How we turned our ugly houses into lovely homes

telegraph.co.uk:

kerb appeal than others.A quintessential country cottage is often high on a list of dream homes, while other less ­chocolate-box properties – 1960s prefabs, dated bungalows and pebble-dashed semis – get pushed to the bottom.But savvy movers searching for doer-uppers within tight budgets are realising that this type of home could be the answer.

According to ­Zoopla, housing demand has exceeded supply for the past two years. Post-pandemic, after being forced to stay put, people are on the move and so the market is squeezed.The Nationwide Building Society reports that, in the past year, house prices have increased by a whopping 11 per cent.

So, of course, it makes sense to be less biased about a property that, on the surface, isn’t an obvious beauty. You are more likely to get a bargain with anything built post the 1930s – especially if the tendency for attaching various extensions and “features” over the years has caused them to resemble a wonky composite of their former self.Zac Monro, a leading architect and presenter of Channel 4’s Inside Out Homes, says, “Homes that have been tampered with too much just look ‘off’.

Their original self has been obscured and people simply don’t understand what they are trying to be. Of course, that makes them less attractive on the surface, but if you focus on the structural shape and pare things back to basics, there will often be good bones in there.“Houses in the 1960s and 1970s were very simply planned and well built; lots of concrete was used and this generally means they are more solid than period properties.