Others' Grand Designs

[JoceAndChris]

I really just want to moan again, and ask if anyone else gets driven mad by this kind of behaviour?

Friends and family come, ooh and ah at how old/ curious/ charming everything is, then proceed to spend hours formulating their grand designs of how if I would only knock such and such a wall down, to create one giant living space, or rip out all the old doors and replace with nice new ones, or put a kitchen into the dining room, or new fireplaces, or... or...

I find myself silently fuming, whilst pretending to be nice.

I know it's all pretty shabby in here and undecorated, but why can't people see past that? Why must they have such grand designs? How do I shut them up?

This is another reason I wish it was listed.

 

[robgil]

tell them how much all this costs , slip in a 'when i win the lottery' and that should be enough to quiet them. :wink:

 

[skier-hughes]

Doesn't work, we get it all the time. Once you've finished in about 20 years it'll virtually stop................... or so I've been told!!!

 

[robgil]

mmmm , perhaps then in that case its time to put your fingers in your ears next time it happens, and sing 'la la laaa la la' out really loudly?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Yeah no more Miss Mouse. I'll tell em all to stick their glass atriums where the sun never shines. 8)

 

[Moo]

Why be so honest, Joce?

Tell 'em the house is listed (how likely are they to check?) so even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be allowed to change things.

 

[Wren]

But the really good news it is your house so none of 'that' is going to happen. Drives me mad when people fall in love with a house because of the charm and the character and that it is in a lovely leafy area and then move in, chop the trees down, rip out the original windows to be replaced with PVC, cover the front garden with tarmac, and spend a fortune on new everything inside.

 

[Flyfisher]

I doubt the listing argument would work, they'd just start moaning about how terrible it is that you're 'not allowed' to implement their grand designs for your house.

I'd just ask them why, since they are clearly so keen, they don't get an old/curious/charming house of their own (to ruin)?

 

[Hatster]

Aren't they barking? They all come round and say 'ooh, you should open up that fireplace, and knock that wall down, and put an aga in there..." I think it's actually that they've only seen this kind of house on something like Grand Designs, and so they immediately think of the types of things they do there. Even my sister, who is assistant to a CO, was asking if we were going to open up between the kitchen and the dining room - though I suppose in retrospect she might have been wondering if we wanted to do the same as my parents and have a semi-separate kitchen with no door to the dining room, rather than actually suggesting we should knock a wall down!

And then they say things like 'ooh, it's terrible this listing isn't it, you can't call the house your own'. I really got quite cross with someone who came round and said that kind of thing, and then she said 'I expect you feel you're holding the house in trust for the nation', to which I said 'no, I just DONT' WANT TO RUIN IT'. HMPH.

 

[JoceAndChris]

HMPH indeed. Yes they're all barking.

Yes I'll tell any new visitors it's listed.

The worst are the (much appreciated and loved) sets of parents who have no idea why we want to hang onto original building fabric. They're all VERY skilled at all aspects of DIY, so you turn your back for 5 minutes and find a lovely new column radiator (at the expense of your Victorian floorboards, which have been unceremoniously ripped up), or a flower bed cleared of everything "you didn't want that gloomy old yew and holly did you, and grass will be so much easier to maintain", or a cheap Screwfix light in the middle of your brick vaulting, or...or...

Anyway they're all banned. But it's caused the most unbelievable rumpus, they were under the impression it was their cottage to ruin???

 

[Moo]

I wonder how they'd react if you carried out helpful improvements to their house/garden on a similar scale?

Dare you to try !!

 

[rog and gina]

Our best comment is when we finally had our roof back on, many acro props still holding up said roof, and gaping great holes where the wattle and daub panels were in the process of being repaired " so uh, what are you going to do with these old floorboards?" aaaaaaaaaaaaah I think someone had plans for using them as edges for raised beds in the garden!!

 

[Ushy M]

Drives us bonkers too. The number of people who go on about 'what a shame it is your can't build an extension' and 'why don't you kock that wall through to have an en suite' - for goodness' sake, there's only two of plus weekend guests, we've got three bedrooms and two bathrooms - it really isn't that much effort to walk six feet across the landing to the loo in the night. (Perhaps I should tell them we normally crap in the sideboard - with apologies to another thread!

 

[Cloudscape]

A friend took one look at our 1860s cast-iron range and said, "You could get rid of that horrible old thing and have a lovely contemporary wood-burning stove in there with a built-in log store and some nice spotlights".

We've been asked if we're going to knock the kitchen through into the stable (which is really lovely in its own very old and very tatty way). This is a polite way of saying, I imagine, that the kitchen isn't huge. A neighbour suggesting knocking even further, through into a coach house and having a "lovely conservatory" on the back... of what would end up as a 40ft kitchen. :|

We've been asked if we're going for a "nice pale contemporary scheme, lots of light oak and beige rugs" from someone who was sitting in a room with black ceiling beams, a dark parquet floor, and a black wall behind the range (most of which we probably won't change) and our choice of dark early oak furniture. :?

When we put in a new (but old) oak front door, two people said it would look lovely with shiny brass fittings. We're using iron.

The previous owner, thinking she needed to spell out the fantastic possibilities that the house offered, suggested a 'breakfast balcony' on the back of the hayloft and a built-in high diner-style breakfast bar in the kitchen. We (and the house presumably) are really glad she left.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

I'm half pleased to hear that you've all suffered too, though very sad that people just don't appreciate period houses properly.

Cloudscape- so pleased you're now the guardian of that house, which sounds fab. I've seen the range thread; I can't believe someone would suggest ripping it out. A 40 foot kitchen!!! No thanks.

It's very aggravating, when I go to their homes I wouldn't dream of mentioning that if I wanted to I could easily put my fist through the wall, or that their uPVC is vile, their wallpaper is actually upside-down, their living room is a pointless shrine to a giant flat screen TV etc. Maybe I should start telling them these things.

But as far as the parents go, if they're to be believed their collective childhoods are worse than those on the Monty Python "try telling that to the young people of today and they won't believe you" sketch. So they come here in winter and remember the bitter cold, poverty, and desperation of their war-time upbringing in Newcastle and Sheffield in old houses- I guess it's unsurprising they'd have preferred to see us in a cosy modern box.

 

[Pford75]

Joce - I sympathise.

It's even worse when family members take it upon themselves to bring bits of furniture that they no longer want and feel would look lovely in your house. I suppose some might argue that they should just be thrown away.

The worst that has ever happened to us is that a close family member spent a significant sum of money (and they are not by any means rich) on a brand new longcase clock....which in our opinion is hideous....they then had it engraved for us and presented it as a gift.

I continually encourage my kids to play football in our hall in the hope that one day it will be sent tumbling....does this make me a coward?

 

[Cloudscape]

their wallpaper is actually upside-down

Yep... that's a real classic. The same goes for curtain fabric. :lol:

I continually encourage my kids to play football in our hall in the hope that one day it will be sent tumbling....does this make me a coward?

Maybe. Give it a good push one day and blame it on the kids. :wink: Or you could leave the front door open and hope for a very selective burglary.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

Now curtains I haven't seen. (yet)

Since reading about that clock, I've been wondering about the "Hickory Dickory Dock" nursery rhyme. Do you think someone encouraged a family of mice into their hated clock in the hope they might gnaw it to pieces? I do. I reckon that would work.

We've got a clock present too, a parent-treasured 30's relic of the aforementioned hellish childhoods. It bonged VERY loudly in London, but it doesn't like Beacon Cottage; it's gone rusty. Maybe I could send Pford some damp.

 

[worms]

Well, it works both ways...

My mother wouldn't hear of my brother getting the family grand-father clock (made by a small-town Scottish artisanal clockmaker in the mid 1800's, a bit tatty and worn, but not tat!) because his house was too new to suit it, whereas it was deemed fine for our similarly aged artisanal building!

I also have the problem of being asked to do bodge DIY jobs on three listed, holiday-rental cottages for mother-in-law who finds it hard to accept that I would rather take the time to do the job the way the buildings need it done!

 

[Nigel Watts]

My neighbour across the street on seeing my restored facade commented "I wouldn't want to live in a museum. We refer to your place as (with a hint of condescending sneer) "the Victorian house". Their house is much grander than mine and the stucco facade and woodwork is all brilliant white. Mine by contract is trying to be more authentic: stucco painted in a stone colour and black woodwork.

You have to be a bit thick skinned. Our houses are both victorian (although they look as it if they might be Regency), so this is just a statement of fact. As for living in a museum... my idea of heaven! I smiled and said nothing.