Living in a housing estate: did you customise the front of your house?

[saxifrage]

If you live in a housing estate where all the houses look the same, have you made any changes to the front of your house to individualise it?

e.g. new door, change of porch, change of wall finish, add gates/wall, etc.

If so, what did you do and if not, why not?

My cousin has a house like this and she painted her door a sage green and added plants and a couple of plant pots outside. It looks MUCH better than before!

Who wants a house that's identical to all the others?

Sounds lovely. That's what I've been wondering tbh - househunting at the moment and have noticed that even in established estates most people haven't done anything at all (e.g. garden fences left with builders' finish, cinder block walls in garden as left by builders). Not everyone's into gardening obv but it struck me as odd that most houses haven't been customised at all .

There is sometimes a limit on what you can do within a certain timeframe of the estate being built. You have to get approval if you want to make changes to walls, fencing etc so it’s not worth the hassle.
Now our estate is getting older, some people are starting to make changes in the streets where these clauses have expired. It takes time.

As pp said, if it’s a new build estate there are usually covenants stopping you from making changes to the outsides if the buildings - this includes adding porches, rendering etc.

I think it’s because every design element of the houses needs to be approved by the planning department (we were told even our front door colour had been signed off by planning and could be changed!)

In case of the more established estates it may be that they like it that way? I’ve noticed a depressing obsession with paving/decking over anything green at the moment, or putting down astroturf instead of grass. People prefer if as it’s lower maintenance.

Interesting re restrictions - most of the houses we have looked at would be 10-15 years old. Can't imagine restrictions would still be in place but I suppose it might put people off making changes even once they're lifted.

Apart from the cost/fuss, I wondered whether there might be a safety in numbers element - I remember my parents' neighbours did a lot of work to the front of their house and were burgled about three times. Not sure if related to home improvements. Perhaps it's better not to stand out?

Different strokes I suppose - I just find it a bit odd driving through established estates where it looks like people haven't really settled in. Not even the lack of structural stuff but not having done anything inexpensive, e.g. walls and fences unpainted, no plant pots outside the door.

@saxifrage

Interesting re restrictions - most of the houses we have looked at would be 10-15 years old. Can't imagine restrictions would still be in place but I suppose it might put people off making changes even once they're lifted.

Apart from the cost/fuss, I wondered whether there might be a safety in numbers element - I remember my parents' neighbours did a lot of work to the front of their house and were burgled about three times. Not sure if related to home improvements. Perhaps it's better not to stand out?

Different strokes I suppose - I just find it a bit odd driving through established estates where it looks like people haven't really settled in. Not even the lack of structural stuff but not having done anything inexpensive, e.g. walls and fences unpainted, no plant pots outside the door.

I think there's an element of 'looking smarter' when they're all the same. Plus a bit of 'it's try hard' to think you're 'better' than everyone else.

Around my friends estate (around 12years old I think) there are some houses that have changed their front door & 'done' their front garden. A few of them look nice, but mostly they look like they're trying to be something they're not.

Maybe if you go for a new build or estate house you aren't bothered about having an individual house?

@Sleepingdogs12

Maybe if you go for a new build or estate house you aren't bothered about having an individual house?

I think this might be the crux of the matter lol - maybe it's just not my taste! Some of the estate houses we have viewed are so identical they were difficult to find but I suppose if you're living there it wouldn't be an issue.

We live on a new build estate, most of us have been here 5 years ish now. There are covenants preventing a lot of changes which most people have observed up until now but in the last year or so I've seen front doors being painted different colours, fences being put in, a couple of porches going up and so on. I'd say about 70% of people haven't made any changes so far but its becoming more common. There are lots of houses with plants and planters outside though, a lot have been replanted or shingled, and several with astro turf.

@saxifrage

Interesting re restrictions - most of the houses we have looked at would be 10-15 years old. Can't imagine restrictions would still be in place but I suppose it might put people off making changes even once they're lifted.

Apart from the cost/fuss, I wondered whether there might be a safety in numbers element - I remember my parents' neighbours did a lot of work to the front of their house and were burgled about three times. Not sure if related to home improvements. Perhaps it's better not to stand out?

Different strokes I suppose - I just find it a bit odd driving through established estates where it looks like people haven't really settled in. Not even the lack of structural stuff but not having done anything inexpensive, e.g. walls and fences unpainted, no plant pots outside the door.

We looked at a couple of houses recently - one development from the 1960's and another from the 1980's and both of them had rules that all the front doors had to be the same colour, and one of them wouldn't allow bike sheds on drive ways.

@Jasmine11 Jeepers creepers, I had no idea that was a thing. Was it a deal breaker for you and did it look well?

[quote saxifrage]@Jasmine11 Jeepers creepers, I had no idea that was a thing. Was it a deal breaker for you and did it look well?[/quote]
It was indeed a deal breaker. They were supposedly freehold houses but there were all these weird rule! One of our friend's lives on one of the estates and apparently if you are friends with 'the committee' (she isn't) then you can get around some of those rules, but everyone else had to follow them. To be honest I'm not sure what anyone could do if you didn't follow them, but we didn't stick around to find out!

Our estate which is 12 years old had a covenant saying no-one could change their front doors for 10 years. Lots of doors are coming to the end of lifespan so new doors are popping up.

We have changed to a black composite door and have planters out the front but have kept the grass. It’s easy to maintain. We haven’t changed the front much because we have focused on the interior and back garden as they’re the bits we see.

I think also some of it have those things naturally come to the end of their life ie I would not expect a front door to need replacing often nor a wall or a fence.

Equally most new-ish build have small front gardens which somewhat limit options

. If I like gardening and want to spend time doing it I am probably going to spend my time doing my back garden where I then sit and can enjoy looking at the plants ect.

We couldn't paint our front door any colour but white for the first 10 years.

It depends on the customisation - plants and a coloured door are one thing, full on Duckworth stonecladding another thing entirely.

Are you looking at houses in conservation areas? Entire towns can be under a conservation area order, which means that even newer properties need planning permission to change any of the things you've listed.

They're used in areas where the town as a whole has some sort of character or defining feature, so conservation areas prevent people from doing things that damage or alter that character (like painting their house bright pink in an area where the character of the brickwork is important).

I lived in a conservation area where front doors could only be natural wood, black, white or dark green. Council would come down very hard on anyone who changed it to anything else.

I now live on a new build estate and similar rules apply.

@user16395699

Are you looking at houses in conservation areas? Entire towns can be under a conservation area order, which means that even newer properties need planning permission to change any of the things you've listed.

They're used in areas where the town as a whole has some sort of character or defining feature, so conservation areas prevent people from doing things that damage or alter that character (like painting their house bright pink in an area where the character of the brickwork is important).

I wish! Unfortunately no conservation areas near us, just individual listed properties.

We have been looking at ordinary suburban housing estates, usually 10-15 years old. I can see the rationale for rules around preserving the look of architecturally important buildings/streetscapes but hearing about all these rules in ordinary suburban housing estates is an eye opener!

As pp said, perhaps the changes only begin when the natural life of fixtures ends (e.g. doors, windows eventually needing to be replaced).

I live in Australia and we have a lot of new houses obv. LOADS of people have absolutely no taste or imagination and live in these concrete monstrosities with plastic grass out the front and not a plant in sight.

Thankfully we live in an older area where the houses have some character....I couldn't stand living in an area where there was so much grey!

Some developments do have covenants but I can't really see why some trees / plants in pots would not be allowed.

I once went to look at a house where the front door had to be green ( small terrace ) . I walked past it recently and people's interpretation of green is - let us say - wide

In terms of planters/flowers, I think the trend in general is moving towards paved over/decked/low maintenance gardens, even front gardens .

I saw it on my social media over lockdown; a couple of landscapers were sharing photos of recent jobs on our village fb page and almost every single one had removed the flower beds, added astroturf or decking and put in mood lighting. Lots of ‘incredible home makeovers’ being shared on news sites too, and they all looked the same.

Where people are making changes to the outside of their homes, I’m seeing a lot of grey rendering and wood clapboard effect cladding going up at the moment (as below) - I wonder if that will be the duckworth stone cladding of the future 😂.

@MindatWork you had me at 'mood lighting'

Maybe I'm better off wishing people would just leave the front of their houses alone lol!!!