Things you would NEVER want in your house:

[AlphaBravoHenryFoxtons]

I'll start.

A kitchen island.
A hall console table.
A corner sofa.
New rugs.

I am thinking of getting a plumbed-in Miele coffee machine.

Marshmallowpies Rituals ( a Dutch brand) do a lovely Lotus reed diffuser.

I had a moveable island. Best of all possible worlds. Except I nver once moved it. Island are great if you have large eat-in kitchens, especially if you want to keep everyone who is not cooking out from under your feet.

Sometimes a very large kitchen with no central workspace or focal point can be strangely impractical in spite of its size. Islands rock.

Dysfunctional bathrooms. Things like carpets, no mixer taps, sinks that are too shallow or too splashy, poorly designed taps, back to wall toilets (grrrr!), shower screens that don't screen properly, so when you shower you end up with a puddle on the floor, etc. Oh, and rubbish showers. Bathrooms should be functional above everything else. Really not bothered if the suite is avocado or that the tiles are dated, as long as it all works properly.

You've got to love it when two hates are artfully combined for max efficacy

Volvox

back to wall toilets

Where else would a toilet go except backing on to a wall?

This?

Or this! I'm not sure I'd dare sit on this one.
Lovely to keep clean & all that but imagine the performance if it went wrong

I think most of you had better not visit!
I'd definitely have most of these things - kitchen island, tiled and laminate floors, built in wardrobes if I could afford them.
And I have the ones I can afford - whirlpool bath, fake grass. Incidentally the bath takes very little cleaning.

Oh I see! I thought the poster was advocating a free standing toilet in the middle of the room!

Not a lot I can claim to dislike. Though on my list of couldn't live with are;

Wood panelling
Large canvas family or individual portraits.
A collection display (of anything)

I suppose though some people find this thread mean because of how others post. There's a difference between posting 'I don't really like wall mounted TVs as they are too high for me' and 'Wall mounted TVs are grotesquely common. Yuck!'

(FYI my TV is on the wall. I've a small house it takes up less room there)

Dysfunctional bathrooms. Things like carpets, no mixer taps, sinks that are too shallow or too splashy, poorly designed taps, back to wall toilets (grrrr!), shower screens that don't screen properly, so when you shower you end up with a puddle on the floor, etc. Oh, and rubbish showers. Bathrooms should be functional above everything else. Really not bothered if the suite is avocado or that the tiles are dated, as long as it all works properly.

Oops, sorry for the double post!

Back to wall toilets are the ones you have to remove from the wall in order to unscrew the bolts that hold the toilet seat - ie the bolts are inside. Who the hell designed that?

Oh, not the hidden cistern ones?

I've never heard of the hidden toilet seat bolts thing - have you got a pic?

TSSDNCOP - Ha.

I suppose you could have all the KS1 high frequency words on metro tiles, grouted in dark grey. But tea, coffee, sugar, or basil, fennel, parsley, is just bizarre.

Things I wouldn't have in my house given the choice:

Those things that go in the loo and change water colour to blue

Artex (I have got this in my bathroom sadly

A gas fire of any description

Laminate (got rid of this recently )

Things I do have that others seem to despise (but I love)

Kitchen peninsular with breakfast bar and bar stools.

Metro tiles

Woodburner

Feature wall with wallpaper

Decking

Bifold doors

Brightly coloured splashback

Seems silly to get het up about differences in taste. There are things on this thread that I agree with and things that I disagree with but as I don't live with any of you it really doesn't matter . I don't take it personally that some posters dislike leather furniture, why would I?

Like this one - no bolts on show:

If you walk along a south London street of Victorian terraces and peer in the (half-shuttered) windows, everyone's decor looks the same. And they all think they're being so tasteful and ticking the "plu" box. *

Mark my words, I am in the vanguard of taste with my corner sofa, display of Disney ornaments and pampas-coloured cloakroom suite (no way will I ever change this as the flush is awesome compared with modern wcs...).

And I think it is mean sneering at older people's display cabinets with masses of ornaments. I'm no fan of figurines etc, but often people are very proud of their "stuff" and I'm sure it'll come back into vogue one day anyway.

*plu = people like us

I think this is a fascinating thread, and haven't really found it nasty (although I keep dipping in and out, so maybe there's a nasty page I missed...)

My no-nos are:

• synthetic leather sofa (memories of a hot summer at my grandmother's with my legs sticking painfully to her black pleather sofa)
• slippery floor tiles (we have these. Lethal.)
• tiled work surface (WHY? We also have this. Presumably the previous owner damaged the laminate and wanted to cover it up. It's ugly, it's horribly chipped now, and it's horrible to clean as all the grout gets all grey.)
• front door opening up straight into the front room. Unless the house in question is a charming cottage.
• in fact, in general I'd say you can keep your charming cottages. I love to look at these from the outside: thatch, wicker hearts at window, window painted in lovely pastel colours. All gorgeous. But not for me. I like a Victorian town house with a bay window, etc.
• ditto houses with no front garden actually. Very charming. Not for me.
• Too many tiny rooms squeezed in, in an effort to up the number of bedrooms and thereby the price. Depressing. Just admit the house is a respectable three bedroom one with decent sized rooms, don't throw up extra walls, add masses onto the price and try to convince me it's a 5 bed.
• Generic wall art. Anything which someone actively loves is great. Anything that looks like someone blearily wandered into John Lewis / Wilkinsons / Homebase / Habitat one afternoon and bought the first thing they saw and put it up.... nope.

(I have to confess though that I have always been mad on lettering of all kinds, and hence I LOVE those 3d lettering things. We have one in our bathroom which says 'bathe' and I really adore it.)

I am having a serious think about our plans for a woodburner now, though....!

Thanks, Volvox

That is weird

We're renting and going to buy soon so I've got my own tick list from looking at numerous houses - even from not getting further than the pictures online!

80/90s fitted wardrobes. We feel like we're sleeping in a caravan. Black carpets, we have cats. Artex ceilings, just no. Pale carpets or any carpets, make me feel urgh. Carpets in bathrooms, never. Textured wallpaper , nothing like the feeling of getting 80s blown vinyl stuck down your fingernails if you happen to catch it. Tiny kitchens, one house had a conservatory big enough for a 3 piece suite and a piano but you could only get 2 people in the kitchen - but not side by side. Cheap internal doors, DPs pet hate.

Leather or suede sofas
Laminate flooring
Feature walls
Art by IKEA or similar
Games consoles

I love my decking. Our house is sideways on a hill and the decking has made a complete waste of space useable and has covered up the sloping badly done crazy paving

TSSDNCOP Very good, but I think these are even worse, because of the added 'gourmet' pretension.

Low ceilings and small windows.