List your architecture or home improvement pet peeves...

[The Night Owl]

One of my home improvement pet peeves is...

Closing up the front porch or side porch of a house to gain an extra room. An extra room! Whoopdeedoo! Livin' large! Thanks for the eyesore.

[Vinca]

1. Spiral staircases. I hate them.

Our 1700's house had an addition put on in the 1970's and the idiots installed a wrought iron, spiral staircase. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it's in a "silo" entry. Don't get me started . . . it was a great price in a great location.

[WeRQ4U]

2. Galvanized pipes. n/t

[Hugin]

3. PAINTING BRICK FIREPLACES!

Don't... Just don't!

[The Night Owl]

4. Amen! And, may I add...

PAINTING BRICK ANYTHING! DON'T DO IT!

The beauty of brick is that it doesn't need anything.

[Hugin]

5. and painting concrete...

Unless you use an epoxy coating.

[The Night Owl]

6. Epoxy coating to prevent peeling?

[Hugin]

12. Yeah, stains as well.

Good for garage floors.

[Dora]

16. Unless it's fuhgly brick.

My mom had her "brick" fireplace painted. She hired a pro to come in and use a faux finish technique, she didn't just slap on a coat of interior paint..

It wasn't true brick, it was a horrifically ugly beige cinderblock that just didn't belong on the inside of a house, and it looks much better now.

Nothing like a little concealer to cover up a blemish.

[miss_kitty]

7. cheap work

shoddy work, work done by the ex building-manager of my apartment building. :grr: Overbuilt bullshit done by a moran who knows less about construction than I do.

Painting over shit-switch plates, door knobs, light fixtures-take them off ya lazy fucks-Switch plates cost 69 cents-buy new ones when the old ones look like shit. It's two fucking screws, fer chrissake.

T 111 additions. Asbestos siding over cedar shakes. Four layers of roofing. Tarp repairs. Unmatched faucets. Silicone caulk.
that's just for starters.

[Arugula Latte]

8. I hate those newer houses with the fake rooflines.

They were very popular about 5 to 10 years ago. They have, say, a set of three offset partial triangles mimicking the look of a complicated house with many angles. Bleah. It looks so fake and stupid.

[The Night Owl]

10. File fake rooflines under "fussy, yet cheap" architecture.

Fussy and cheap don't mix.

[grace0418]

9. McMansions

People who buy a little house on a regular-sized lot in a normal neighborhood, then raze the house and build a giant monstrosity that takes up the whole lot and looks absolutely ridiculous next to all the other houses on the block. What are they trying to prove?

[tonkatoy57]

11. Standardized Sizes

Our house was built right before WWII and as we renovate and replace things it's one nightmare after another. Nothing in our house is a contemporary standard size. Replacement windows all must be specially ordered. Not a single window in our house is in a readily available replacement window size, so of course the cost rises exponentially. Plus we have tons of windows. It makes me sick to my stomach when I go into our sun room. The first thing I do is count the windows to see if maybe, just maybe, i miscounted the last time I was in the room. For the record, there are twelve windows in the room. Also, we replaced the garage door and the walk-out door in the garage. To our surprise the garage door was a standard size so it was a fairly reasonable $650.00 for a nice Sentry steel door. The surprise was with the walk-out door. Non-standard size. $1200.00 to replace a door. Fuck me.

[The Night Owl]

13. Another one... Modern windows which slide sideways to open.

[spinbaby]

21. Put where they don't belong

In my part of the country it's common to see older houses that once had tall sash windows but now have those little cheap sliding windows. They don't fit, of course, so the difference is covered up with siding.


We have friends who just bought a glorious Queen Anne with a tower that has a 60s tract house kind of glued to the front of it.

[Deep13]

14. fake shutters; Xmas lights

[The Night Owl]

17. About windows... Single-pane windows made to look like multi-pane windows.

I especially hate those single-pane windows which try to resemble leaded glass multi-pane windows.

[Deep13]

24. yep, pretty obvious...

...especially when each "pane" looks the same. Real multipanes have a slightly different reflection on each section. Frankly, I would rather have one big window. The view is better.

[The Night Owl]

25. And ultimately, what does a fake multi-pane window really say?

And ultimately, what does a fake multi-pane window really say? It says that the owner wants nice windows, but can't afford better. So, why get them?

[jobycom]

15. Fake southern plantation columns on fancy tract housing

Or anything else that looks like structural penis envy.

[youthere]

20. ...

:spray:
"structural penis envy"

ROFL
:rofl:

[BamaGirl]

23. LMAO

:rofl:

[Dora]

18. "Improvements" on homes for sale

Throwing down mulch and gravel and calling it "new landscaping".

Painting over very nice thickset bathroom tile.

Tearing out a perfectly good tile floor to replace it with another tile floor that's not set nearly as well as the original.

Putting new hardware and paint on cabinets and calling it a kitchen upgrade.

[youthere]

19. wood paneling that's supposed to look like tile...

Trust me-it doesn't. It just looks cheap.

[youthere]

22. oh and white walls. It's called COLOR people-use it.

[Maine Mary]

26. Only ONE stinken closet in the whole house

So as a temporary solution, I made one of the spare bedrooms into a big walk-in. It's still annoying though. :mad:

[AllegroRondo]

27. huge 2-story columns that support a tiny roof over the porch

walls painted to look like stone

walls painted with murals to look like an open window (to a vinyard?)

dining rooms that arent a separate room - just a lower ceiling and a couple columns to set it off from a living room.

indoor columns in general

carpeting in bathrooms

[Shoeempress]

28. "farmers porches" in subdivisions which have no relation to farms

except they were built on farm land.

[jmowreader]

29. My biggest pet peeve is Half Ass Work Done Two Days Before Closing

The inspector will tell the customer that a door jamb needs replaced because it's rotting. These fuckers will do one of two things: fill the holes with Rock Hard Water Putty or cut out and change exactly the part of the jamb that's rotting.

Name the home improvement atrocity and it's been done two days before closing.

I swear, next time I buy a house I'm just gonna close on it and immediately call artillery in on it. (When you live next to an army base, that's not a huge problem.)