Is there anything you can do to improve pebbledash?

[PaintingOwls]

DP and I are looking to buy our first house but for whatever reason a lot of houses in our budget are pebbledashed and I am 'vetoing' those houses because I find it so, so ugly and am at a loss of what we can do about it.

Take this house for example - www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-67129880.html - it is not the fact that it needs gutting that puts me off, but that hideous exterior.

A similar house down the road which has exposed bricks is about £40-70k more expensive...

Please give me some hope about pebbledash. Ways to make it look better, cover it, reinvent it, anything - inspire me!

Well, you could expose the brick again or if too damaged, render it.
If the houses in the same road are going for £40-70k more, worth spending the money.

ps, could be worse, fake stone cladding

Agree you could change it but a less drastic solution is to paint it. White pebbledash looks fine (pebble dash is a good render despite the way it looks)

A porch and a new front door would make that house look much better...

Completely off topic but £325k OMG!!! I'm glad I live in Up North.

These fashions are a nightmare are they? Think pebbledashing was a 70's thing. I'd look elsewhere or wait for something else in the area.

Btw OP that house is scary!

Wow, it looks like a big project for a first buy and I’ve gutted several houses. I think I’d look for something else.
Sorry if that’s not helpful.

Just paint it. Sandtex or something. It will look entirely different. From the street view it looks as if others have been painted - whether brick or pebbledash. Sandtex comes in several different colours.

As someone else said, stone cladding is infinitely worse and costs a bomb to take off.

Actually, if there are no structural problems with that house, I'd have thought you might get a good price there, because the state of it will put so many buyers off, and the London market's so flat at the moment, and prices are dropping. Looks as if it could well be a landlord anxious to offload! There's a lot of that about, what with the new tax regime biting soon.

at the price for a wreck of a house a few streets away from a sewage works.

Pebble dash is the least of your worries.

Seriously, as FTBs you can’t afford to be fussy. And you won’t be there forever. Treat it much more like a business transaction.

Completely off topic but £325k OMG!!! I'm glad I live in Up North. Yes! I'm in the Midlands, for that price you could buy 3 houses like that.

😂
The pebbledash is not what I noticed.

Knock it down?

I used to think it looked very ugly, until I bought a house with pebble dash. Now I'm used to it, I don't mind it. In my case though all the other houses on the street are pebble dashed, so it would look weird if I changed it and it looks smarter than the one in your link.
I think that how the house looked on the outside is much less important than how it looks on the inside: You don't spend much time looking at the outside of your house! Its spoiling your neighbour's view, not yours.

That house needs a fair bit of work done, but I would't rule it out based on the pebble dash alone, and it would be low down my priority list. If your budget doesn't stretch to stripping it back to bare brick, you could get the pebble dashed painted maybe? That can look much nicer than you think.

Not a great fan of pebbledash myself but you can draw attention away from it. As Pp said paint it white then grow climbing roses. I think that house looks like a fun project, but not much space for an upstairs bathroom. I would want to extend the kitchen to incorporate the existing bathroom and move the bathroom upstairs. Would you be prepared to lose a bedroom, or if not, is there potential to convert the loft into a bedroom?

Blimey, the pebble dash is the least of your issues with that house- have you seen the floor boards?!

that house looks like it was added on to the terrace later. It may have been designed to be dashed, and built using low-cost unsightly blocks that were not intended to be seen. Render and pebbledash are usually applied to hide defective or unsightly walls.

You could have it rendered smooth. There are some self-coloured products now that are supposed not to need painting. I forget the name. but plasterers/renderers know it.

squishysquirmy

I used to think it looked very ugly, until I bought a house with pebble dash.

I might sound a bit melodramatic, but I think it's the fact that it'd a boxy, boring structure with pebbledash.

I could probably cope with a house like this, but that's because the Victorian features and contours kind of distract you from the pebbledash - whereas with the house I posted there is nothing else to look at, is there?

dorislessingscat

shock at the price for a wreck of a house a few streets away from a sewage works.

DP works at St Helier Hospital and hasn't noticed any bad smells etc so I'm not particularly worried.

£325k for a 3 bedroom h o u s e in London is an utter bargain.

We are open to other areas if anyone has any hidden gems. We are in Surbiton/Kingston currently and would love to stay but we can't afford anything more than a one bed flat here...

Yes, this second one is much more appealing. Looks like it probably has lovely high ceilings inside.

Of course the house that’s 40k + more expensive is more appealing but if you can’t afford it then it might as well be Buckingham Palace. You need to be much more business like about property.

How long are you planning to live there? Do you have the time and skills to take on a project? What’s the market doing?

Buying characteristic cottages with roses round the door is for lottery winners and wealthy retirees.

And like people it’s what’s inside that matters

I lived in a pebbledashed house. Front had been painted white and it took me a few years to realise it was pebble dashed! Maybe I'm unobservant. Back had not been painted and it was much more obvious. We had the whole lot repainted at one point (only cos it hadn't been done for ages and the paintwork was starting to look grubby) and it wasn't as expensive as I'd anticipated.

Ok, I’ve done some googling and found a pretty, period house (late Georgian / early Victorian at a guess). It’s coming up for Auction through Barnard Marcus with a guide price of £310k. Sorry, I realise that is heading in the wrong direction for your DPs work but Middlesex hospital nearby if job is at all transferable.)

www.barnardmarcus.co.uk/houses-for-sale/property-details/AUC0015052

Dorislessingscat we live in a characteristic cottage with roses over the door. Neither retired nor lottery winners. It didn’t come with the roses, or much else to be honest (no heating for example). Was in a fairly shocking state but the bare bones were old and pretty. We basically camped out in it for several years with 2 small children to get it into the condition it’s now in. It was worth it.

We’re in a Victorian terrace with pebble dash and honestly I hated it. But we had it painted nearly three years ago, and I completely fell in love with it. Every time I come home I feel so lucky to have this as my house! I don’t even think about the pebble dash any more - as much as I love brick terraces, I just still love ours so much!

Not a great photo but you get the idea