What do you like and dislike about your period property? Any regrets?

[luckycat888]

Considering a period (Victorian) property

@luckycat888 previous home:
Loved - space, character, thick walls, high ceilings, feeling very solid
Didn't love- cold and hard to heat, endless maintenance, all work more difficult/expensive because of solid uneven walls etc

I loved the unique and quirky feel to it, the beams and the high ceilings and the character. It was beautiful and cool in the Summer when everyone else was suffering with heat.

I adored it during the Spring and Summer but I hated it during the Autumn and Winter.

It was dark, and very cold, despite having central heating and a wood burner. We couldn't use the central heating as much as we would have liked to as it was so expensive to run and heat. It was prone to high humidity in the Winter so we had to run a dehumidifier. It was very high maintenance and always needed something doing to it.

We sold it and moved in the end as we couldn't bare the thought of another Winter feeling constantly chilly and needing several layers to stay warm.

I love my Victorian terraced house but at the moment I don't like it.

We are in a terrace and have a rat issue which seems impossible to solve.

We moved from a property around 20 years old to a Victorian property and actually, despite being a larger older property our energy bills are much lower here. It's well insulated and central heating keeps it cosy.

We love the character of the property and there really aren't any cons related to it's age. We do get more spiders here but the cat keeps them in check 😹

Loved high ceilings big rooms
Hated. How cold it was I. Winter

Georgian farmhouse - love the character, high ceilings, big windows etc. Get fed up with how cold I am for 6 months of the year.

Ours is a very early victorian workers cottage. I love how solid, cosy and homely it feels and I just feel very cocooned and safe here. It has some strange quirks resulting from being changed in phases along the way, but I love these as I feel they are part of its story. I don't love the loft as it is way too spidery and horrible. Our previous home had a loft that was just like another room and was very clean.

I loved that with the newbuild we started off with everything fresh, even if the quality wasn't fabulous.

Depends where you are OP and whether you are the rainy cold north west or the warmer south? Single brick walls are a huge regret, especially on a corner of a terraced plot. Energy bills way higher than average.

This is our eighth period house (it's Georgian, the rest were everything from Victorian to Tudor).

All the others I loved because of the character and quirky charm. I didn't mind the cost of restoration/maintenance because the joy of living in them made me happy every day!

But they were large and expensive to heat, so it was often cold in winter. The Georgian thatched one had a permanent horrible smell emanating from the roof. The two rural ones had septic tanks and at the most recent one (400 years old) we had to have a borehole drilled which cost £££. I initially thought being almost entirely off-grid was a good thing, but I'd never want either again.

The current house is considerably smaller and therefore easier to heat which is good (although we're about to face our second winter without a boiler/central heating).

But I hate the lack of period charm - it was modernised in 1965 when everything original was removed. We're gradually reinstating character features where possible. I particularly hate the fact some idiot painted the entire frontage with non-breathable, textured sandtex...grrrr!

I live in a three bedroom Victorian terrace.

I love: Period features and all the little completely superfluous flourishes like a line of decorative bricks above my bay window and my decorative air bricks. There's just no need for them to be so pretty but they are because... Victorians.

I love that I can be a bit mad with decorating. My dining room is art deco. My living room is maximalist William Morris. My kitchen is uber-modern and minimalist. The house can take it in a way a more modern house couldn't.

I love the features like picture rails, coving and mosaic floor. We've put cast iron fireplaces back in and they're gorgoue.

I love that it just works as a house. It feels like it was designed with actual people in mind unlike more modern houses.

I dislike that I don't have a side gate so recycling and bins have to come through the house.

I dislike that my bay window area leaks like a sieve and nothing can be done.

I dislike that I can't get the house above 19C in the winter.

I dislike that I'm attached both sides. I'm lucky with quiet neighbours but one side does very theatrical nose-blowing and the other gets up at 5am for some fucking reason. I hear all of this. But equally, they must hear my dog's insane barking at various times so...

I dislike that I only have a concrete yard that smells of dog piss.

There's no off-road parking. I don't care because I can't drive but neighbours don't seem pleased.

I'd like my next house to be a detached Edwardian with cavity insulation and a small-ish garden.

Very thick stone walls keep the house cool throughout the summer, but it can feel damp in the winter, even though it isn’t. We have to keep it well heated all winter. The stone walls and beams also get very dusty and cobwebby. It’s a full time job to keep on top of the spiders at this time of year.
Some days I long for a new build which is nice and easy to clean.

I live in a Georgian terrace conversion that had all the original decor removed except odd bits of skirting. I love the light, huge windows and every room is well lit. I miss window sill’s though !

The character, the unique atmosphere you don't get in more modern homes, the high ceilings, more spacious rooms. Large upstairs landing.
Just a feeling of a more substantial house.

This all sounds pretty scary! All houses have their downsides I guess. I’m sure it’s better than living in a new build

I live in an Edwardian 3 bed terrace.
Love the big rooms and big windows, the character, and i hardly ever hear the neighbours through the walls. Also, I'm cheered at knowing that this house has stood through two wars ( and the Luftwaffe dropped a few bombs close by) and countless storms and has stood firm. It's definitely not flimsy.

No parking, noise through walls on 2 sides, horrendously steep staircase, end of life plaster that's ~100 years old is messy as anything in the event of any building work.

There’s nothing I dislike about it, I suppose the negative is that it’s more expensive to heat due to high ceilings but there’s nothing about a new build I would prefer.
I love the ceiling height, the huge fireplaces, the coving, the tall skirting and detailed architrave, the hallway arch, the original stained glass, the way the house was designed to maximise light at different times of the day.
Its also very well built, it’s a semi but I never hear next door and the layout has been designed so the entrances aren’t next to eachother.

There are a lot of scare stories about newbuilds too. I think, even with surveys, you can almost just get lucky or not.

Georgian house here, pros are the great room sizes, fireplaces and the most beautiful original staircase & bannister. I love how solid it is and how much history is in the walls.

Biggest issue is the cold, especially when working from home. You also really need to be good at DIY as there is always something, and when you start a job you uncover 200 years of other people’s DIY so everything takes far longer than originally expected.

@SmushedToOI love that it just works as a house. It feels like it was designed with actual people in mind unlike more modern houses.

What does this actually mean? How is a house you have to drag the bins through, only has a concrete yard, no parking, doesn't get above 19C and has walls thin enough that you can hear the neighbours blowing their nose "more designed with actual people in mind" than a newbuild that has none of those issues? Obviously the parking and bins weren't an issue when it was built, but arguing a house with all those issues is more designed for people just because it looks nice is pretty silly.

Gave up our character property for a new build. I miss the architectural design, high ceiling and charm. Don't miss the heating bills, maintenance costs, occasional mouse visit, silverfish and lack of en-suite. I'm sure you can outrun all that if you have deep pockets.

Weve just moved to a big Victorian house and I love almost everything abkut it. It’s been modernised sympathetically and hasn’t had any rooms knocked through to make it open plan, so has several separate rooms downstairs. I particularly love the original fireplaces in almost every room. We’ve got beautiful Victorian tiling in the hallway and downstairs lol, but the only thing I really HATE are the wooden floorboards in the living room, dining room, and study. I desperately miss having carpets and dont think rugs help much. As soon as I can afford it, I’ll be getting carpets fitted.

I love the grandeur and the fact that even simple fixtures - bannisters, window catches - are beautiful rather just serving a purpose.

The high ceilings can be a challenge to heat but I love that I really love my surroundings.

We're in Victorian terraced house amd moved from a modern flat.

I like the space, lots more rooms and cupboards. I like having a separate kitchen and living room rather than one open plan living space. I don't like the hassle of pulling a wheelie bin up the stairs and having to remember to put it out every week and having to worry about foxes ripping up our bin bags. It was far easier to take our bin bags down to the huge communal bin whenever it got full and not think about when the bin men came. I don't like not having a communal hall where we used to get parcels delivered, now we have to be more careful about whether we'll be at home to receive a parcel, or get it delivered to a locker and then have to collect it ourselves. I don't like all the stairs, it was far easier to keep track of things and deal with shopping, retrieving forgotten socks etc when we didn't have several flights of stairs to deal with every time someone forgets something. The top floor is a loft conversion and gets unberably hot in summer, we'll likely need to get air con in future. In our old flat we rarely needed to put the heating on as the neighbours would warm up our flat. Our house now is draughty and I'm wearing 3 layers at home just in October. We never really dealt with building maintenance in our old flat, as it was new and not much needed fixing, and the service charges covered things like window cleaning. Now everything is for us to monitor and organise and pay for, it takes much more headspace, time to arrange and stay at home for.

I'm in a Victorian shop that goes round a corner, with two subsequent extensions.
I mostly love the odd shaped rooms on the corner, although sometimes I pine for how big they would be if the corner wasn’t chopped off.
I love the period detail, the beams and the fireplaces, the different floor heights where one extension meets another, and good doors and staircase.
The loft isn't tall enough to be converted, sadly and has loads of cross beams. It is therefore just a spidery hellhole instead of the useful storage I would wish.
It is hard to heat and I don't know where we would be without the wood burner backing up the oil heating.
I have to seal up the front door every autumn, which opens into what was the shop space, because of draughts, even though I have an inner door (disguised as a fireplace)
It had only the cupboard under the stairs and so we have had to create many more.
There is a useless “conservatory”, which faces north and is basically a roof between the house wall and the perimeter wall. It leaks a bit and is little more than an outhouse. I am hoping to reroof it at some point and make it into something like a proper gigantic cupboard.
We created a pantry, using half of the shop kitchen and now I regret not making it much bigger.