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.

-Oil tank and boiler.
-Septic tank.
-Old house!

Was beautiful to look at from outside, but my god the up keep was a nightmare. Very expensive, things constantly going wrong and always cold. we laugh now about the time the toilet froze when the boiler yet again broke despite being less than a year old. At the time it wasn't funny.
We moved to a stunning new build and it's so lovely to live in and economical. Honestly I will never understand why people on here are so against new houses. Old ones can be so uncomfortable.

The only bathroom being downstairs is bad.
Alot of old houses in UK had bathrooms outside in the back garden. Then they were outside attached to the kitchen.
Imagine needing to pee at night or wanting to shower. To go downstairs to do so.

OooH I had a cork floor kitchen in a house once and it was the best! Glasses would just bounce. I have tiles in my new house and everything breaksI did not know you could put cork bathrooms too! Thank you,

This.

Also: shared chimney, render, conservatory, flat roof, no side access, spiral staircase, ground floor flat (can't have the windows open at various times).

I've lived in a few places...

sloping ceilings in upstairs rooms.

Almost killed myself on decking in frosty weather! It’s a death trap!!

Urgh, we moved to a new house in the summer (bought from my PiL) and honestly some of the choices made with this home I would never have made.

Fully tiled bathroom - everything is dripping wet after I shower. It's ridiculous when myself and both of my daughters shower in the morning. Opening the window is not enough.
Extension with half the back wall being full length glass patio doors - the extension is so cold
The extension being a kitchen/dining room/living room - steam etc from cooking affects all of the furniture and I've said to my husband we need to work out a furniture solution that means our dvds, books etc are not on display

If anyone has any solutions for these issues (I'll be reading through the posts in a minute) I would be hugely grateful.

• listed status of any sort
• open fireplaces
• sash windows (drafty guillotines)
• no ground plate/foundations

Oh and a lack of drawers in the kitchen. All over our cutlery is on shelves. Some stuff ends up quite low and annoying to access. I never thought I would miss kitchen drawers 😅

Shared access to gardens. We were plagued by neighbours' vast number of children with friends, bikes etc., slamming the gate, yelling, when we wanted a quiet coffee in the garden.

East facing garden. We hardly saw any sun and nothing would grow.

Stairs off lounge. The only toilet at the top of the stairs and we could hear visitors weeing.

Allocated parking out the front. It was owned by us, but visitors to other houses helped themselves.

Near a school playground. The noise was awful.

Backing on to a public footpath. A magnet for vandalism.

Stairs!
Moved from 3 bed semi to basically a bungalow. Future proofing as we are older.
Also our last house was a new build when we moved in ( 90's construction) and the amount of wasted space downstairs was awful. Massive hallway that was dark in winter.
Also, windows over befroom doors so that anytime the landing light is on your bedroom lights up.

The first house I bought had a gorgeous huge, well tended garden full of beautiful mature trees and shrubs, flowers etc, and a large wooden decking area with French windows leading out from the living room.

Absolutely beautiful when I viewed it in the late spring sunshine and was a major selling point!

When I moved in (late summer/early autumn) I soon realised quite how much upkeep the garden needed... constant weeding, raking leaves, pruning etc which wasn't ideal on top of a full on corporate job. And any time it rained/snowed/we had frost that beautiful decking became a super slippery death trap. Total no-go zone meaning I had to exit the house via the front (side) door, walk round to the other side, unlock the garden gate and then round to the back garden (minor annoyance but still irritating when I had doors straight out into the garden via the decking!). So the garden was barely used from around September until April (other than to rake the bloody leaves etc!).

A long narrow driveway rather than a wide shorter one.

Stairs
Shared access or shared parking
Electric storage heaters
Built-in kitchen appliances - too much hassle when they die.
Built-in bedroom furniture as it always ends up smelling fustily of the previous owner's clothes.

My childhood home was the same.
Huge back garden with so many mature trees. Taking the leaves daily in autumn to prevent drain from getting blocked. And the constant lawnmoving every 2 weeks. It took me half a day to cut the grass. There was a hill at the side that was awful to cut. Literally took so much out of me.
Now I have a small garden with zero trees and zero decking.

Open plan for me. My kitchen/dining/living is huge open plan - everyone who comes in gushes about it but living in it isn't the dream you'd expect. Great for (occasional) entertaining but for day to day living, I'm not a fan.

My brother had this.
Look into sliding doors to create separate zones.
I find open plan a nightmare in winter.

No off road parking.
I made the mistake of buying a house with on street parking, naively thinking that if I have to park a bit further up, that's no big deal. Well, no big deal for me but it's a huge deal to every other neighbour who goes crazy that you're parking in "Their" spot in the road. I underestimated just how stressful other neighbours and parking wars can make your every day life.

Get a really good extractor with a timer fitted.
Ours looks like a spotlight, is very quiet and you can set it to run for 15 mins after your shower.
Our previously wringing wet bathroom is completely dry just after I step out of the bath or shower.
Worth every penny

And anything that falls on the floor is guaranteed to break, plus they are cold, dark and really show the dirt

I will never build a “normal” house again. Cold. Leaky. Mould. Condensation. Inefficient.

The next house I build or buy will be an energy efficient, healthy Passivhaus.

@Harshtruth1111 curious why you prefer a small kitchen? I have one and it can be hard with two of us trying to do things and bumping into each other

UVPC windows, strictly for chavs and those with blurred vision, the thermo panels easily spoil and then these need replacing, terrible for the environment, too. Wooden sashes help air circulation, they can be fixed and don’t ruin the view out of each and every sodding window. Private roads - other people and their selfish parking habits truly are hell. Ditto whatsapp feeds for these roads…

Kitchen tiles like these. Everything that sticks and or stains gets on the grout and no mop keeps them clean. It's just hands and knees scrubbing (or not).

Completely agree.