What’s best / worst about your house?

[TomorrowIsNow]

Viewing a property tomorrow. DH is already in love with it and I’m close behind! We know the area well and love it.

I want to make sure we don’t get carried away so ask, what should I remember to think about? What are you glad for in your house? What do you wish you’d thought about?

Not structural, but more like where to keep the hoover, or too far from sink to cooker.
Thanks!

Best: south facing very private garden, which the kitchen looks onto (all the other terraces in our row have kitchen in the middle and bathroom looking onto garden). Also location, 3 min walk to station, 5 mins to high street, 10 mins in car to countryside and decent schools in catchment.

Worst: Very cold, heating is on all day. ZERO natural light in the living/dining room, god knows how. Lights on all day, even in the height of summer. No upstairs bathroom (not a dealbreaker but it's a must for me in our next house!).

Best - great size and a really good size under stairs cupboard and large hallway.

Worst - hallway gets really cold so have to keep doors closed or any heat built in the lounge disappears quickly.

I really do love my house though. Our old house had zero storage, I mean, no where to keep that Hoover, ironing board etc. Storage is a must imo

I wish I’d thought about recycling (ours is on a hill so the front door is on the first floor and the recycling is collected out the back which is down a level. This means it’s too much of a faff to put stuff out as we use it so it all gets collected in the kitchen for days on end)

I love the location but the location is also one of the bad points as it
1)means we don’t have a garden or parking and
2) means most of the houses around us have been converted into flats or hmos and lots of the neighbours are a bit dodgy

I love the size and the quirky features but also hate them due to being the one responsible for cleaning the massive house with lots of fiddly bits. Also despite being a big house it doesn’t feel spacious due to narrow hallways and rooms being through rooms.

I wish I had a utility room/dedicated laundry space (this is our own fault though as we rent out one floor and use another space that could have been a utility as something completely frivolous). My teenagers would love a games and gaming room but again we rent out that space.

I live on a cul de sac with a gate

Best- privacy at night and lower levels of noise overall
Worst- I cannot think of a bad thing

Best: location and garden. On edge of a lovely village, apparently no chance of being built next to (bloody hope so!). Lovely large garden. It sold the house. Big driveway.

Worst: downstairs bathroom that's also located right by front door. I hate it. The house is also ugly and needs plenty of work doing to it. On the small side but I had to downsize after divorce (still worth it!).

The kids say they feel lucky to live here. If I had the money to renovate, it would be the dream house because of the location.
Remember, there is always a compromise. Well for most people without an endless budget.

Some things to think about are:

1. Location - is this where you want to live basically. I would compromise on the house but not on living where I wanted to be

1. Storage - are there enough cupboards/wardrobes/attic space or room to include storage

1. Parking - will it be a pain in the neck to find parking for you and any guests

1. noise levels (if that matters to you - in a city it might not)

1. Accessability - are there loads of steps up to the house, would it be difficult for an elderly parent to visit

1. Neighbours - honestly don't know how you figure this other than obvious red flags when you look at the house but good neighbours make such an enormous difference in day to day life - even if it is just the absence of strife.

We compromised a bit on parking (plenty of parking but no garage and since we live in a place that gets a lot of snow it is a bit of a pain) but otherwise our house hit everything we wanted including the cosmetic things like lots of bookshelves, nice older features, lots of windows.

Best: It's walking distance to the pub/town.

Worst: Lack of storage space in the hall for coats/shoes.

I would say that bad neighbours have the greatest chance of ruining your quality of life. Can you check them out? Maybe knock on their door on the pretence of asking about the area. Most other things can be sorted, for a price. I have a really large utility/boot room which I love.
Also check for new developments etc coming up locally. That can really affect the dynamic of an area.

Best: The garden, even in South Yorks there's not many properties left with a garden this size in this price bracket.

Worst: If you get up the end of the garden and realise you left something in the house, it's going to take you a good couple of minutes to grab it and go back.

We're so lucky that everything is perfect for us.

Best- the location, the large rooms

Worst - the fact that a lot of our lovely view at the back is actually someone else’s land and looks very different now they decimated the woodland that was there.

Stating the obvious, but you can always change stuff like putting in storage or rejigging the kitchen. Different if you are paying for something "finished" but you've already said it may need more than cosmetic. So DONT get distracted by small details. Think about location (including local facilities, noise, outlook, privacy); the plot - size, orientation, parking, mature garden; space/potential to extend, light, and ceiling heights. Period features a bonus, if you like that kind of thing.

Having said that, I often look at floor plans of really quite large house and wonder where people are supposed to put their coats and shoes when they walk in. I do like a nice hall cupboard!

Love the amount of natural daylight
Don’t like we are on a hillside = limited gardening

Best things: Panoramic views over pretty village and estuary in an AONB. Huge light rooms and over 3000 sq ft of living space, plus a cellar and boiler room that runs the length of the house. We've been here more than 20 years so have finally done all the main improvements needed. Large kitchen dining room with miles of work surface and enough storage for everything. New bathrooms... in fact, it's pretty perfect.

Worst -- sunny sloping garden which was formerly a strawberry field, and so fertile everything grows faster than anyone could imagine, especially the weeds. And it costs lots to keep warm and maintain in the face of the prevailing Atlantic weather.

But worst of all, it's time to retire, downsize and move away. We plan to up-sticks to an area (as yet unspecified) nearer family and friends. While we shall have a healthy-ish budget, every house on the market right now seems to be one or more of the following: ugly or pygmy-sized (DH is 6'5"), or dark and poky, without off-street parking, or on a main road, or needs so much updating that we'd almost rather build from scratch. Fingers crossed that the market comes back to life in the next 12 months. We're resigned to the idea that the move is unlikely to release much capital because we plan to give DS a healthy deposit for a first property.

Best: location in a village, cul de sac, close to mainline station to London, love that it’s project.

Spacious four beds, garden is massive (DH would put that in worst 😂), we took on a project as relocated the stairs which has made it AMAZING!

Worst: it’s a semi and I wanted a detached but we’d have never got that for our budget or location as detached as big as our semi don’t exist here anyway.

The patio is just concrete and ugly, will cost a lot to redo.

Almost everything needs doing actually, we’re not even half way and we’re three years in but I love this house so 🤷🏻‍♀️

My house is in a little cluster of next new builds set back off the road. The developer tried to squeeze too much into the space and our garage is directly in front of the house and kitchen window. It really put me off and I thought it was a massive negative but since we have been living here I’ve realised we get a whole private alley to ourselves (on our deeds), a great place to store the bins and altogether more privacy than our neighbours and I’ve learnt to love it as a quirky feature. I also love that a previous wonder drilled through the back of the under stairs cupboard so an extension lead could be plugged in on the other side and we can charge our hoover in the cupboard.

I think basically my advice is consider the positives of the things you otherwise think are a bit odd/less than ideal because they might really suit you

Best:
Lovely view
Backs onto a green space that will never be built on
Big windows
On cul de sac so quiet and kids can play out

Worst:
Loft is converted which severely limits both storage and eco tech possibilities (I wanted solar thermal installed but the inside bits would fit)
Cannot convert garage because need it for storage
No en-suite in master bedroom and no room to make one
Master in loft with sloping ceilings - limits furniture options
No utility room
No insulation in 1st floor walls and no cavity so not easy to add.

Best: period features, big rooms, lovely area, amazing views

Worst: 15 steps to the front door is becoming impossible with a double buggy, despite double glazing it can’t maintain a good temp, and beautiful view is about to go as neighbour opposite does huge 2 storey + hip to gable loft conversion.

Best: detached, old and full of character and history, high ceilings, big garden, lovely village

Worst: tricky to heat, high maintenance costs, feels like painting Forth Bridge sometimes as it’s never possible to get on top of cleaning and decorating.

Not in the UK but:

Best:
Quiet suburb full of trees, close to beach
Detached
Big rooms, but with doors - not open plan
You can see greenery from every window
Tons of storage

Worst
No hallway

Best: Space, light and colour. The views of open fields. Clean air Good location.

Worst: The conservatory needs replacing and I don't have the money at the moment.

Best Well-fitted kitchen and good appliances (inherited).Also bathroom well appointed. Good storage and plenty of shelves. Easy walk to good shopping in centre of lovely town.
Worst: Neighbour noise (mid-terrace). Also road quite noisy and busy during the week...college opposite. On-road parking not great. Dreary little garden mainly paved.

Love: the location! So close to everything I want. Within a 10 minute drive, I have all access to all major supermarkets, town centre with excellent shops, restaurants and independent merchants and I’m on the motorway within 5 minutes.
Within a 10 minute walk from my house, I have a station with excellent links around the country and a good local high street for when I don’t want to go into town.
Good appliances, large principle room with a dressing room and a good size en-suite, good size main bathroom, in a quiet cul-de-sac, neighbours are lovely and it’s a very safe area.

Bad: the house is quite exposed so the curtains are often closed during the day! No double glazed windows despite the airport being 15 minutes away, the hallway upstairs could be wider for the size of the house.

Oh and the utility is really small.

Best - period features, I love the look and feel of this house

Worst - cold (stone house) and dark (dark mainly due to surrounding buildings)

Things that seem to bother lots of people but I don't care about

• onstreet parking, can't always park on our street
• being overlooked