Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

vivatifosi

I like your house missk, it looks ever so like my mil's from the front and hers is very spacious inside. My garden is about the same length as yours, but I don't have the benefit of all that lovely space to the side.

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

I like your house missk, .

I think, in general, most places have a fair bit going for them. The trick is matching the place to the person.

Its easy to be very critical of houses at times. One of the problems we had viewing places was the difficulty of balancing the reasons why the places weren't right with the reasons they could be. There are inevitably lots of each. I could see us making most of them working for us in some way. Some were potentially a lot bigger than this, some were tinier.....a large proportion would have meant years and years in a mobile home.

Although this was not my favourite of all the places we viewed it is lovely, we're very happy here. And I admit, though I wanted to build...and probably still do, its nice to have a house too.

vivatifosi

lostinrates wrote: »

I think, in general, most places have a fair bit going for them. The trick is matching the place to the person.

I think we all have our dream houses lir, but its hard to achieve them without the budget. We've always been the type of people that would rather go on holiday and would buy a second home rather than a really lovely house, so ours is quite boring (not that we've got the second home yet:o). But its functional and although it doesn't have great views like my parents' and brother's, its in a nice area.

I'm afraid I love soul-less newer houses though. I want the cavity insulated double skinned walls, double glazing and power showers as standard because I'm a creature of comfort who used to live in that cold Victorian house with the curtains that got stuck to the ice of my unheated bedroom windows in winter.

In the case of missk's house, I think it would look amazing stuffed with some mid-20th century furniture, a nice Noguchi coffee table, an Eames chair by the fire and a nice comfy sofa to blend in. Yummy....

Thinking more about casa lira, I was thinking again of that long room, but this time more as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Not that you should fill it with mirrors, but as you have the space elsewhere to live, to make an amazing statement hallway out of it. Have limited furniture so that it can then be an adaptable space for whatever you want. You can dance in it, hold parties in it, have banquets in it (storing furniture elsewhere in between). It could be an amazing social space and a real statement about the house.

misskool

vivatifosi wrote: »

In the case of missk's house, I think it would look amazing stuffed with some mid-20th century furniture, a nice Noguchi coffee table, an Eames chair by the fire and a nice comfy sofa to blend in. Yummy....

We do have an eclectic mix of furniture currently in the house.... but we need to do some more decorating before anything else

Perhaps we should do a tour of the country to visit all the nice people's houses?

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

I think we all have our dream houses lir, but its hard to achieve them without the budget. We've always been the type of people that would rather go on holiday and would buy a second home rather than a really lovely house, so ours is quite boring (not that we've got the second home yet:o). But its functional and although it doesn't have great views like my parents' and brother's, its in a nice area.

I'm afraid I love soul-less newer houses though. I want the cavity insulated double skinned walls, double glazing and power showers as standard because I'm a creature of comfort who used to live in that cold Victorian house with the curtains that got stuck to the ice of my unheated bedroom windows in winter.

.

That's exactly what I mean: people to houses. A holiday home (as opposed to a work pied a terre!) wouldn't suit us at all. This would have been unafford able for us this side of London but closer. Its the match of person to place. Nothing wrong with a souless box, especially if you work five jobs that keep you busy and wan to lock it up and leave it for a fortnight at a time!

with unlimited budget things would have been different again, for most people I think, but there is budget for most people an the jigsaw has to occur within that constraint.

vivatifosi

misskool wrote: »

Perhaps we should do a tour of the country to visit all the nice people's houses?

No worries! I've got rid of the Arsenal room and will shortly have shot of the shagpile boudoir, but it may take a bit longer to cope with the orange carpet everywhere else, except in the Barbie room where it is Barbie pink along with the walls, or the bathroom with its disgusting grey suite which always looks dirty. You're welcome when I finish. It may take another few years though at this rate:o.

As I do a room, I may even post the odd picture. If I show you any befores, then they will be very odd pictures.

PasturesNew

misskool wrote: »

This will just be up for an hour or so and I'll have to delete it but I would share as people have Plot of house and photo of the front

edit: time's up and all gone

OH NOES.... missed it!

*awaits inevitable PMs from nice people*

lostinrates

vivatifosi wrote: »

No worries! I've got rid of the Arsenal room and will shortly have shot of the shagpile boudoir, but it may take a bit longer to cope with the orange carpet everywhere else, except in the Barbie room where it is Barbie pink along with the walls, or the bathroom with its disgusting grey suite which always looks dirty. You're welcome when I finish. It may take another few years though at this rate:o.

As I do a room, I may even post the odd picture. If I show you any befores, then they will be very odd pictures.

Take PN's avice....have us tramping through BEFORE you've got it nice. Then we can't ruin too much.

I've been thinking it would be lovely to have nice people for lunch in the summer. We've spent a fair few hours together over the years on screens. I am particularly appreciatie of support and kind words I've received from people here.

And talking through pasting pics on the net.:o

Still can't work out that blogging malarky though.:o

PasturesNew

Right. Seen Miss Kool's place.

Those windows scare me to bits, I always see those on houses and think "they'd have to go .... you'd never get out of that tiny top window in a fire"

silvercar

I missed Misskool's pic

On boilers, we have a combi and a traditional one. (Previous people built an extension and instead of replacing the main boiler with a larger one they left it as is and added a smaller combi boiler.)

All boilers are now condensing by law, so all claim efficiency.

Advantage of traditional one is that there is a tank of hot water available. Disadvantage is that once the tank runs out its gone, at least until the hot water is put back on and you've waited half an hour. It does mean that you can be heating water you don't need, but with an insulated tank it does stay warm for a long time.

Advantage of a combi is that the hot water is on demand, this can be a disadvantage when you want people to hurry up out of the shower. Unless you have a super powerful combi you get reduced power if you use more than one water source at the same time. Someone flushes the toilet and the person in the shower notices.

What heating is there at the moment. If it is a question of replacing an existing boiler, the existing pipework can be used for a new traditional boiler, but for a combi you will need different pipe work.