What else bugs you about new and new-ish building designs?

lookstraightahead

ka7e said:

Again, garden only being accessible through the lounge. Taking washing in and out, kids with mucky shoes and cats/dogs all traipsing over the carpet. I've had a kitchen/diner in all my homes for the last 40 years (Victorian and 1930s), so it's not a new-fangled design.

I've always found this with a separate dining room. What is the point of traipsing roast dinner through the hallway to another room.

trix-a-belle

'architectural' stupid shaped windows (often very large & in bedrooms) that they have given no thought about how they might accommodate curtains or blinds at so the residents can sleep past the crack of dawn. I often see others asking for ideas for such conundrums in my soft furnishings groups & the answer is often bricks

not necessarily new houses but when I was looking it always annoyed me the number of houses where you didn't have easy access from the front door to the kitchen, when I go food shopping I don't want to be dragging my shopping round half the house to get to the kitchen to put it away (saw floor plans where you literally had to traipse through every other downstairs living and dining space/room before reaching the kitchen)

[Deleted User]

Open plan is terrible. All the noise from the kitchen stops you hearing the TV. Even worse with kids.

zagubov

Open plan is the work of the devil. Why buy a house where all the rooms only have three of the necessary four walls?
There might be a argument for combining a kitchen with a diner. I think toilets should be separated from bathrooms, like in Japan where they know a thing or two about using space efficiently.
My work used to take me to the Netherlands regularly. I don't know who the big house-builders are there but we should maybe invite them over here, because their country is more densely populated than England, but the houses are bigger and everything seems more spacious, and it all seems to just work without feeling cramped.

JuanBallOfWimbledon

atarisrocks said:

Open planned living space. I rather my sofa doesn't pick up the smell of what I am cooking.

This. We rented a new build for 6 months back in 2008, and were pretty excited actually to be the first people to live there, but within a week knew we’d avoid at all costs in the future. The first morning there my wife made a full English breakfast and the smell of fried food/grease clung to our new sofa, cushions and curtains for ages. We actually used to veto meals based on the fact we’d be living with the smell of it for days.

We also hated how flimsy everything was, especially given this was a rental and we were the first people in there.  Other than that we disliked the room sizes, the amount of noise from neighbours (middle of 3 townhouses), the silly amount of bathrooms (great idea till you have 5 bathrooms to clean), the teeny tiny gardens, the teeny tiny windows, no parking for visitors, being massively overlooked, the fact it was so, so warm all the time (we lived there over summer and my wife was pregnant with our youngest. I imagine that’s a bonus in winter though), and the fact we weren’t allowed to use the attic for storage. 

There are positives though, it was lovely having everything so new and there was no through traffic. We have friends who have vowed to only ever live in new builds. It’s obviously a matter of taste and how sensitive you are to things like noise, smells, ‘claustrophobic’ surroundings etc. I can see the appeal, but the typical new build definitely isn’t for us. A positive of renting for over 30 yrs before we bought was that we trialled pretty much every type of property going. The downside being that we knew exactly what we did and didn’t want, making buying even trickier - especially in this current market. We did get what we wanted though - completion day today!!! 🍾

Flugelhorn

@JuanBallOfWimbledon - congrats on completing today! 

Agree renting gives you a good way of deciding on types of houses, I was looking for a property in an area, staying in a self catering holiday house for a week, couldn't find anywhere I liked but liked this house - bought the one 4 doors up the road (which actually was a better layout but I least I got to experience the location before moving in!)

Abbafan1972

Top of my list would be no access to the back garden, other than through the house, I know this happens with older houses as well.  We are having brand new fencing put up in our back garden in a few weeks time and couldn't imagine the tradesmen having to bring the new panels, gravel boards and posts through the house!  We have a window cleaner that comes every 4 weeks and he would have to come through the house to clean the back.  Also, I like to keep my wheelie bins out the back, when they are not out the front on bin day.  People build extensions on the side and literally take every millimetre they can!

Galley kitchens - I hate these with passion.  We have one now and the room is so limited, it's impossible to cook sometimes without someone getting in your way. Would love a kitchen/diner, as there is literally no room in this house to have a dining table and we mostly end up eating on our laps in front of the TV.

I wouldn't want a house where the lounges are next to each other.  Our front doors are next to each other and lounges apart, but I can still hear next doors loud music in the day time (I work from home).  The only downside for me of having the front doors next to each other, is even though our doorbell is labelled with the house number, delivery people still sometimes ring the wrong one!

This last one isn't really a built thing, but a homeowners choice - TV's mounted on the wall above the fireplace in an effort to save space.  I don't have anything against TV's on the wall in general, as we have one in the bedroom in the corner, but above the fireplace just looks daft in my opinion. 

HRH_MUngo

One of our  essential criteria when we moved was to have a house where you could go from the front garden to the back garden without going through the house.  We could even do that with our terraced house, as we had our own (private) alleyway.

Not being able to do this certainly doesn't apply just to new houses; plenty of between-the-wars semis are built like this, joined by garages.

Our lovely bungalow fulfilled this criteria, plus our other essentials, although it needed a lot doing to it and has no built-in storage whatsoever.

Slinky

Builders building houses where there is a 'family bathroom' and a 'master bedroom with ensuite', and not putting a shower in the family bathroom. Then only half tiling the bathroom walls which means anybody trying to put a shower in has to retile the bathroom as they can't get matching tiles. Even worse, the window is partially above the bath so you can't put a shower in easily, meaning everybody who wants a shower has to use the ensuite, defeating its purpose.

Slinky

Maybe MSE should email a link to this thread to the major housebuilders in this country..........