Sometimes handsome is as handsome does
Kirsty Mcluckie on the merits of buying ugly homes
Given the choice, would you choose to live in an ugly house?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder it is true and while not everyone has the same taste, there are few buyers who would turn up their noses at the symmetry of a Georgian country house, the simple lines of a chic modernist masterpiece, or the chocolate box delights of a Victorian cottage, purely on aesthetic grounds.
On the other hand, there may be ardent fans of utilitarian cookie-cutter post-war box houses, but returning home to one is unlikely to give most of us the little fillip in the heart that you undoubtedly get when you live in a pretty house.
I lived in a uninterestingly drab house for many years. The grey pebble-dashed exterior walls and the uniform small windows of the 1970s bungalow weren’t the reasons we bought it.
With small children and a limited budget it suited our purposes, being low on maintenance and heating bills and having a decent space for parking and the requisite number of bedrooms.
It just wasn’t an object of beauty, or indeed architectural merit but its identical neighbouring houses were eagerly snapped up when they came up for sale.
Nor was it a house that was worth spending a lot of money on to make it better.
Speaking to friends this week about the subject, we agreed that there is something soulenhancing when you buy or rent something much more pleasing to the eye.
Some houses are undeniably attractive, like the supermodels of the property world.
One friend enthused about her glorious tenement flat in Glasgow, complete with beautiful tiling in the entrance close, high ceilings, intricate cornicing and wide ranging views over the Botanic Gardens.
She swapped it for a country house in what must be one of the most heartbreakingly lovely corners of Argyll, at the head of a loch with an outlook on to water and mountains and almost complete peace and quiet.
While she doesn’t complain about the change in lifestyle, she pointed out her new house has ugly dormer windows and is certainly enhanced by its surroundings, rather than enhancing them itself.
The £20,000 plus needed to replace the windows aren’t on the top of her priority list.
Buying a truly malformed ugly house and improving it is often a good way to hike yourself up the property ladder but some are beyond help.
Another friend is considering purchasing a brown bricked 1980s monstrosity, with a single window facing out on to the road.
Walk through the door however and it is transformed into a wide light-filled open-plan space with huge windows overlooking a very pretty garden.
It is in exactly the right location for them, within walking distance of their children’s school and one of the few houses in the expensive neighbourhood within their budget, presumably because the front is so unprepossessing.
Should she buy it? I’m reminded of the advice that it is better to live in an ugly house with a beautiful view than the other way round.
As long as she recognises that when it comes time to sell, there will be others having the same misgivings so it might take a while to get over the lack of curb appeal, then sometimes houses, like people, deserve to be appreciated for what is on the inside.