of the year I dream of living in a flat in a mansion block in a big city!

I'd like Pagwatch's house, please. If the rest of you would just like to form an orderly queue . . .

We lived in a very beautiful house for several years - we bought it specifically because we loved the style of its architecture. It was a great house and I did feel very proud of it - we used to get visitors from historical societies and were part of London Open House - but, after a while, that became less important than the area which was not great. I think a good-looking house is like marrying a good-looking person: after a while, you get used to the way they look and other things begin to matter more.

I think what DaisyBD said is true - Id rather be in an ugly house overlooking pretty ones than an externally pretty one overlooking ugly houses. Unfortunately right now I'm in an externally ugly house overlooking equally ugly places. I'm contemplating window film

struggling - me! That's why I started this thread, as I am never going to know what its like to live in a pretty house from personal experience.

My house has brown pebble dash. I think that's a major sin in Mumsnet land.

lala - I like the good look partner analogy!

Hahahaha! Glad I'm not the only one not living in a picture postcard!

One thing that I've noticed on my road of small 1930s semis is what a difference windows make. Most houses - mine included - have UPVC, and it's so ugly. However, there are a couple of houses that still have the original wood windows and these look so much prettier. I think it must have been a very attractive street when all of the houses were like that. One of my ambitions is to rip out the plastic and go back to something more like the original design. It will take me about 10 years to save up for that, though.

struggling - there is a street of 30s houses near us that sounds a bit like your street. One house has been painted white, it has the original sash windows painted dark green with a matching front door. Its really pretty.

Unfortunately my house is 1950s so don't think it would ever have had nice windows. I am stuck with UPVC!

beatrice - yes, but on the upside, you often get lovely big rooms and great light in a 50s house! They often have lovely proportions!

My house makes me happy. However, it is because I can see the see from it.

Our house is (what I consider) pretty / attractive - detached Edwardian, original bay windows (& worth £300k so a fairly low value in MN land!?!). Both me & DH do love coming home to it- we pull onto the driveway and say 'ahhh, its such an attractive house'.

However, our 3 kids always say 'oh I wished we lived in a house like so-and-so-friend' (invariably 1980's estate house, cul-de-sac etc). They're great houses, but not pretty or attractive (in my opinion) - but then, like your daughter, kids always yearn for what they don't have don't they?

Like you, my kids comments about other friends houses used to get me thinking about whether our house is right for us - life might be so much easier in an estate house with 4 beds, utility, safe cul-de-sac etc.....but I can't bring myself to sell our lovely house and move! I'm guessing your daughters comment has triggered your thread & gotten you wondering. I ignore my kids now & tell them they are free to go buy an estate house when they're grown up, but for now they're going to have to put up living in our draft floorboard house