Dragging a 1970s house into the modern day
Rupinder Bhander
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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Karenmo
4 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (19)At home, we have underfloor heating in the kitchen and bathrooms. The other rooms are still heated by electric storage heaters, which I hate as they are far too unresponsive. I'll replace them as the rooms get refurbished, one day. Nearly all of our customers now have underfloor heating, either electric or in-screed water pipes....See MoreYour home vs. your childhood home?
Comments (21)We lived in a 3 bed semi until I was 11. Half of it faced due north, so there was a room we never ever used. Then we moved to a 4 bed, which we needed, as there were 6 kids. I absolutely loved the second house. It didn't face any direction fully, so it got sun in most rooms at some stage. It was on a turning circle in a cul de sac, so it looked really small from the front, but had an irregularly shaped extension at the side that was completely soundproof.( My brothers could play their music really loudly and noone ever complained). This opened out into a huge garden, which my mother made absolutely beautiful. My parents built two patios in it together and my mother built her own flower bed, using dry stone walling techniques. My parents had lots of midcentury furniture, some of which was made by my father from a book on Swedish design. You could buy the orange sofa he made now! There was a little gazebo in the garden which turned out to be a monk's cell, the last part of the abbey that had been there. A tree in our garden was pruned by a man who happened to have come there as an apprentice tree surgeon, and he was able to tell us that it had had a bench all the way around the inside. It fell down during Hurricane Charlie, as the front wall was leaning, but my father rebuilt it over the course of 9 years. My mother's style is way ahead of her time; their bedroom has been duckegg blue and brown for about 20 years!...See MoreWhat makes UK homes distinctive from the rest?
Comments (29)Sadly I have to agree with the comments about the poor energy efficiency standards of new housing in the UK - they're criminally low in the first place and sometimes aren't even adhered to properly, which can make living in them expensive, miserable and unhealthy. Historically energy conservation hasn't been an issue as so much of our housing, particularly social/council housing, was built decades ago when energy was plentiful and cheap and hardlly anyone thought about the effect on the planet. On the other hand, the UK has a rich architectural heritage which comes in part from the mix of housing and thanks to the efforts of the conservation movements which arose from the threat of bombing in the C20th wars and then the possibly even worse vandalism of the 1960s town planners! Reading and Glasgow suffered terribly at the hands of the planners but happily now many - though far from all - historic buildings across the country are loved and protected. We're fortunate in the UK not to have a mindset of 'new is better' so bulldoze the old, but there's always a place for innovation and making old houses comfortable and efficient places to live in in the C21st. *gets off soap box*...See MoreStruggling with house layout...
Comments (22)Wow, thanks everyone for all the comments, still to go through them all properly. Minnie that's a great alternative idea, I think I'd like the kitchen in the middle and the living in the brighter extension but I found this photo which is a bit like your suggestion and wondered about something similar but with the island running into the pillar. I need to get my husband to do scale drawings for me so I can see if everything fits. I also need to consider views as one side of the back garden is lots of trees which is really pretty and the other side looks onto other ugly 1970s houses so I'm trying to make sure your eye is drawn towards the nice vista. It's most definitely an ordinary house with an ordinary renovation budget to match. I'll let you know when we make any decisions....See MoreAnnie Webb Interiors
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Rupinder BhanderOriginal Author