caliwag

Interesting point, we’ve been renovating for sometime and we had a good friend come over recently and take a look around. 

He was initially utterly confused as to the changes and what if the original remained. We’ve made some very substantial changes...  

Eventually as ever the conversation came to value, why do people obsess on the value of property and it’s rise? Why would we want a housing market whereby the costs for housing services keeps rising? This is surely not a good thing! 

But i digress, the point our good friend made was not about character. It was about the step beyond the commodity market. Once you have something that is unique then there can be no comparison and therefore to a degree you can ask for it whatever you think it is worth. 

I hope the place ends up with the £1m valuation he gave, think it’s a bit optimistic mind! But maybe that’s just what we should ask for as a valuation!

 

BigSpud 

 

 

1 minute ago, Lesgrandepotato said:

Interesting point, we’ve been renovating for sometime and we had a good friend come over recently and take a look around. 

He was initially utterly confused as to the changes and what if the original remained. We’ve made some very substantial changes...  

Eventually as ever the conversation came to value, why do people obsess on the value of property and it’s rise? Why would we want a housing market whereby the costs for housing services keeps rising? This is surely not a good thing! 

But i digress, the point our good friend made was not about character. It was about the step beyond the commodity market. Once you have something that is unique then there can be no comparison and therefore to a degree you can ask for it whatever you think it is worth. 

I hope the place ends up with the £1m valuation he gave, think it’s a bit optimistic mind! But maybe that’s just what we should ask for as a valuation!

 

BigSpud 

 

 

 

But if you think that without limits you end up with a Geodesic Dome in a Grand Designs house in the Lake District ..  .. and take a bath.

6 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

But if you think that without limits you end up with a Geodesic Dome in a Grand Designs house in the Lake District ..  .. and take a bath.

 

Good point. We are installing the outdoor shower and sauna post valuation! 

Yep.

 

It is very easy to be idiosyncratic in the wrong direction, which is fine. But...

 

I think the pricing of interesting houses argues that they are more volatile and tend to be 'not average' both to live in and sell. It can go either way. I think it may help ... if we care ... that it can also be normal if desired.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Ferdinand

"Kind words butter no parsnips"

I don't wish to come across as brutal, but isn't dressing up property with misleading words missing the point.  If a property is rubbish, it is rubbish, no matter how it is described.

Should architects/estate agents/property developers really be misusing language to cover up short comings.  It rather reminds me of this:

So if a place is small, say it is small and give the dimensions.

 

I suppose I worded the blog badly. I'm definitely not suggesting that you lie, make up feeble excuses or sugar the pill. I am suggesting that when designing your place, renovation or extension you consider adding value by designing in interesting features...attractive windows, doors, views and glimpses etc, not for future buyers, but for yourselves...creating wondrous corners, getting the stair in the best place, a generous and useful family kitchen, consider the garden spaces, sunny spots and views at the same time as the house, all in line with your families considered peculiarities. Let someone else believe it has character. The 'etc' as used above implies it's all my book. Character is achieved by being open to what's possible and what's gone before. I believe that often too much money is wasted on either blandness or desperately trying to be different. As I say elsewhere if you're shy or feel inadequate about making the first mark and putting pencil to paper, use descriptions of desires and needs. Build up a file of images of likes and dislikes! It's all good fun really.

I'm afraid the word 'character' relating to domestic properties annoys me. I watch a TV programme called Escape to the Country and you can bet nearly everyone looking for a house is looking for one with character. The trouble is they are also only looking for old country cottages. It would seem modern properties can't have 'character'. I'm afraid old beamed houses leave me cold in more ways than one, fine as NT museums, but not to live in. I can see 'character' if that is the word to use, in the positioning and layout etc of lots of modern properties.

Are you confusing estate agent speak with English? When agents use the word character to describe a property they seem to refer older properties.

 

I agree that modern houses can, and indeed should, have character, but in estate agent speak they are still modern.

 

I suspect most self builders will build character into their house, else why bother, just buy something from the volume builders.

13 hours ago, PeterStarck said:

I'm afraid the word 'character' relating to domestic properties annoys me. I watch a TV programme called Escape to the Country and you can bet nearly everyone looking for a house is looking for one with character. The trouble is they are also only looking for old country cottages

 

My mum watches that. I think they sometimes equate character with "features" - almost as if the aspiration is to live in a Beatrix Potter or other half-remembered book or imaginary situation. But the "mystery house" is always an interesting part of the format - the opportunity for the client to experience things they did not know they would like aka the Unknown Unknowns. Whether a building "works" may or may not be part of the character.

 

@ragg987 I think Estate Agents are trying to summarise difficult ideas with a debased language. I think it is the same problem as paint companies needing to give meaningfully different emotionally-weighted names to 14 or 68 colours that are practically identical; it must be soul destroying.

 

I think I have 2 brief points on "character".

 

1 - It is a personal thing. There are buildings with a cosy, old fashioned, grandiose (even grandiloquent), friendly, cold, intimate, intricate, or intimidating character. There is no guarantee that I will like the "character" that you do. And it is quite hard to describe what we like - I have tried to add a word to that list describing the character of Coventry Cathedral or East Anglian wool churches full of space and sunlight, but I can't find the right word. That is what imo architects are for; I want them to help me put a character into the building that fits my needs and will make my life richer. And to provide me with a language to describe my thoughts. I don't need someone to tell me how many bedrooms I need - that is easy.

 

Me hating your house, and you not liking mine, are fine. It makes life interesting. Imagine life if we all liked the same things or there was no emotional reaction. This is Mr Data and his new emotion chip trying to describe new concepts (skip the ad) .

 

 

2 - I think "personality" is perhaps a good complementary word to "character". I can perceive something of the values and opinions of the original designer and builder by seeing and using a building.

 

For examples of modern buildings with characters I like or not, I would point to eg The British Library seems to be grand but welcoming. If I was not a member I may have perceived it as pompous, but i have worked in the various spaces. The small parks on bomb-sites in the City of London are intimate and illuminating, to me The National Shrine (Scottish National War Memorial) in Edinburgh I found grand but cold, and the Burrell Museum in Glasgow I found involving in its original form.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by Ferdinand

I like your post Ferdinand...thanks.As it happens, I think that the British Library is one of the best Post War London buildings. It's too easy to write it off (as Prince Charles did) from the external image, although the external hard landscaping works are very successful, but internally it's superbly handled, having not worked in it I don't know of its flaws. Heavily influenced of course by one of the Architect's favourite designers Alvar Aalto...we could all learn much by studying Aalto's work (from furniture to houses and galleries)...one of the best 20th century designers to my mind.