@Anne: I’m still bemused as to who buys these squashed, cramped houses. Why go for something like that when, for the same money, you could get something so much more spacious?

@Monroe: Good point re. the electric bill! When we moved in here, in the dead of a Yorkshire winter, we were on a pre-pay meter. It was a nightmare: it always ran out sooner than expected, and we soon learned to conserve the leccy whenever possible. Good habits, learned the hard (cold) way.

@karla: I hadn’t thought about mature trees and landscaping, but that’s another really good point. Must confess that until we moved here, to a property with a horrifically rundown garden (we’ve basically had to start it again from scratch) I didn’t appreciate just how much *effort* it takes to get a garden looking good! Hmm, may blog about that at some point…

MissT

To say nothing of mature trees and landscaping! Give me an old house any day.

And about those electric bills? Well, as it turns out there lot more gizmos than we had in our older / previous homes: electric garage door opener, lots more lighting inside and out, a dishwasher … so the high electric bill took us by surprise. It helped when we converted to CFL light bulbs.

But the personality of the house is not a problem. We took a more traditional interior decor approach than the contemporary styles that are popular in our area. The immediate impact is that our home is memorable when visitors arrive for the first time.

In the long run, what we put in our home will not go out of style and need to be “re-done,” as compared to those who added trendy colors and furniture.

[...] thrilled that my post NEW-BUILD HOMES: A THRIFTY OPTION? has made it into the latest Carnival of Personal [...]

[...] Miss Thrifty, over on the other side of the pond, isn’t buying into property developer’s energy price increases in New-build homes: a thrifty option? [...]

Talking of cramming houses in. Along the main road near to us the owners of a bungalow sold a slice of land to one side of it. Two detached ‘Executive’ houses were built in the space. Sideways on to get them in. Common ‘drive’ /gravel pit with two garages up one side. They were up for sale at over £300,000. It took ages to sell even one. No sooner had the second one sold than the first one was back up for sale! No doubt that if you had windows open you could hear all that was going on next door. Not only that, how can you put up a ladder in an 18 inch gap if you need to do maintenance.