Do you like townhouses? Are they nice to live in?

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Hi, I'm just wondering what people think of townhouses.

I have been looking at different types of houses in the last few months. My dream home is a large Georgian properties with original features but this will probably never happen! More recently,I've started to look at more modern townhouses. I know they are both very different styles, but I like the height of townhouses and think the 3-4 floors is nice to have (examples below), but a con is that some of them might be a bit narrow with awkward layouts, or maybe the word "untraditional" best describes it.

Just wondering if anyone lives in a townhouse with a family? Recommended? Or do you feel you prefer a more traditional style house?

Sorry if it's a weird question! I just wonder if living in a townhouse feels very different from a traditional home and not sure if it's a style of house I might not like after I move into it.

Thank you!

p.s I'm not looking at these specific townhouses, just grabbed a few examples:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/134321660#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/134167046#/?channel=RES_BUY

I really don't like them , very tall and narrow and all those stairs would become very tiresome

Hate it. Massively inconvenient and lots of square footage wasted.

I don’t like them, you don’t get a bigger house, just lots of staircases. Furniture can also be an issue, getting it up the stairwells, when moving or replacing large items. Yes I agree with PP, often not easy to resell.

My best friend has one. Her layout is better than some that I've been in as the ground floor is the garage, downstairs toilet then a kitchen diner. 1st floor is a living room, couple of bedrooms and bathroom then 2nd floor is master bedroom and en-suite.

I still don't like it though. It would annoy me so much going downstairs to make a cup of tea then carrying it up or having to let the dog out.

We have one, but the living space and kitchen is on the middle floor, so we don't feel like we are going up and down the stairs all the time. We have good sized rooms and storage, but I hate that the kitchen doesn't lead to the garden. I wouldn't seek out a townhouse next time around, but I wouldn't be put off one if the layout, location and price worked for me.

I think it massively depends on layout, and when I think townhouse I think ‘kitchen and living spaces on separate floors’. To my mind this is a real pain over, say a traditional terrace with loft conversion where all living space is on one level, or even some town houses where the ground floor is garage and office/utility/gym.

I think I read somewhere that Victorians thought stairs were bad for your health which is why the higher floors tended to be for servants or the nursery (in an era where parents would not do the parenting). And I can see this logic, as you age joint problems mean stairs are a problem, and without as easy access to analgesia etc.

I suspect it ultimately depends on your stage of life: young couple, fine, but add in babies/toddlers and not so fine. Teens, fine. Elderly, less fine.

we had a loft converted terrace when the kids were little and had an excellent attic playroom which was brilliant for that age, but less good when kids don’t need you there but want to be close to where you are. We moved to a house with a room that we designated the play room but very quickly removed that as it was a tip and the toys kept migrating.

I love our townhouse. Ground floor we have garage, cloakroom, large kitchen and dining/living room. We have a TV down here and if we have guests tend to just stay downstairs.
First floor has family bathroom, lounge and a bedroom which we use as an office.
Top floor has our bedrooms, our room is the width of the house and we have an ensuite so no need to go downstairs in the night.
The house is narrower than our previous house but it works for us, especially during lockdown where we could spread out and have our own bit of space.

Normally plump for single level living but rented a modern one for 7 months when we returned to the UK. If it hadn't had a loo on the ground floor I would have hated it. DS had middle floor to himself and we had the master suite which was the whole top floor so lots of privacy. I disliked being attached to other people more than I disliked multi floor living.

The newer ones tend to be built with quite echoey materials. So a mid terrace can be quite noisy.

Always ensure thst your house is around 4m wide (preferably wider)

Houses between 3 & 4 metres wide are notoriously bad for your mental health and developers are advised not to build narrow homes but of course, ignore it.

3.66m is a common width. And it's awful

I lived in a Victorian townhouse for a while and it was so noisy on both sides.

Like everything in life, there's good and bad in all

Love our townhouse. All the 'formal' entertaining areas are downstairs (kitchen, dining room open to garden), and upstairs is just for us - living room and bedrooms split over 2 more floors.
Only downside is kids are upstairs and we're on the middle, but we could be on the same if we changed spare bedroom and master over, we just don't mind too much.

I have a townhouse....we have two reception rooms...one on the ground and one on the first floor. This is a pain if you're entertaining.

However, overall I love it. It was brilliant in lockdown as we didn't feel on top of each other as we have three floors and two separate living spaces essentially. We also have a downstairs bathroom and an upstairs one which is a godsend now our kids are teenagers.

Our house doesn't look particularly big on the outside but inside there's a lot more space than your average 1930s semi. Although the garden in small. I find townhouses are usually relatively cheap as they don't seem as popular. This is good when buying but not whe selling obviously!

It depends on the layout and age of children. You can end up with a 4 bed house with a 2-bed-size living area. Or babies/ toddlers not in same floor.

Ours has a larger ‘extension’ (but built like that) on the ground floor, so there is room for a large kitchen/diner as well as living room on the ground floor. Then 2 bedrooms each floor. The bedrooms are good sizes and we get an extra bathroom too. With older kids it’s good having them on the top floor. Downside is our living room is on the small side and I’d prefer a larger hall.

I don’t have a problem with the extra flight of stairs. Probably the only thing keeping me fit.

But we will need to move when we’re older.

PITA going up and down stairs for a cup of tea. I would hate it tbh

Just moved into mine.

I like it but it is quite a big one.

There's a utility room, kitchen/diner and reception room and WC on the ground floor so you can completely live on the ground floor.

First floor is master and lounge, second floor four bedrooms and family bathroom.

In practice I use it as a two level house except when the kids are home from uni.

I'm in a 60s townhouse which we fully renovated. They sell very well where I am. I love the privacy the house affords. We have living room on first floor - really large and no one can see in. Kitchen on ground floor - again complete privacy and patio doors open to outside.
Bedrooms on top floor which is nice and no noise from noisy children down on ground floor if they are staying up late.

Good for you to walk up stairs.

I really don't like them because you're garden will always be overlooked and I like privacy. On the plus side having lots of stairs in your house does help keep you fit I feel.

Reading these descriptions makes me realise I probably live in one! I just think of it as a Victorian house? I don't like new houses, prefer the higher ceilings and period detail of older ones. Yes there are stairs, but I have legs which work so that's not a problem. Kids are on a different floor to us but their legs (and voices) work too. Kitchen is half a flight of steps from the sitting room and playroom but it's never been a problem so far.

Ours is fairly modern... technically it's a four bed...but one of the rooms on the first floor we use as a reception room instead of a bedroom. We have a large kitchen diner plus living room on ground floor. We have two bathrooms and a driveway which is a desirable thing in London! If our house was a Victorian terrace with these things it would be worth close to a million. But because it's modern and a townhouse it's worth about half that!

I had a Victorian one. Lots of character but the compromises started to become too much. We knew if we had a second DC that our older DC would need to move down to the bedroom near the front door on the middle floor. Plus the house width was limiting - it was about 15 feet wide, so not too bad, but current house is twice as wide and it has made all the difference. And I agree with a PP that it was a pain needing scaffolding every time we did any work near the top.

As a positive, it was big - about 1600 square feet. 3 bed semis in the same price bracket were more like 1100 square feet. I think it was great living there as a young couple and would have been fine with older kids, but it was less good for a young family.

We live in what was marketed as a town house but doesn’t have the traditional layout. Ground floor is kitchen, living room and toilet, middle has 2 bedrooms, bathroom and a small office, and the top the master bedroom and en-suite. This works much better for us- no hefting shopping upstairs, and visitors aren’t having to traipse up and down stairs either.

We just moved from one and we did not enjoy it. It was the kitchen being on a different floor to living area, and narrow rooms. I would consider one again if it had kitchen dining and living room on entrance floor, then additional rooms on other floors. Pros: lots of rooms, view from the top floor rooms can be lovely.

We rented one for a few years, it was a relative new build then (about 15 years ago). It was a nice house and spacious, but to accommodate a garage they’d put the kitchen diner and living room on the middle floor, bit no toilet on that floor. So you had to go down or upstairs for a wee, which was tricky while potty training!

It was also annoying that the garden was accessed off a bedroom or a utility room, which meant it was awkward to use with toddlers.

It was fine to rent but we wouldn’t have bought one - but if there was living space adjacent to the garden I think the design can work.

We loved being able to have the windows open upstairs in summer and get a through draft when it was hot!

My sister has one, her bedroom is the top floor and SO hot. Also not a fan of lounge diner situation she has.

Oh I loved mine, but it does depend on the layout, think carefully about your situation. We had lounge and kitchen on the middle floor with a balcony off the kitchen. Ground floor utility, bathroom and bedroom Top floor two en suite bedrooms. Lovely large hallway and garden. It suited us perfectly with only one teenager still at home, as they had their own space.

I sued to live in one. Hated all the stairs. The kitchen wasn’t on the ground floor and I hated not having garden access from the kitchen and living space. There was a room in the ground floor behind the garage that was just a waste and became a store.