Semi detatched cott

[countrycott]

Hi all.... I just recently found this site and I'm enjoying its content. Just thought I'd ask if anyone has any helpful ideas on how to cope with
the restrictions of an old semi-detatched cottage that is unfortunately attached to a cottage that has been turned into what I can
only decsribe as a 1980s 'Barratt home' (no offence meant to Barratt homes) but there is a time and place for everything, and what my
neighbour has done in the way of renovating/modernising/extending is very inappropriate and well - just plain WRONG!

As we are off the made roads not on a public highway, don't face any other property and we're not listed, there was little in the way of planning restrictions in place when this was done and they have been allowed to turn what was at the time of purchase an old, (with parts from c1730) farmworkers cottage into something off a housing estate, complete with ghastly brown large paned UPVC double glazing..*groans*... :-(

I am keen to salavage the old cottage look as best I can in this situation, on my side of the orginal building and I'm currently planning new windows, possibly plain oak, but can anyone whose been in the same situation offer any help or inspiration please??

 

[Penners]

You've said the building isn't listed. Is it in a Conservation Area, or perhaps a National Park?

Do you believe that the perps have infringed planning or building regulations?

If the answer to all of the above is no, then I'm afraid you're probably powerless to seek retribution.

You might consider witchcraft.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Sadly there is no accounting for taste - and in the wider scheme of things this is probably A Good Thing.

In the narrow scheme of things, you could:

a) suggest they visit websites like this and try and increase their understanding and appreciation of what they have;
b) completely undo all of the tasteless work whilst they are on holiday (extreme I admit)
c) try and ignore it and do what you can for your property;
d) move.

I think we all sympathise with you though.

 

[countrycott]

Well, thanks for those replies folks, they made me smile at least.

Penners - Nope, we are not in a conservation or NP area either, wish we were, as then the horroros would not have been possible.
We are just humble ex-tied farm cottages, not in the village where we do have conservation areas.

As I said the planning permission at the time was allowing all of this to happen, due to not being on a highway etc. and the cottages did need renovating. I have already considered your last suggestion from time to time, maybe I should again! :twisted:

FamilyWiggs - Yes, I know there is no accounting for taste, but I wish there were property police to defend old properties that may not be listed.
a) If only - They wouldn't want to know, they think they've done a great job! :roll:
b) Wishful thinking...
c) This seems my only option, and is what I'm doing.
d) Location is great and after I've finished all the hard work, I want to stay, hoping they'll move instead.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Yes, I agree, try to ignore next door and make your cottage your home, .

 

[JoceAndChris]

Can't you soften the view of next door with clever fencing and planting?

Buy them some wisteria!

 

[countrycott]

Yes, I have done this, I did have a trellis on top of the dividing fence between us which held up a large native honeysuckle, that went up onto my porch until it got too big and heavy and the trellis fell apart. I'll probably replace this and I'm going to plant a rambler rose to scramble up a tree trunk on the dividing line, with Clematis to flower when the rose ends and I'll also replace my lost Jasmine so any vertical growing I can do I will, to soften the dividing line and mask the view of next door from my side.

Buy them a Wisteria? hmmmm, well they're not gardeners either, their idea of a front cottage garden is huge clumps of Pampas grass and a square lawn with no borders enclosed with green plastic coated chain link fencing- see what I mean? :roll:

I am currently trying to re-think the fence between the two front gardens, although it can't be very tall or it will shade my garden, and I don't want
to feel enclosed in either. A hedge would take up too much space and need maintenance, so I may go for woven hurdles, or chestnut palings, its currently a wooden lap type fence.

I guess I can't get away from the overall impact of being stuck to a property that doesn't match or even compliment my side, but any more ingenious ideas are very welcome.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Buy them a Wisteria? hmmmm, well they're not gardeners either, their idea of a front cottage garden is huge clumps of Pampas grass and a square lawn with no borders enclosed with green plastic coated chain link fencing- see what I mean? :roll:

Poor poor you. I lived with some very bad neighbours (one excavated underneath his property which shared a party wall with ours; he didn't have planning permission!) so do sympathise.

Let's hope they move. Take up the drums! Or witchcraft, yes, a good idea Penners.

 

[countrycott]

Thanks for the sympathy, ooh thats scary J+C, at least they haven't started to excavate near my side...well not since I last looked anyway.

I'm determined not to let it get me down, and as I progress work on my cottage and garden this year, I think I'll feel better. Its just that annoying feeling of being stuck with these problems that aren't going to go away and that I can't do much about. :|

 

[JoceAndChris]

I'm determined not to let it get me down, and as I progress work on my cottage and garden this year, I think I'll feel better.

I think you will too. The ugly modern world surrounds us; my lovely view is ruined by B&Q and Currys. I'd love to burn them down, but really, all we can do is work on improving our selective vision.

 

[Feltwell]

Surely yours can't be as bad as this one though (picture shamelessly nicked from an old post by Matt101)




That house reminds me of the old Ronnie Barker sketch where his left half is dressed as a woman, and his right as a man, as he turns from side to side. If you know the one I mean it will make sense!

 

[JoceAndChris]

That gets 10/10 on the carbuncle front. How... and why....?? If I was Prime Ministress this would all be stopped.

 

[countrycott]

Feltwell....yes, that is truly shocking and ruins the look of the whole street of Victorian property and yes I know the Ronnie Barker sketch...we do need property police. :evil:

Well my predicament is along those lines, but a different type of property being rural cottages, which although not in a street to offend lots of onlookers daily, it still saddens me to see the historical integrity of the building has been removed, and it can't be good in terms of maximising the valuation, (of either) although that is not what I'm upset about as I don't wish to move, especially when I have finished the work on mine, and finally made the best of the living accomodation and gardens etc, while staying true to the character of my side of the building.

If you can imagine a Georgian type double fronted cottage with its small paned tall windows along with lintels and sills being unceremoniously dragged out, and it then having the window spaces turned sideways, so widenend and shortened to conform to modern standard sizes, then being filled with brown wood effect large paned UPVC windows, and to add insult to injury, where the front of the house was always flat it now has bow windows (??) with large panes and all this is topped off with a red coloured rose motif at the top of the small opening lights (!!!) ....while my side still has the tall shaped small paned flat windows..you're getting there. It is bad. (I don't want to put up a pic for now..staying undercover!)

I'm not sure I would have bought our cottage if it was already attatched to this...When we bought these semi-detached cottages within a few months of each other, we were just two neighbours in the same boat doing the necessary renovations....or so I thought, as we'd both been attracted to and bought period property..but unfortunatley, much to my dismay there were two boats that sailed off in very different directions. :shock:

I suppose I should think myself lucky the small old red georgian bricks have not been 'stone clad' with multicoloured concrete as well!! :mrgreen:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well countrycott most of us I should imagine have had gross insults perpetrated to our properties. You are lucky it's not been clad, that's more difficult to undo. You can sort windows with money and time. Have you seen Biff's windows? I think the link to his website is on the thread "Are there any real experts here?".

You have reinforced my decision that I will never again live with a neighbour in sight. I like people but don't want to look at their conifers or carbuncles. I'm tired of trying to coax people into good behaviour too. Apart from tunnelling man I also lived alongside shouty man, in the summer he flung the windows wide and screeched along to 60's music snogging a bewildering selection of increasingly youthful girls in full public view. It was entertaining, but hellish at the same time. On the other side was beautiful gay Martien who used to leap over the fences to tell me me what to wear. We had to replace the fences in the end. To an extent I miss them all but really the rabbits and silverfish are quieter and more easily dispatched.

Dare we ask what horrors have been done to the inside of your cottage? Does anything original remain?

 

[Flyfisher]

Feltwell's photo is truly depressing. Probably more depressing, though, is the thought that there's a forum somewhere out there where the proud owner of a newly 'improved' property is complaining about their neighbour who refuses to move with the times and update their old-fashioned property because it's detracting from their beautifully modernised home.

Still, I can talk. Our c.1550 timber-framed house was similarly vandalised a few hundred years ago when someone decided it would be an improvement to hack the place about and give it a modern makeover, complete with (admittedly rather nice) Georgian sash windows that required the removal of much original fabric. Completely unsympathetic, of course, and would never be allowed these days.

 

[Feltwell]

If you can imagine a Georgian type double fronted cottage with its small paned tall windows along with lintels and sills being unceremoniously dragged out, and it then having the window spaces turned sideways, so widenend and shortened to conform to modern standard sizes, then being filled with brown wood effect large paned UPVC windows, and to add insult to injury, where the front of the house was always flat it now has bow windows (??) with large panes and all this is topped off with a red coloured rose motif at the top of the small opening lights (!!!) ....while my side still has the tall shaped small paned flat windows..you're getting there. It is bad.

Yuck. You have my sympathy. A lot of us live in fear of that. I too live in a semi, in my case a sort of middle-class Victorian affair. My neighbour like me has no UPVC, and in her case the sash windows on the front were restored - many would say over-restored - by a past owner who was a joiner. They are pretty good though, they work fine and look acceptable, if a little "false" when up close (original catches scrapped for shiny new ones, beading to hold glass in instead of putty, all original wavy glass replaced etc). The only thing that has stopped her putting in UPVC is the cost.

I have made the "but there's nothing wrong with your windows and I'm definitely not changing mine - it will look really odd to have one side of the building not matching the other" noises, I think it's slowly sinking in. The only way I stopped her changing an (admittedly rotten) dormer window for UPVC was pointing out to her that it supports the dormer roof, UPVC would not take the weight. The daft thing is that she came round and saw my new dormer window - timber, double glazed, draught proofed - and said herself it looked great and how warm the room seemed, but she still wanted UPVC.

Of course the house was bought because she loved the character of an old house. So ripping that character out makes perfect sense. :roll:

On my house some cretin has ripped the original sash out in the kitchen in the 1980's, along with the stone cill. The "new" timber window they put in is in very poor condition now, unlike the originals which are generally OK. I dread to think how much a new cill + sash is going to cost me, not to mention the aggravation of fitting it.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Apart from tunnelling man I also lived alongside shouty man, in the summer he flung the windows wide and screeched along to 60's music snogging a bewildering selection of increasingly youthful girls in full public view.

I have an image of Penners in my mind! :shock:

 

[Flyfisher]

No, no, no. I can vouch for Penners not being at all 'shouty'.

Not sure about his exhibitionist female admirers though. :wink:

 

[countrycott]

Ah, well you have my sympathy too Feltwell, at least you can put your kitchen sash window and sill back in, so good luck with that.
I just feel exasperation as I can't do much about next door.

JoceAndChris thanks for the tip to look at Biff's windows, that website of his is very informative and helpful.
His farmhouse is similiar in style to my attached neighbours house, except that the window improvment he's done has been reversed here.... :roll:

You asked about the inside of my cottage, well its a work in progress. It was all painted dark brown and/or burgundy wallpaper inside when we got it, (it was Laura Ashley wallpaper though) very dark for small rooms. We opened up the fireplace into an inglenook to take the woodburner we already had in our previous house. We do still have two original timber framed walls inside as the original cottage dates back to 1730 and it was added to at each end and the back over time to make the two semi's. I got off all the black gloss paint left on the oak beams, (this had been started by the LA wallpaper girl that rented it I think) and I like the well worn and scrubbed look of the beams in their natural state, so thats how I'm leaving them.

Anything I add is not without a lot of thought and I try to keep it honest and practical for living first and foremost, but the look inside and out is all important to me. I suppose I do have eclectic taste, but all buildings evolve to a certain extent to meet their owners needs at the time and I think thats natural if its done sympathetically. Mine would have been two up, two down and a privvy outside, so if we couldn't have extended I wouldn't have bought it as at the time we had a young famiIy, so we added an upstairs bathroom and another bedroom.

I am keen on English oak and its tradition as a long lasting and beautiful building material, so I have used it and will continue to use it where I can, in the traditional way, lintels, windows, flooring etc.

Lots of work to do, so this site is great. I've already found an old thread on laying oak flooring over a concrete floor, thats one job of many in the pipeline, I have the oak planks waiting patiently...

I do feel better being able to have whinge about it all here, so thanks again to all.

 

[JoceAndChris]

No, no, no. I can vouch for Penners not being at all 'shouty'.

Not sure about his exhibitionist female admirers though. :wink:

I have to confess to these traits

HURRAH FOR PENNERS !!!!!!!!!! XXX

and: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/the-lusty-ways-of-st-hilda-1273767.html

I am keen on English oak and its tradition as a long lasting and beautiful building material, so I have used it and will continue to use it where I can, in the traditional way, lintels, windows, flooring etc.
I have the oak planks waiting patiently...

I do feel better being able to have whinge about it all here, so thanks again to all.

Marvellous! Yes the whinging bit is great; you quickly realise your friends' limitations when you buy a period property.

love Jocelyn Witchard
xxx