HWMBLT and I were talking about this just yesterday.
We both grew up in sandstone houses, with every draft and whistling hallway. We mind coorieing down in bed and shivering knowing we had to get up and get dressed in the morning. We mind the draft stoppers at the bottom of the doorways, the smell of damp, even in those houses that were heated constantly. High ceilings add a spacious feeling....bit of a beggar to heat, clean, paint, change the lightbulbs, though
I love the old red sandstone that's native round here
I would love to have two foot thick walls of it, properly built on good damp proofed coursings, and then that properly insulated and draft proofed and ventilated with modern techniques for both comfort and energy efficiency.
The scullery (outer kitchen) of my Granny's house had a beaten earth floor with slate slabs on top.
The dairy I worked in as a teenager at school had the same slate slabs and water from the underground spring slowly seeped up through them. Main rooms had wide oak planks for flooring and even though they were feather jointed, the drafts were always there.
We wear hardly any clothes these days; the auntie commented on that recently. In her childhood she had something like six layers of clothes, (seven with a coat on) and that's just pre second world war. There was a reason for that.....it was cold and damp otherwise.
I have stayed in stone built houses across the UK; from medieval lake district to early medieval Scottish lochside, from 15th and 18th century farm houses to 16th and 17thC fishermen's cottages.
They are all cold, inconvenient, hard to heat easily and they all suffer from rot of some kind whether it be fungal or beetle, it gets them all eventually. There are reasons we don't have that many old buildings really.
There's a lot that can be done to improve them though, adding south facing glass buildings is a tremendous advantage for instance. Damp proof coursing, loft insulation, properly fitting doors and windows, underfloor insulation and specific channels for drawing outside air for stoves, etc., ventilation that doesn't necessitate a howling gale blowing down the hallways; bathrooms and loos that aren't like the inside of the fridge
All fine if you have money and time to do it; I would love more space, but I'm not for moving into a sandstone building just to get it.
No reason modern homes shouldn't have large rooms; self builds often do as do high end homes. That space though adds to the price nowadays, and houses are apparantly 'investments' not just some place to live.
Son1's new flat (10 years old) has a living room that's 6m x 8m, the kitchen/dining area is just about as large, the bedrooms are all over 5m x 4m, three bathrooms and two boxrooms, and that's in an ordinary block of flats in Glasgow.
It doesn't have 12 foot high ceilings though
or wood burning stoves, but his total fuel bills work out at under £60 a month, all year long, and he comes home from work to chill out, not to start humping coal and wood indoors for the fire.
Look, I like fire, I do, but I've been a housewife since my mum died when I was fourteen. It's beyond scunnering to have to deal with the fire day in day out, week in week out, month in month out, and it's more of a scunner to keep cleaning the same stuff because of it. There are no clean fires. One way or another they need fuel, they need cleaned, they need tending. I hear all the talk of stoves and such like...the same thing applies, and do you really want to have to run the stove to give you hot water in the heat of Summer ?
I have had enough of it, I'm not doing it again.
It's a quiet delight to have the fire going and know you have fuel stashed, etc., to see you through rotten weather, but it's another thing entirely to
have to do that.
I am beyond glad my elderly relations have moved into more modern houses and have good easy warmth and comfort....trust me, in their nineties they're not up for cutting up firewood or lugging coal around.
It's late August, the outside temperature here is 13degC, my home is sitting at a pleasant 19degC and we have no heating on. I'm wearing a short sleeved summer weight blouse, and I'm comfortable.....but we have insulated walls, floors and loft and double glazed windows and doors.
Each to their own; I miss the sandstone and slate, but I don't miss the endless drudgery or the cold damp, the fuel bills or the firewood and coal.
M
You can buy a fairly decent shower one here for £70. More features if you pay more right enough.
