There can be Victoriana features, pseudo cottage and farmhouse designs, a bit of half timbering and stucco rendering, imitation sash windows in UPVC and other external embellishments intended to disguise the fact that, after all, there are just boxes for living underneath.
I apologise here to those who have just committed themselves to a lifetimes mortgage on what could, in actuality be or prove to be their dream or forever home but let's face it those big, no mega house-builders just do what they think is most profitable and make it so very easy for the house buying public to accept the styles, designs and specifications as the latest popular trend.
So, I was a bit aghast at coming across this newly built property just today whilst visiting a development site in the North Yorkshire region of the UK.
On first impression I took it to be a Medical Centre, not unknown in the middle of new housing estates nowadays, but then again it could have been an office building, social care establishment or sub divided into flats. In this specific location it would be quite apt for the place to operate as a Veterinary Surgery ( a bit of a clue as to the location) It is a bit of a mish-mash. Someone has just said it looks like a church or a coastguard station.
It stands on a short tarmac road which serves some nice sensible executive 4 beds on the further phase of a still on going estate on the western side of an historic market town.
It does have some unique selling points.
The floor area at a shoebox under 200m square metres is not at all bad in the current crop of new build housing although that does include up to 5 bedrooms. The use of the descriptive words- home office or bedroom 5 suggests a bit of a small space in that part of the house.
The glazed area to the front ground floor is a sun room (actually south facing) leading through to the lounge and across the hallway is the contemporary trend in housing estate lifestyles of a combined and open plan kitchen-diner and family room. This hearkens back to the days when all of the occupants huddled in one room and left the best parlour neat and tidy just in case the Vicar or Priest happened to call in on pastoral duties and for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
The smaller ground floor compartments are the usual utility and cloak rooms. The downstairs toilet is one of four in the house (remind me to buy shares in Andrex toilet tissue)
The first floor has rooms arranged around a small landing in the traditional manner with Master and en suite, three other bedrooms including the home office and a house bathroom.
At the top of the house is what is referred to as a Guest Bedroom with its own bathroom. I can immediately envisage a hard battle amongst a typical prospective purchaser family over the allocation of rooms with the loft feature room making an ideal teenager pad, Mum and Dads boudoir or a sort of flatlet for a fit, mobile family elder.
There is a push in high volume housing towards eco-friendly features and equipment or at least those bits of kit that can be rolled out at a profit. This odd looking property is "B" rated on its Energy Performance Certificate although to be frank, it would not have taken much more effort to achieve that elusive "A" rating, although in no way to be confused with emission proficiency. That is a completely different set of standards and a long way off being attained in high volume output.
Amongst the tech are solar panels for power, well that's actually it as you can count double glazing and an efficient boiler as standard specification anyway.
As for the site, well it is again somewhat standard fare with a detached double garage and for the size of house and potential 6 person occupancy a fairly small garden. One positive for the future is a huge driveway which may be needed if, as supported by the latest statistics, any young adults of car owning and driving age may still be living at home well into their late twenties and early thirties. At a push about eight vehicles could be parked up.
I have seen not dissimilar house styles in other areas of Yorkshire but they have been designed to provide functional accommodation as the occupants, for example, grow older with sliding partitions and a flexibility to allow a ground floor living room to be easily adapted into a bedroom as, after all, a degree of infirmity will arise in later years.
The house is not yet sold at an asking price of £365,000. That may sound cheap to those of you in high price housing areas but ask yourself, could you actually live in such a creation?
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