Tell me about your house's imperfections please

[Pintof]

I have serious MH issues and I'm six months pregnant so I have a habit of blowing things out of proportion.

Basically, I want a perfect house. I want every detail done to perfection. I know that's not possible but I get so stressed about it.

The other day I had a carpenter in who put up some shelves but didn't conceal the brackets as I wanted so it doesn't look perfect. And he cut a hole in a bit of beading which the decorator is now going to fill 'as best he can' [his words]. Again, not perfect.

I know I'm being OTT. I know these things happen and every house ends up with small imperfections but I'm stressed out of my box about it.

Please tell me all about the tiny imperfections in your house which seemed like end of the world stuff at the time but now you don't even notice. Please, I need this

I think my expectations are quite low too Notonthestairs - I grew up in a house that ran off well water - leaves and the occasional baby frog would come through the bath taps.... Water always looked the same colour as weak tea. No central heating just open fires, which were never allowed to be lit before 5 p.m.

@notonthestairs and Cracker1970 Oh my god... I would be about 4stone with all the worry in houses like that

Pintof haha that'll work, definitely .....just don't have a white sofa or light carpets

Our house is an early 80s build..... and we are still renovating after 20 years . We've replaced heating/boiler, fireplace, wiring, kitchen and utility room knocked together into one and replaced, entire upper floor had to be re-floorboarded as it was chipboard that creaked, new stairs/bannisters, replastered every room, replaced bathrooms twice....replaced double glazing, replaced all internal doors, replaced front and back door, replaced garage roller door to an electric one, replaced back garage door, relaid drive, relaid patio....... it's never effing ending. But it's our home and we love it - flaws and all. It's fondly known as the "time and money pit"

I have artex all over the walls of my hall stairs and landing. I've tried yo get quotes to skim over but it's so chunky no one wants to do it!!

Also the banisters are a homemade abomination which we painted over when we moved on but can't replace until the walls are done....catch 22!!

Also every half arsed job my husbands done 😂

Interestingly both me and my sibling have very modern tastes in homes now! We've knocked down and rebuilt our house and there are still things that irritate (less than listening to the splash of water in to a bucket though!). I'm sure the next person to move in will wonder why on earth certain things are as they are.
Anyway Op, you are nesting now so I understand why you want things to be 100% spot on. But the niggles will pass.

Where do I start?

We have cracks, the conservatory is sinking at one side, the garden is a mess because we had a sewage leak and Thames Water haven't fixed it yet, wonky sockets, cupboard door that is off a hinge, old cat that has constant runs, misses her tray when peeing and pooing (she has a cat flap, uses it to sit in the garden and then comes in to use the tray), uneven flooring upstairs (think it's the underlay moving), shower door wonky and doesn't close properly, taps are leaking in the bathroom, bit of mould in the bedroom, curtains fallen off one part of the bay window in bedroom being held on with gaffer tape, stains on carpet from previous owner, one window in hall is gappy...soooo much! My OH doesn't care because we are saving up to do the house up next year but I want to just do at least one room now!

I find it much easier to work on myself to be able to accept a lack of perfection than it is to work on the house. Stuff goes wrong endlessly. There is always a list of problems..

Our 1970s house has a building defect which means we will have some damp downstairs forever basically. This means no modern vinyl based wipe-able paints can be used on the walls - impractical with kids about!
Our upstairs toilet was fitted badly and will always have a leak until we get another fitted, despite lots of effort try and fix it...
Our exterior drainage is set up wrong and needs redoing
Our washing machine is plumbed in badly in the garage, and floods the garage a couple of times a year as a result (it's on the to do list to fix)
None of the light switches are level with each other upstairs.
Our fireplace has a spray finish with a chunk taken out of it by previous home owner. The paint layer is brown, the underneath layer is bright blue - you can't get spares for it anymore so there's no fix for it.
Our bathroom tiles weren't fitted with a decent gap between each other about 30 years ago, so now they are all cracking from the pressure they're exerting on each other.
Previous owner glued the plug hole waste fitting into our sink so we can't replace it without replacing the sink. The chrome surface is coming off of it in flakes...

Our radiator in the lounge had to be fitted with a compression joint rather than soldered pipework as the previous plumber had not left enough pipework intact to do a proper job apparently.

There's a wonky floorboard in one of the rooms. We didn't notice it very much until we got a new carpet fitted and this seems to have accentuated it. Now every time I go into the room I see the dip in the carpet...
We had a bad plaster in, (even though he was recommended by family friends) and our kitchen walls and ceiling are terrible. It took 3 days of sanding and filling to get to a point that we felt we could paint them, and I see imperfections in them every time I look at them.
I could go on all day really. It's all a 'work in progress'.
I have learnt that even the 'best' tradespeople rarely do things how you want them to, unless you exactly explain what you are after. And then they might not do it to the standard the you expect.
But things don't have to be perfect to be beautiful, and 10 years on we probably won't be worrying about all of this anyway

New bathroom floor tiles have a line of cracks trough them

Damaged render externally means in wet weather we get damp patches coming through and I'm forever repainting over dodgy patches

Small section of skirting board has gone rotten and needs cutting out and replacing (large old Victorian section so will be a bespoke replacement)

Semi with a gable wall that turned out to be really fucking cold, last winter.

South facing garden room that is unbearable with curtains open in summer.

Quirky period staircase that's actually a bit of a deathtrap.

Replaced the stained and pulled carpets we’d inherited from the previous owner with lovely new ones. A couple of years later, needed to replace some of the radiators. Turns out old radiators were sized in inches, so bought closest ones in cm. And now we have lovely gaps in the carpet where the plumber had to widen the existing slits to fit the new pipes. Rage!!!

Tradesman accidentally chipped one of our kitchen cabinets when replacing an appliance. DH touched up the chip, but it’s not perfect and again, gives me the rage.

When installing the carpets, the fitter chipped off the bottom of some alcove cabinets. Decorator painted over where you could see the bits of bare wood. But you can see the wood doesn’t have such a flush finish, because of said chipping, and again, gives me the rage when I notice it.

Clearly I need anger management

No walls are remotely straight, the plasterwork is shit and has cracks all over unless it's an area we've had reskimmed, the walls are terrible if you're trying to hang a picture or anything up (thank fuck for command stuff), there's STILL damp in one part of the bay window despite having the window fixed, render redone, guttering sorted, entire plaster knocked off, wall tanked and replastered... least it's one patch of damp now not a whole knackered window.

Oh and it's next door to an utter utter knob.

Oh OP I hear you!

We moved in December into our not so new build (20 years old) thinking it would be good to go.

Nope. Everything had been tarted up to look amazing, but in reality it was all half arsed.

So far we’ve replaced:

Every plug socket/light switch because the wiring was fucked and the sockets were squint.

Every light fitting because they were all dodgy.

Bath taps that cost a fucking fortune because the poncy ones that were there are a specific shape!

Carpets in all bedrooms.

Two toilets because the plumbing wasn’t right.

Built in hob, oven, washer and dryer, fridge freezer and dishwasher all gave up the ghost within 3 months.

Front door busted within a month.

Patio doors don’t lock properly.

Drains needed clearing.

Tiles in the utility were coming off and are squint which pisses me off every time I see them.

Oh aye and the NDN is a pretentious wank who makes me twitch every time he opens his fucking mouth.

My husband built our inset bookshelves and despite the time, measurements and labour, they are slightly wonky, a bit short.....I can’t say anything because it would hurt him so I just don’t look at them.

I have light switches that turn on lights in other rooms...

We have just had our house renovated and it is perfect, except that ds was here a couple of weekends ago and when taking a mug of coffee upstairs to his bedroom has sloshed it and there is a perfect stain running in a straight line on the largest wall of the entire house. . Oh and there is a hairline crack in the rendering at the rear.

Perfection is unreal op. We live our lives as best we can and learn to compromise. That little hole will disappear once filled and painted over; just like no-one but me will see the bit of overpainting I will do to coffee drip.

Our entire extension is wonky. We bought the house (extended already) knowing all the glass work would need replacing, our builders come out, start fitting new, then say they're going to have to cut frames, order other glass etc. As the actual walls are not straight. We couldn't afford to knock the whole thing down and redo, so it's forever wonky. You can't really tell though, only we know and it doesn't bother me now.

The plasterboard around the RSJ isn't straight, now that IS noticeable, you walk in and it's the first thing you see. Again, I don't notice anymore and no one else has mentioned it, I think it's just me thinking everything like that is obvious.

Builders chipped a floor tile right at the edge of the room. I haven't got over that one yet.

Ooh how long have you got???

Our kitchen is an 80’s relic
I have to tape our double glazing up over the winter because otherwise the wind actually whistles through it
We have a nest of jackdaws in our chimney that can’t be removed
Our rendering needs doing
The grout on our hallway tiles is so brown that I spend hours scrubbing it with a toothbrush and it’s never clean
We have mice in our loft
Our heating needs flushed out
Our loft has been so badly extended that we cannot reach our water tanks unless we crawl through a tiny hole.
Every floorboard creaks on the landing
Kitchen needs rewired

It’s not even a ‘character property’ its a 1950’s house!

I found it so hard when we moved in to cope with all the work needing doing. Now I just don’t wear my glasses round the house which has cleared up a lot of it. Also, I focus on one room at a time, and make it really good before moving on to the next. Gradually it will be perfect!

Everything's bloody wonky! I'll see you your:
Gappy skirting
Cracks in the ceiling
Windows that don’t open
Windows that don’t shut

And raise you:
cracks in the walls
cracks around the window frames
sloping floors
an insufficient number of plug sockets
stupidly placed light sockets (who needs curtains anyway)

Mine is a boring box house. We have a great view but road will be built to ruin the view. I lost track of small children in such a big house. We get mildew in some rooms. A self-set cherry tree is slowly blocking my view but maybe I won't mind after road is built. I am hopeless at decorating so nothing looks great. The wallpaper is marked & badly peeling. Front door is insecure & swells in wet weather (hard to open).

My cats daily destroy our expensive carpet. I constantly try to reduce 'stuff' so our house is cluttered with things I am trying to sell (plus packaging to send it off in). Downstairs toilet doesn't flush well. Downstairs shower is very noisy, I spent an hour scrubbing bacteria out of the upstairs shower, last few days, though mostly we don't clean much. Sodding bathtub almost doesn't drain at all. Mutual enmity with one set of close neighbours.

This thread makes me feel much better about my house which has:

Ancient 80s kitchen which we can't afford to replace at the moment
ancient boiler
crumbly plaster
damp patches caused by modern paint on lime plaster
and many other defects

But it has loads of character and I love it.

@thenewaveragebear1983 have you thought of trying grout paint?