Your 'must not have' list for a house
Discussion
Depends, I wouldn't like to be too near a Main route any more but you do not want too long a walk to a shop/pub. One thing that we do want is two sitting rooms hence a Kitchen/diner or Family Kitchen is out especially where a room has been lost to it. The piece and quiet of having teenagers in another room is bliss. As is having my own Music room.
That reminds me - I missed a massive one off my "must not have" list.
Modern living, or whatever they call the lounge/diner/kitchen conglomeration that turns what would have been two or three discrete, reasonably laid out rooms into an 18'x18' morass with a line of cupboards along one wall, where all your furniture has to be in the middle of the room and when you settle down to watch a film or read a book you get to do it with the burbling of the fridge and the faint smell of whatever you cooked for dinner in the background.
It would be okay in a bigger house where you've got other rooms to retire to, but for some reason it's a blight that disproportionately affects small houses and flats, causing to end up with the single giant reception room of doom.
I know I'm at odds with the rest of the world on this one, but I want my separate kitchen. It may be a nice vision being able to "entertain" while you cook, but whenever I have a large enough gathering the first thing I want from a kitchen is the ability to lock interfering fingers out of it.
Modern living, or whatever they call the lounge/diner/kitchen conglomeration that turns what would have been two or three discrete, reasonably laid out rooms into an 18'x18' morass with a line of cupboards along one wall, where all your furniture has to be in the middle of the room and when you settle down to watch a film or read a book you get to do it with the burbling of the fridge and the faint smell of whatever you cooked for dinner in the background.
It would be okay in a bigger house where you've got other rooms to retire to, but for some reason it's a blight that disproportionately affects small houses and flats, causing to end up with the single giant reception room of doom.
I know I'm at odds with the rest of the world on this one, but I want my separate kitchen. It may be a nice vision being able to "entertain" while you cook, but whenever I have a large enough gathering the first thing I want from a kitchen is the ability to lock interfering fingers out of it.
Timberwolf said:
That reminds me - I missed a massive one off my "must not have" list.
Modern living, or whatever they call the lounge/diner/kitchen conglomeration that turns what would have been two or three discrete, reasonably laid out rooms into an 18'x18' morass with a line of cupboards along one wall, where all your furniture has to be in the middle of the room and when you settle down to watch a film or read a book you get to do it with the burbling of the fridge and the faint smell of whatever you cooked for dinner in the background.
It would be okay in a bigger house where you've got other rooms to retire to, but for some reason it's a blight that disproportionately affects small houses and flats, causing to end up with the single giant reception room of doom.
I know I'm at odds with the rest of the world on this one, but I want my separate kitchen. It may be a nice vision being able to "entertain" while you cook, but whenever I have a large enough gathering the first thing I want from a kitchen is the ability to lock interfering fingers out of it.
I agree. I hate the "kitchen is the hub of the house" nonsense.Modern living, or whatever they call the lounge/diner/kitchen conglomeration that turns what would have been two or three discrete, reasonably laid out rooms into an 18'x18' morass with a line of cupboards along one wall, where all your furniture has to be in the middle of the room and when you settle down to watch a film or read a book you get to do it with the burbling of the fridge and the faint smell of whatever you cooked for dinner in the background.
It would be okay in a bigger house where you've got other rooms to retire to, but for some reason it's a blight that disproportionately affects small houses and flats, causing to end up with the single giant reception room of doom.
I know I'm at odds with the rest of the world on this one, but I want my separate kitchen. It may be a nice vision being able to "entertain" while you cook, but whenever I have a large enough gathering the first thing I want from a kitchen is the ability to lock interfering fingers out of it.
Shared access, I don’t care what it is, who has what rights, what the set-up is, how well documented the legal stuff is, how nice the other people are; I would refuse to buy any house with shared access a complete non-starter.
Obvious parking problems, estates and streets overcrowded with cars and shared communal parking spaces
Near a pub, my experiences of this are it results in regular vandalism, noise, mass fights in the streets (these can be amusing)and litter. Overall I wouldn’t recommend it.
Next to an alleyway and / or cut through of any sort, passing traffic of people generally encourages vandalism and youths hanging around
House without a hallway, front door straight in to lounge
House without a front garden, straight on to public pathway
Main road at the front or back of the property
Obvious parking problems, estates and streets overcrowded with cars and shared communal parking spaces
Near a pub, my experiences of this are it results in regular vandalism, noise, mass fights in the streets (these can be amusing)and litter. Overall I wouldn’t recommend it.
Next to an alleyway and / or cut through of any sort, passing traffic of people generally encourages vandalism and youths hanging around
House without a hallway, front door straight in to lounge
House without a front garden, straight on to public pathway
Main road at the front or back of the property
JoeBolt said:
I would never consider buying a house which has had the garage converted into a dining room / study / granny flat, etc.
Garages are for cars and motorbikes. Storing them and fixing them. There should be a law against garage conversions and severe punishment dealt out to offenders.
Are you, erm ME ? I actually said that to a neighbour of my father in law who has converted a double garage into a utility room. Worse he's kept the double garage up and over door, so he has a 4 foor long by 20 foot wide wheelybin and old paint tin storage area. Garages are for cars and motorbikes. Storing them and fixing them. There should be a law against garage conversions and severe punishment dealt out to offenders.
New POD said:
JoeBolt said:
I would never consider buying a house which has had the garage converted into a dining room / study / granny flat, etc.
Garages are for cars and motorbikes. Storing them and fixing them. There should be a law against garage conversions and severe punishment dealt out to offenders.
Are you, erm ME ? I actually said that to a neighbour of my father in law who has converted a double garage into a utility room. Worse he's kept the double garage up and over door, so he has a 4 foor long by 20 foot wide wheelybin and old paint tin storage area. Garages are for cars and motorbikes. Storing them and fixing them. There should be a law against garage conversions and severe punishment dealt out to offenders.
Also - when I was with my last band, we rehearsed at a studio nearby. The chap who owned it had built it at the bottom of his garden to look like a double garage, to try to disguise it for security reasons.
It had an entrance door airlock from his garden, but on the outside it had two fake metal up-and-over doors grafted onto the exterior wall, and it really did look like an ordinary garage. Inside however was one of the most amazing studios I've ever been in, with £000's of kit installed.
The soundproofing was incredible - even when the band were playing at 10/10ths inside, you could go into the street next to it and hear a pin drop.
Ray Luxury-Yacht said:
New POD said:
JoeBolt said:
I would never consider buying a house which has had the garage converted into a dining room / study / granny flat, etc.
Garages are for cars and motorbikes. Storing them and fixing them. There should be a law against garage conversions and severe punishment dealt out to offenders.
Are you, erm ME ? I actually said that to a neighbour of my father in law who has converted a double garage into a utility room. Worse he's kept the double garage up and over door, so he has a 4 foor long by 20 foot wide wheelybin and old paint tin storage area. Garages are for cars and motorbikes. Storing them and fixing them. There should be a law against garage conversions and severe punishment dealt out to offenders.
Go and sit in the corner and think about what you've done, and how to atone for your act of heresy...
A house that is next to a playpark. Swings, slides and roundabouts for toddlers attract all sorts of chav ragamuffins at all hours who get up to every kind of nonsense.
I know this from long and bitter experience which ultimately forced us to sell up and move out of a house that in every other respect was perfect.
I know this from long and bitter experience which ultimately forced us to sell up and move out of a house that in every other respect was perfect.
It's not so much shared access as cramped access that is the problem. Almost every house has shared access, it's when that access is narrow and people don't have enough space to park etc. that it becomes a problem.
I live down a single track lane that leads to four properties but there's lots of space, the lane is an adopted road so the council maintain it and it is no problem at all. I used to live in a house where access was across another property where they didn't have enough space to park and were constantly blocking us in. When between us we re-engineered it to give more space it was fine.
I live down a single track lane that leads to four properties but there's lots of space, the lane is an adopted road so the council maintain it and it is no problem at all. I used to live in a house where access was across another property where they didn't have enough space to park and were constantly blocking us in. When between us we re-engineered it to give more space it was fine.
Be more than 15 minutes from the centre of a major global city.
I love the countryside/tranquil environs, but only as an escape from the city. I prefer to live in the midst of everything, and be able to go out, see a show, get drunk, shop, people-watch at the drop of a hat, without any form of logistical planning.
A few times a year, I'll escape to the Yorkshire Dales where I was raised, or to an Asian beach in order to get my fix of serenity.
As a public transport user, my home must not be more than a couple of minutes walk to public transport. During the typhoon season, pulling a suitcase through the heaving, narrow, stepped streets of Hong Kong is a fairly mediocre undertaking.
I love the countryside/tranquil environs, but only as an escape from the city. I prefer to live in the midst of everything, and be able to go out, see a show, get drunk, shop, people-watch at the drop of a hat, without any form of logistical planning.
A few times a year, I'll escape to the Yorkshire Dales where I was raised, or to an Asian beach in order to get my fix of serenity.
As a public transport user, my home must not be more than a couple of minutes walk to public transport. During the typhoon season, pulling a suitcase through the heaving, narrow, stepped streets of Hong Kong is a fairly mediocre undertaking.
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