What property features would you never have again?

[AnxiousRose]

What features from your current or previous property would you avoid if you were househunting again?

For me, it is three storeys. I had this in my last house and did not expect to dislike it as much as I did. My bedroom was on the top floor and I hated all the stairs especially with young kids. Three storeys usually means the downstairs space is small for the number of bedrooms.

That sounds horrendous.. what a pain for you.

We had a very different experience to you. The first electric underfloor heating we had was installed back in 1996 in a property we still own and rent out.

Never had an issue with it, still works perfectly, which is partly what gave us the confidence to choose electric heating over gas/water pressurised systems and the incidence of leaks.

I agree that it is more expensive to run month by month.

By contrast the purchase and installation cost was less, nearly a quarter of the cost of the cost of a wet system.

And in our experience the electrical check covers the underfloor heating and has never found a service item or repair needing doing.

Five years in our current home.

Mind you we did insulate for cold below the heating layer, and insulated against weight and pressure above the heating layer, with a final layer that’s one-way reflective that reflects heat back into the finished floor layer. All that insulation makes the floor very cosy.

To be fair, I don't think my UFH was well installed, the fitters turned out to be somewhat cowboy-ish, perhaps that's the lesson I should learn, rather than to avoid UFH!

All the talk on hating en suites are presumably where a tiny room has been shoe
horned into an existing bedroom with barely any room to swing a cat. I agree they are awful and a result of the limitations on existing housing stock.
We used to live in the USA and there the master suite opened into a bathroom of similar size to the bedroom and then through that to a giant walk in closet with his and her sides. The advantages of having low
cost flexible construction (timber frame) and lots of space to build big houses.

We have a pre-1800s wooden clapboard house in a coastal New England town. I think the clapboards have been replaced once in the house's lifetime (by us and we were told at the time that the ones we were replacing were original). It has given us many fewer issues than the render on our house in the UK!

Not here @Jennyathemall , big ensuite same size as the family bathroom with a big sash window and a radiator. I just don't feel the need to have a toilet that close to my bedroom.

Also used to live outside the uk/have expereince of different sorts of construction. The sentiment is the same for me.

Wet u/f air source 13 years on never failed - en-suite brilliant but we do have separate bathrooms and bedrooms - luxury

Yes, of course. I never said it doesn't exist. However, I sometimes think it's good for MNers to know how the other half live.

North facing living/itting room

A north facing living room. Depressing. Or a
Kitchen at one end of living/sitting room, I think termed Studio flat

Slopping garden! Horrible, and unusable for most of the year.
Wooden worktops
Decking
Karndean flooring
Pale carpets
Designated parking would be more of a priority if we moved again. I underestimated our neighbours abilities to be total inconsiderate twats regarding parking!

Reading some of the responses here, I think I am so used to our house that I don't think of the things that would make it hard to sell!

I have 25 steps from the car up to the front door. But mind you, we have a beautiful view of the harbour. I guess you take the bad with the good.

We don't have an ensuite, but would love one. That way, you don't have to share cupboard space for hair and beauty items with the rest of the family. As for hearing DH's doing their business, just close the door and turn on the fan!

I wouldn't swap my driveway (removed part of garden to extend for 3.5 car spaces) or 3 loos for a bigger house or period features. However, I wish I had a kitchen-diner, but now my DCs are older it's less of an issue.

Oh, I feel your pain. We have the type that go on holiday for 2 weeks, park their cars in the visitors bays not close to their own front doors, leaving their driveways empty. 😡 Proper CFs who can't be bothered to rejig cars, so they inconvenience everybody else. They then have the audacity to act like they're neighbours of the year.

Interesting. Our family happily lived in a 3 storey house, then a huge 2 storey house & now children have left home we have a top floor flat with lovely shared gardens & a huge balcony with views to the sea. I never thought I'd say this but apart from missing the family being together the flat has been my favourite place to live 😁

I prefer a north-facing sitting room as it’s mostly used in the evenings so it can be painted dark, lots of lamps and candles, curtains closed – cosy. Then the kitchen-diner that’s the functioning heart of the house gets all the daylight. Currently we have the reverse and I haaaaaaaate it.

If I ever come into money and move, my own drive and garage is number one. The woman over the road has a drive big enough for four cars. You'd think that would be enough - not so! She has two teenagers and between them they have seven cars plus one enormous camper van. I mean, it's massive! They have decided to park this on the designated parking of the houses over the road i.e mine and the other people on my row. It actually takes my breath away.

Our old house was an upside down house and I loved it. Cosy bedrooms downstairs with small windows and large open plan area upstairs with big windows and balcony.

My main issue with an upside down house is that it would become a pain having to haul heavy shopping bags upstairs to the kitchen, assuming that is where it is. And if it isn't, it would be a pain having to ferry food etc upstairs to the dining room or wherever the owners eat.

Period homes. The ones I’ve lived in have looked fancy but been freezing, so hard to heat with those high ceilings. And you have to find a way to hoover the cobwebs off the ceilings - I’m short so had to stand on a chair with the hoover extended to reach them. All the nooks and crannies they have also attract spiders!

I know someone who lives in a house that can only be accessed by walking up a steep slope. Cars can't drive anywhere near the front door, so everything has to be carried up and down steep steps. I bet the removal men loved that! And it's fine when you are fit but not if you are older or not fully mobile. There isn't even a handrail to use! No thanks.

We stayed in an upside down house on holiday. It was a novelty at first, but that soon wore off. We hated it, a kitchen upstairs is no no, esp with little kids. It was a pain if you want to eat outside, bbq etc.
I didn't like the bedrooms on the ground floor either, especially for my kids.

Ooh, may I ask why you don't like Karndean flooring?

I like the idea in theory. Lots of houses have better views from upstairs and yet we spend most of the daylight hours downstairs and most of the time you are in the bedroom it is dark and you are asleep. You could possibly admire the view for 10 mins in the morning whilst getting dressed, but you probably have to close the curtains anyway so you don't expose yourself to the neighbours 😂.

However, having bedrooms on the ground floor would be a pain in the summer. It's not always safe to leave windows open at night unless you live out in the sticks. That would be a dealbreaker for me as I sleep with the windows open most of the summer.

House I'm buying solves this problem by being a 3 storey townhouse with magnificent views from the 1st floor Living room (with balcony) and the bedrooms on 2nd floor well out of harms way. But of course it then has 3 floors and the kitchen/diner and LR on separate floors, so loads of people here would hate the set up. You can't please everyone! 😀

We had it fitted throughout our ground floor, it was overpriced and honestly no better than cheaper alternatives. Our friends had a similar floor, about a third of the price and looked just as good.
I was put off by the bad job the fitters did though, the base underneath was not perfect and within a few weeks you
could see every imperfection underneath through the karn dean (it’s really thin stuff). We had a partial refund as it was such a bad job but even so, it just wasn’t worth the money.