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

[wheretolivehelp]

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

My first two houses were town houses. I loved them. Both had garden access from a ground floor kitchen. The one you’ve linked OP is a bit odd. The kitchen looks like it is low ceilinged and a bit garage conversiony. Is the house built on a slope rather than genuine three full floors?

While i love mine ( 3 floor, 4 bed), the kitchen is on ground and living room on 1st floor. Up and down for food/ brews/ letting dog in garden is a faff.
Ive been here 2 yrs and i constantly look on rightmove for a traditional house.
As someone else said, stairs and hallways on each floor seem ti take up a lot of room.
If i was going to stay here, i'd take down all the walls on the ground floor so i could make a big open plan kitchen diner

I absolutely love them but they are challenging with small children and the stairs. I've owned two, one Victorian (money pit) and now a 1960s one which is ace. Huge windows, and the children can have privacy on their own floor as teenagers.

Practically, make sure the plumbing and water pressure is first class. Top floor bathrooms in townhouses need it.

A dog flap is the answer!

Love ours, especially when the kids were teenagers and had their own floor. You literally never know where any one is or even if they are there, it's so spacious. If you put all our rooms on to a traditional 2 floors it would still be a huge house.
The stairs can be a pain but since wfh, I realise that they are a good source of exercise!
They are also extremely versatile. People in my street are using their rooms in different ways. Some have bedrooms where others have kitchens and one even made a GF self contained flat to rent out.
The most important thing is having the kitchen leading on to the garden . It doesn't matter so much about the living room, especially if it has views like we do

They're okay if you're fit and able and don't mind a lot of stairs, it worth considering if you'll be happy to to live there as you get older though.

Working in a hospital, I see a lot of patients who have their discharge delayed due to not having a downstairs bedroom and bathroom and now needing to wait for extra supports like stairlifts.

My SIL has a three storey townhouse. Lots of rooms but the house doesnt flow. She has changed the layout so many times but nothing seems to work. At one stage she had a bedroom, utility and kitchen downstairs with the living room on the middle floor another bathroom and two bedrooms, top floor was more bedrooms.

At the moment, living room, kitchen and utility are downstairs the other two floors are bedrooms. The bedrooms are bigger than the living areas and makes no sense at all.

Hi all, thank you SO SO much for everyones' insights into townhouse living. I can totally see why people love them and also why they may be difficult for others. It seems stairs seem to be the main pain (which I'm fine with ) followed by the layout (kitchen often on a different floor to living/dining areas). This layout is what bothers me the most - I've been trying to re-design some of these layouts with pen and paper (lol), trying to re-imagine the space for a reno, but I think having an open plan kitchen/diner/living area is something I don't particularly like, just because I've always wanted a separate reception area for eating and drinking, as someone else also mentioned. I also think factoring in family/small children/babies with stairs and being on separate bedroom floors is a very good point (for us anyway).

Also, as some have rightly said, not all townhouses are equal and you can get very spacious ones too, but i haven't seen these on the market in my price range. I am still on the fence about them so I will view a few and see! Thanks all so much for your help, it's really helped me look out for more things (both pros and cons) :)

This was really insightful, thank you!

I really like this versatile aspect. I'm quite an artsy person so maybe that's why I am drawn to them hehe

Hi, thanks for this! I am interested to know more about the money pit townhouse you had if you don't mind sharing. What made it a money pit and how did you manage there? Thank u!!

Yeh, totally agree. one is more odd than the other. I do find a lot of the ones on the market look like/laid out like one of these though. I wish I had a bigger budget for a bigger townhouse!

Yes, to this ^.
Fine if kitchen and dining area are on the ground floor and bedrooms are upstairs but quite a headache if kitchen is in the middle. You need toilet on each level or at least on 2 out of 3 or on 3 out of 4 . Washing machine downstairs otherwise it’s terribly noisy.
They could be very narrow so not much space on one floor and you are up and down constantly.
If they are high , the staircase is quite steep and often the ceilings are low ( to fit more floors) and windows are small as well.
As the staircase is narrow it’s difficult to bring furniture up (and obviously down) All of these are much less of the problem at the old townhouse.
If you have small kids the upper floor might be quite far away sound wise plus steep staircase so you have to keep baby monitor to check on them longer than in an ordinary semi.
Upper windows are difficult to wash so turning out more expensive ( and other works the same)
However the upper floors are always warm and the view is nice 🙂

@wheretolivehelp -

The townhouse was mid terrace and built in 1830. The bottom floor was damp so there were slugs. But there was an issue with both sides with the party walls. Leaks from one side, and crumbling party wall on the other which would have meant rebuilding it eventually. You could actually take bricks out.

I also had to regutter, replace the sofits, and fix the damp proof course in one year. That cost tens of thousands in one year.

The crumbling party wall which threatened underpinning and rebuilding, together with the roof tiles bearing down on the whole building giving it a bowed ceiling finished me off. I sold it because it looked like more and more to keep stable.

It was a very beautiful house but I simply couldn't afford to keep spending that sort of money.

It was also very very expensive to heat.

I think it depends on which floor the kitchen is situated.

A couple of friends lived in modern townhouses and both complained that the ground floor was a bit wasted - comprised of integral garage, utility room, guest loo, another small room and garden.

First floor was kitchen/living area, which were nice, and upper 2 floors bedrooms.

Lots of up and down stairs, access to the garden was via utility room, so difficult al fresco eating, monitoring children playing, etc. Small room sometimes used by visitor/au pair. Both beautiful houses though.

We considered one, and think they would work great for our family set up as it is now, these days you don’t know how long we’ll have our DC living with us.

We considered a four bed one, 2 bedrooms on ground floor with a utility and toilet / shower room, thought this would be great for our older teens as wouldn’t disturb us at night. First floor is kitchen, lounge and diner, upstairs 2 bed & ensuites. We’d all meet in the middle, however the thought of moving to one and then having to move again when we get older and might not cope with stairs has put me off.

We live in a 5 storey, 4 bed Victorian townhouse in zone 2 London. It's very hard to find a 4+ bed house in our area that isn't a townhouse, the few I've seen are larger and cost 2x or 3x as much. So it's what we've ended up with, and I appreciate the charm and the sectioning of the house, but it wouldn't be my dream property. I don't like the layout but it was refurbished by the previous owners and we don't dislike it enough to deal with the hassle and expense of renovations.

The kitchen/dining area/playroom/loo are on the lower ground floor with garden access, so we spend most of our daytime hours there, which works with a 5 and 1 year old. It's not a problem for me to go up 3 flights, but the 4th flight of stairs definitely feels like a pain. We have visited friends who have a 6 storey townhouse which is even more hassle (and I cannot understand why they put the dc's bedrooms on the very top floor).

We know we will have to move before we get elderly, the ground floor has just a double living room and no scope to put in a kitchen/shower room so we couldn't live here without dealing with some stairs. But it's hopefully our home until the youngest leaves school, perhaps a bit longer, and it would probably make sense to sell then anyway to release equity for the dc's uni costs/house deposits.

As someone who lives in one (new build townhouse) I would emphasise again that they're not all equal. Look out for:

1. Very narrow plots. Mine is 18ft wide internally which is OK, but I've seen some as narrow as 12ft - equivalent to an old fashioned 2up, 2down terrace with a loft conversion.

2. Not having reception rooms on the same floor. Having kitchen and living room on the same floor works best I think.

3. "4 bed" when the 4th "bedroom" is a study/utility on the ground floor. I don't know how they get away with advertising them like that. Mine has a room like this but was advertised as a 3 bed.

4. Too many floors, especially with a small footprint overall. 3 floors is fine, but 4 or 5 flights of stairs could be exhausting.

5. Garden can be relatively small compared to the size of the house.

If you don't mind the potential pitfalls then it's a good way of getting a lot of interior floor space for your money (relatively speaking, of course).

The problem with town houses is the small footprints & small living areas - i think of them more as 'upgraded small terraces' rather than alternatives to similar sqft 2 storey houses, which feel so much bigger.

We are in a townhouse and love it!
Although our layout is more traditional I think.

The house was built as part of a very small development (20 houses or so) and are surrounded by countryside.

Ground floor there is a kitchen/diner, utility, large lounge and downstairs toilet. Plus a large walk in cupboard space and airy hallway.

First floor is three double bedrooms and a large family bathroom with a huge airing cupboard & walk in space and a long landing.

Second floor is a large bedroom (the size of the entire third floor) with built in dressing room and huge en-suite with bath and shower. Plus, a large walk in cupboard on the landing.

We are set in a quiet cul-de-sac also have a large back garden, driveway and garage that we access from our back gate.

The only downside is the heat in the summer - Out top floor never seems to cool down!

The stairs also took a little bit of getting used to but after living here for seven years, we are used to it now.
I don’t think I’d want to live in a two storey home now as I like the space.