British Shoeboxes Aren't Big Enough for a Jolly Good Xmas

treliac

Mr.Brown wrote: »

Fortunately my six friends and I suffer from a growth disorder which means there is plenty of room around the table in our Barratt's 3 bed come Xmas day. Unless that porker Snow White comes to visit of course.

Ummm, this is just sooooo reminiscent of someone?

RobertoMoir

A lot of it is how the rooms are furnished. Having taken on the old family house after my parents passing away I've got the living room laid out totally differently to how it was - I have a big library of books and this dominates one end of the room now I'm there, with the sofas arranged in a "cosy corner" rather than being pushed into the walls as my parents used to like it.

It does make the room feel smaller in a lot of ways but its how I like it - nice and cosy whereas the way my parents had things I felt like I would have to shout to speak to someone on the sofa if I was in an armchair over the other side of the room. This brings me on to Hamish's point about having more stuff too - a massive set of bookcases would have been unheard of for my parents - I've got tons of books however which need to go somewhere.

PasturesNew

RobertoMoir wrote: »

A lot of it is how the rooms are furnished. Having taken on the old family house after my parents passing away I've got the living room laid out totally differently to how it was - I have a big library of books and this dominates one end of the room now I'm there, with the sofas arranged in a "cosy corner" rather than being pushed into the walls as my parents used to like it.

It does make the room feel smaller in a lot of ways but its how I like it - nice and cosy whereas the way my parents had things I felt like I would have to shout to speak to someone on the sofa if I was in an armchair over the other side of the room. This brings me on to Hamish's point about having more stuff too - a massive set of bookcases would have been unheard of for my parents - I've got tons of books however which need to go somewhere.

That sounds like a big room... how many feet?

PasturesNew

I want to layout my parents' room better... but it's their home and they won't let me. Yes, I asked .. several times. I sit there most of the time mentally changing it round... but not allowed to touch it.

Also, radiators are often in bad places... right where you want to put something.

wageslave

I often wonder where people in new builds keep all their stuff. There seems to be no storage to speak off.

The bedrooms are worse than the sitting rooms, a double bed and a tiny chest of drawers and there is barely room to walk around. A friend keeps most of her clothes on those movable rail things in the loft.

Ridiculous way to live.

Really2

NEH wrote: »

My mum's house is a new build and it's the other way around, her downstairs is quite small but her bedrooms are all doubles except one......

Is it a town house style? (they are usualy big beds and small on the ground floor.)

Really2

wageslave wrote: »

I often wonder where people in new builds keep all their stuff. There seems to be no storage to speak off.

The bedrooms are worse than the sitting rooms, a double bed and a tiny chest of drawers and there is barely room to walk around. A friend keeps most of her clothes on those movable rail things in the loft.

Ridiculous way to live.

You all look at the wrong new builds.;)

I agree though your standard 3 bed new build is no bigger than a pre 1920's 2 bed.

But in reality that is down to land costs more than anything else now.

lets face it A 5 bed detached 100 years ago would be massive and have a lot of land as it would be a very rich persons house. (still is pre 1920's 5 bed detached are well over £500K near me)
Now some one who may be just over the average could own one if it was a new build.

I would say new builds work out cheaper per sq ft internaly than pre 1920's houses. but not when you include plot size. (as a pre 1920's detached wpould likely have lots of land)

I think the overall plot size has more of a bearing on the cost than the size of the house.

phil_b_2

I must say, I never even considered a new build when I was looking to buy. All new build 'colonies' I checked out looked like toy towns. All houses almost identical, spaced half a yard apart.
There are some decent new build areas though they cost heaps more.

Older properties generally come on much larger plots which sealed the deal for me.

PasturesNew

wageslave wrote: »

I often wonder where people in new builds keep all their stuff. There seems to be no storage to speak off.

The bedrooms are worse than the sitting rooms, a double bed and a tiny chest of drawers and there is barely room to walk around. A friend keeps most of her clothes on those movable rail things in the loft.

Ridiculous way to live.

My "perfect house" will have a wall-to-wall-ceiling-to-floor cupboard in the bedroom to hold all stuff. It will also have a similar cupboard elsewhere for all other stuff. The kitchen won't have wall cupboards, but will have one damned good larder/huge cupboard.

When you sub-divide any storage into cupboards, it significantly reduces the amount of space available to store things as you're constrained by the individual measurements of each cubby hole. You start off stacking a pile of plates ... and end up shoving half a dozen random things to one side of that because you've run out of space... I want one long straight run, without sub-divisions.

PasturesNew

Really2 wrote: »

I would say new builds work out cheaper per sq ft internaly

It's a sod that our house details don't have the square footage written down. You can end up entering the living rooms/bedrooms into a spreadsheet for some sort of comparison, but not the whole thing.