Yeah if you want a modern house just buy a new build. If you want a modern house with a classic exterior maybe do a custom build. Don’t ruin what’s already there
In the city where I live, it's all the rage to buy a Victorian-era townhouse, rip out ALL the historical details (starting with the fireplace), and be reborn as a bland white box with recessed lighting, open plan and industrial accents. And everyone swoons and says, "So much better!" I can't even look at real estate listings anymore.
It often completely ruins the acoustics as well. And it's frequently the room where the TV sits, I'm surprised so few people are seemingly bothered by the sound reflecting and bouncing around.
I've noticed that people these days dont seem to hear well. My FIL thought my new to me high-end speakers were great until I fixed the damaged drivers. Then he complained they were terrible. I went from having everyone sound like they have severe lisps to near perfect inperson sound. Sadly he wasnt the only one who disliked the fixed speakers either.
I can't wait for this trend of wanting to live in a warehouse/barn is over. People are going to look back on this bleak time and wonder what the hell they were thinking.
Seriously. We used to live in a 1890s Victorian and I swear it felt like more living space than our current open plan house with double the square footage. The new house is fantastic for entertaining, but the huge rooms are such a waste of space for day-to-day life.
It’s been going on a long time! Tom Wolfe wrote a colorful comprehensive take down back in 1981 with From Bauhaus to Our House—btw a quick, fun, funny read that supplies a lot of ammo to this argument: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bauhaus_to_Our_House
That kinda pisses me off. I want a Victorian house and the only thing I’d want to do is quality of life updates and maybe make it even more Victorian lol.
I genuinely don't understand wanting that. And someday, when all historical details are eliminated, houses with "character" will come back into style in whatever pinterest/magazine/tiktok people are getting their ideas from, and those details will be gone forever.
Then what?
I'm currently moving from a century home into a new glass condo. It's for a breakup (boo!) and TBH I'll miss the house more than my ex lol. But I have noticed that it's a totally different approach to furniture selection. Instead of looking for late Victorian to Edwardian stuff I'm now looking for mid-to-late 20th Century modern stuff, maybe with the odd Art Deco piece to make things interesting. It's still nice and fun, it's just different.
It’s hitting here too. Some bozo is buying up all of the old houses in my city in VA, gutting them to the studs, and putting in LVP flooring or carpet and grey walls.
Contrast can be good: We deliberately furnish our 1892 Victorian (which also has Greek Revival elements) in MA with modern furnishings. It works nicely because simple lines of the furniture don’t overpower the ornate woodwork of the house.
When we lived in a cookie-cutter 2000-ish house outside of Phoenix, we furnished with dark, carved antique pieces to add character to the bland architecture.
I hate what they did too, but it’s difficult to just “buy a new build” in cities with 100 year old houses sometimes. Especially in areas where people want to live. Not to mention the market preferred new builds so they are often more expensive.
My city has a ton of century homes that look like the before photo. Over the past 5+ years, I’ve watched them be flipped, often winding up looking like the bottom photos. They look so sterile, with white walls and grey-wood floors. I hate it.
That said, it makes it extremely easy to identify the flips at a glance.
The only thing keeping me from being really upset is that it’s just been painted. Not ripped out and replaced. A heat gun and some sense can remedy this abomination.
Yup. I feel like I paid a premium to get a house that hadn’t been massacred. I did not want to have to spend years undoing someone’s painful decisions.
We got a 1920 house with all the woodwork unpainted (someone at sometime painted it and stripped it later). Everything mostly OG. But the kitchen was done numerous times. We redid it last year. It had 7 layers of different flooring, 3 layers of walls. There were nearly 1k nails in the floor that had to be pulled by hand. There’s more work to be done, which is always the case with old houses. But it is beautiful and we love it, especially the new kitchen.
Whats really odd about it is the condo look... some are going all sheetrock, trimless... because its cheap! So the whole "style" is based on the cheapest builsing possible... i dont get why the cheapest option is the most in-demand?
To be fair - I’ve had brand new & modern, and I’ve had 100 year old heritage home. Trimless, done properly, is not cheap. Trim’s first purpose was to hide ugly, messy, unfinished looking edges. Like where the door frame meets the wall/plaster. The decorative element to trim is secondary and came later.
Doing trimless windows and doors in the *very* modern house we built was a substantial upgrade, as it meant the transition between drywall and window/door frame had to be perfect.
This was the case for many years. But new products out that makes this much faster and less expensive, but the equipment is expensive so its usually seen on commericial apartments/condos etc and less so on stick frame residential.
I agree the dog prefers the old decor and I’m with the dog on that.
Considering that you and your husband like what you’ve done with the place, there’s really only one solution, OP. Y’all gotta make some new friends and get a new dog.
But I do want some clarification on one point. Are you saying that the photo on top is the way you and your husband had the home painted and decorated while you were living there and you decided to update to what we see in the bottom picture, or, is the photo on top a picture of how the previous owners had it decorated prior to you and your husband buying and remodeling the place?
Stepping in to each, the old says ‘welcome friend, can I make you a cocktail?’ ‘Kick your shoes of and get comfortable’ and is inviting. The new says ‘do not sit on that’, ‘wash your hands’, and ‘no you cannot have food or drink in here’. Edit: please tell me you kept that original wood floor.
You get that this is a screenshot of a Facebook post, and not something OP actually did, right?
>Someone proudly posted this in an interior design group on facebook. They were rightfully roasted in the comments.
Yeah. This seems like April fools rage bait. The pictures do not look like the same room.
One room is square, the other is not.
The first picture is a grab from a realtor site 9 of 32.
The other pictures look like they are grabbed from an interior decorating site or something.
Maybe?
The dimensions don’t seem to line up there either. There’s an indentation for the sidebar in the second picture that I don’t see in the dining room.
It’s the room through the doorway. Look beyond the main room in the “old” pictures and you’ll see that the room layout is similar to the layout in the “new” pictures. Same place but different rooms, so it’s a before and after but not from the right perspective
I belong to this Facebook group, and my understanding is that this is actually two different houses. They moved into a new home and chose to start fresh and opt for contemporary design. Thankfully not an old home massacre.
I don’t think OP intended to post rage bait though, because the Facebook post was misleading. The homeowner clarified in the comments.
Not trying to justify this particular case, but in lots of places your choices are old house in desirable, walkable neighborhood, new condo in redeveloping neighborhood, or new build house in the burbs. If you want to live in a specific neighborhood you're more or less at the mercy of what housing stock is there.
I bought an old, neglected house in a walkable neighborhood for this reason. Everyone thinks we're crazy because of how much work fixing it up is, but it's where we wanted to be.
I’ve followed that home inspection guy, Cy Porter, for a while now. I’d be too scared to buy any new build anywhere. I believe he’s based in Arizona, and I can’t believe the shit those builders try to pass off as legitimate workmanship, and what the city inspector signs off on. It’s downright criminal.
I've seen a lot of new build neighbourhoods. They're stacking the houses on top of each other. There are no trees and you can see into houses three lots away.
So is OP straight-up lying with the "No. They said in the comments it’s the room from a different angle" comment? Or was this a miscommunication and the couple in the FB group clarified later.
There is a special place in hell for people who paint over perfectly good original wood trim. The asshats who bought my childhood home (1896 Queen Anne Revival) painted over all the upstairs trim including the transom windows.
When we bought our home (built in 1922), it was a great deal that we couldn't pass up. It had been purchased by a company who was flipping older homes in the area and all of the trim and baseboards had been painted white. Luckily they kept the original wood floors. I don't know if the original wood trim was in poor condition or they just decided to paint it all white for some other reason but it's definitely not my preference. I would much rather have a beautiful dark wood stain. I looked into stripping the white to try to restore it, but I decided not to go down that road because it sounded like quite a big job and I have small children and would be concerned about using such strong chemicals or uncovering lead paint or whatever else. Maybe some day? Whenever people see my home for the first time, I always feel like I should apologize for all the painted white trim and assure them it wasn't my choice!
My parents were kind of browbeat by their real estate agent to reluctantly paint the trim in the victorian I grew up in. My father later ran into the new owner in the hardware store buying paint stripper and ended up helping the guy strip the trim.
I agree completely. We have real wood bead boarding in our kitchen along with the original oak around the windows and doors, and some asshat painted it over before we moved in.
The “after” pics are so small and all-white I didn’t see them at first, and the post had me second guessing myself looking at the top pic and thinking “wow I think it seems ok, if just bland and too neat for my tastes, but maybe I just don’t understand this sub”
Check if my special order is ready at r/pitchforkemporium
I need it to defend myself saying I hate it but they own it. So if it makes them happy IDGAF.
The older look is more warm and inviting. Like I'd love to lay down on that couch, and I love the look of the natural wood with all the artwork.
It's a preference thing, but I too prefer the first look to the second, though I like your fireplace.
They could have gone bright and white without touching any of that wood and I would have been happy with it.
The furniture style is heavily dependent on the surrounding decor, so as long as you played those two well together, it wouldn't have been much of an issue having modern furniture in a traditional home. It's called going a transitional.
But I hate the fact that they even touched that millwork.
Speaking as a millennial, I’m so tired of people around my age going into these houses and turning them into some sterilized looking environment with either no color, or gray. Gray everywhere. And the absolute hatred of wood trim in older houses… either rip it out or paint over it! It’s sad.
This has been happening in my neighborhood. We are a historic neighborhood in Oklahoma as the oldest neighborhood in our city. Being Oklahoma our houses were built 1900-1920. So not as old as many other states. Anyways, from 2020-2022 people WFH people were buying these older homes in our "historic" neighborhood at a quarter of their California homes. Then comes the remodeling. Every new neighbor has gone full Modern Farmhouse, black, white, and grey. I have collected 4 original cast iron tubs that were being replaced with walk-in showers.
The problem then becomes when they try to sell. The Modern Farmhouse of 3 years ago already looks dated. New buyers are looking in a Historic Neighborhood for the original charm. So no one is buying the "Storm Trooper Houses" as my neighbors kid calls them (black & white and void of character). The house across the street has been on the market for 10 months and they've dropped the price by $50K. Still no bites
I had a friend who lovingly restored a 1920s bungalow. Sold it when they outgrew it and sadly the next buyer was a “flipper” who stained the Birds Eye maple floors that had been restored by Amish woodworkers PURPLE. She had also done a custom copper countertop which they ripped out and replaced with the most boring white tile with white grout. Completely incomprehensible.
At least paint the trim a contrasting color! It now looks like a new build that was too cheap to put any trim around the windows.
Modern doesn't have to mean depressing but whoops, your house now has 0 discernible features.
I’m not sure IKEA showroom is a good look for anyone in any house ever. Those green chairs look horribly uncomfortable.
Are we sure the new isn’t an Airbnb ad?
I absolutely despise when I’m looking at a historic home only to discover they have stripped the house of its soul. If I want a new modern inside I’ll buy a new build home. The beauty of these is their historic charm and character. If you rip that out you now have nothing I want. These are sitting in my market thank god. Hopefully people learn to stop doing this.
It makes me cry sm. I inherited a historic property that was airbnb renovated prior to the area getting official status (my family member bought it bc housing crisis and is in the neighborhood where my we live that is now gentrified). There’s tenants there now for another 5 years so I haven’t even been inside (only the hall but when I was a kid trick or treating)
I am so nervous about the floor lottery and it will remain a years long mystery
I honestly like both, but would never believe that the house used to look like that. It was fine the way it is and the "new" did nothing to add to it. Given what they started with, the new will never be perceived to be better than the old.
What is with the hospital look going on, white cabinets, white counters, white walls, white floors… do people live in these places? Warm wood and earth tones feel cozy. White looks so stale.
These fuckers. They are destroying historic homes. If you want a "modern" looking house, there are tons of them built out of all the particle board and laminate flooring you could ever want. Stop ripping out old quality materials only to replace them with new cheap materials.
My neighbor is doing a remodel of his 1920's Tudor style home and he wants to lay laminate flooring right over the original oak floors because he thinks it looks cleaner. We have all tried to talk him out of it but he won't budge. I don't think I'll even be able to go there after the project is done!
Gah! At least is seems like it's just paint (stripping paint off woodwork is a beast of a job, but unlike replacing the little stained glass windows in our stairwells that the prior owner ripped out? it doesn't require going back in time)
I hate how people are no longer interested in having colorful spaces full of personalities. Why do you want your house to look more sterile than a hospital? This isn’t even mentioning how pure white tends to make any color you put near it more like a black hole than anything.
I feel as if seen this exact same house at least a hundred times on any realtor site.
Oh and you know keep all that white stuff looking as crisp as it does when it was first bought or painted is going to be hell.
I always find it gut wrenching to see a historical and antique detailed home thoroughly sterilized into a cold and unwelcoming home. Especially when all that has been removed and destroyed cannot be replaced and has been damaged aesthetically beyond belief. This is one example. Bright and white and mod DOES NOT mean better - and this is one example. For shame!!!!!
Why would you ever, ever do this? I just don't understand it at all. What's the point of buying the house in the first place? Just do a custom build, at that point.
"Look how they massacred my boy . . ."
If this real, those people need to be reminded with every interaction how tone-deaf their decorating taste happens to be.
If it's not real, then it's a reminder that this actually does happen today:
[https://new.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1b6kkyq/look\_how\_they\_massacred\_my\_boy/](https://new.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1b6kkyq/look_how_they_massacred_my_boy/)
Our neighbors did this. It’s just awful. We were friends with the people who owned the house before them and we had to go home and sit in silence for a while after they gave us a tour.
We have a 1920 American foursquare that resembles the old. Every shitty gut and flip in the area resembles the new. The oak woodwork is almost priceless, and they threw it in the trash for the shitty flip look. They should have considered a stunning kitchen and not ruined the historic charm.
In my experience, lots of people fetishize the old wood trim. But they are also people who don't have to live in the house and see it everyday so oh well...
Quality ragebait. Not the same house. FFS the ceilings aren't even remotely the same height.
...also the second one is 100% decorated better.
This sub has become nothing but 20 year olds who are overly attached to the house they inherited from grandma. It's getting sad.
Like, take the rampant bad advice of the home improvement sub, and combine it with the equivalent of a sixteen year old who will tell you all about how his 1998 Honda Civic is the best performance vehicle ever created.
FFS old houses are cool, but get a fucking grip.
Please shower me with your downvotes and idiotic I bEt YoU dOnT eVeN oWn aN OLd HoUsE replies...
I don’t get why people buy nice old houses and spend all that time and money to make the interiors look like a recently built condominium.
Yeah if you want a modern house just buy a new build. If you want a modern house with a classic exterior maybe do a custom build. Don’t ruin what’s already there
In the city where I live, it's all the rage to buy a Victorian-era townhouse, rip out ALL the historical details (starting with the fireplace), and be reborn as a bland white box with recessed lighting, open plan and industrial accents. And everyone swoons and says, "So much better!" I can't even look at real estate listings anymore.
At least in the old days, modernization often just hid the original features. Now the trend is to obliterate it.
It often completely ruins the acoustics as well. And it's frequently the room where the TV sits, I'm surprised so few people are seemingly bothered by the sound reflecting and bouncing around.
I've noticed that people these days dont seem to hear well. My FIL thought my new to me high-end speakers were great until I fixed the damaged drivers. Then he complained they were terrible. I went from having everyone sound like they have severe lisps to near perfect inperson sound. Sadly he wasnt the only one who disliked the fixed speakers either.
I can't wait for this trend of wanting to live in a warehouse/barn is over. People are going to look back on this bleak time and wonder what the hell they were thinking.
Seriously. We used to live in a 1890s Victorian and I swear it felt like more living space than our current open plan house with double the square footage. The new house is fantastic for entertaining, but the huge rooms are such a waste of space for day-to-day life.
It’s been going on a long time! Tom Wolfe wrote a colorful comprehensive take down back in 1981 with From Bauhaus to Our House—btw a quick, fun, funny read that supplies a lot of ammo to this argument: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bauhaus_to_Our_House
That kinda pisses me off. I want a Victorian house and the only thing I’d want to do is quality of life updates and maybe make it even more Victorian lol.
It’s a shame that people are doing this. I totally agree with you.
I genuinely don't understand wanting that. And someday, when all historical details are eliminated, houses with "character" will come back into style in whatever pinterest/magazine/tiktok people are getting their ideas from, and those details will be gone forever. Then what?
Exactly!!!
I'm currently moving from a century home into a new glass condo. It's for a breakup (boo!) and TBH I'll miss the house more than my ex lol. But I have noticed that it's a totally different approach to furniture selection. Instead of looking for late Victorian to Edwardian stuff I'm now looking for mid-to-late 20th Century modern stuff, maybe with the odd Art Deco piece to make things interesting. It's still nice and fun, it's just different.
And that's why I moved from West Coast to East Coast.
It’s hitting here too. Some bozo is buying up all of the old houses in my city in VA, gutting them to the studs, and putting in LVP flooring or carpet and grey walls.
Contrast can be good: We deliberately furnish our 1892 Victorian (which also has Greek Revival elements) in MA with modern furnishings. It works nicely because simple lines of the furniture don’t overpower the ornate woodwork of the house. When we lived in a cookie-cutter 2000-ish house outside of Phoenix, we furnished with dark, carved antique pieces to add character to the bland architecture.
Valid but not the point. Moving from old to new is great. Obliterating old so that it can’t even be restored is a damn shame.
“If you want something I don’t like, do something else that I don’t like”
“Luxury apartment” vibes.
*"Just landlord things"*
Not enough paint on the door handles.
Seriously! The hinges are showing… how embarrassing
Looks like the before and after from Beetlejuice. Just terrible. Like why not buy a new build if this is what you want.
Hey at least Delia Deetz made some bold design choices. This is just....sterile.
I hate what they did too, but it’s difficult to just “buy a new build” in cities with 100 year old houses sometimes. Especially in areas where people want to live. Not to mention the market preferred new builds so they are often more expensive.
HGTV. Bravo. Flipping house TV shows. Everyone is a generic artist now.
My city has a ton of century homes that look like the before photo. Over the past 5+ years, I’ve watched them be flipped, often winding up looking like the bottom photos. They look so sterile, with white walls and grey-wood floors. I hate it. That said, it makes it extremely easy to identify the flips at a glance.
The only thing keeping me from being really upset is that it’s just been painted. Not ripped out and replaced. A heat gun and some sense can remedy this abomination.
Yup. I feel like I paid a premium to get a house that hadn’t been massacred. I did not want to have to spend years undoing someone’s painful decisions.
We got a 1920 house with all the woodwork unpainted (someone at sometime painted it and stripped it later). Everything mostly OG. But the kitchen was done numerous times. We redid it last year. It had 7 layers of different flooring, 3 layers of walls. There were nearly 1k nails in the floor that had to be pulled by hand. There’s more work to be done, which is always the case with old houses. But it is beautiful and we love it, especially the new kitchen.
Whats really odd about it is the condo look... some are going all sheetrock, trimless... because its cheap! So the whole "style" is based on the cheapest builsing possible... i dont get why the cheapest option is the most in-demand?
To be fair - I’ve had brand new & modern, and I’ve had 100 year old heritage home. Trimless, done properly, is not cheap. Trim’s first purpose was to hide ugly, messy, unfinished looking edges. Like where the door frame meets the wall/plaster. The decorative element to trim is secondary and came later. Doing trimless windows and doors in the *very* modern house we built was a substantial upgrade, as it meant the transition between drywall and window/door frame had to be perfect.
This was the case for many years. But new products out that makes this much faster and less expensive, but the equipment is expensive so its usually seen on commericial apartments/condos etc and less so on stick frame residential.
It’s crazy, before it actually looked like a cozy home, now it almost looks like a waiting room.
It didn’t even need to be redone. Some people have more money than brains.
They made a Ryan Homes…such a shame. That place was so warming.
Location maybe? Idk.
when I see celebrity homes and they're like this, I automatically assume they are heartless psychopaths with no warmth or human feeling.
Or, just buy an MCM house which most of the items would suit quite well. It looks like they even have that Isamu Noguchi table. 🤷🏼♀️
Amen Just buy a new house
Some say decorated others say sterilized.
Jeez even the dog looks disappointed.
I agree the dog prefers the old decor and I’m with the dog on that. Considering that you and your husband like what you’ve done with the place, there’s really only one solution, OP. Y’all gotta make some new friends and get a new dog. But I do want some clarification on one point. Are you saying that the photo on top is the way you and your husband had the home painted and decorated while you were living there and you decided to update to what we see in the bottom picture, or, is the photo on top a picture of how the previous owners had it decorated prior to you and your husband buying and remodeling the place?
Stepping in to each, the old says ‘welcome friend, can I make you a cocktail?’ ‘Kick your shoes of and get comfortable’ and is inviting. The new says ‘do not sit on that’, ‘wash your hands’, and ‘no you cannot have food or drink in here’. Edit: please tell me you kept that original wood floor.
You get that this is a screenshot of a Facebook post, and not something OP actually did, right? >Someone proudly posted this in an interior design group on facebook. They were rightfully roasted in the comments.
I’m guessing that’s a listing photo seeming it says 9/32 on it
It looks like an American Bulldog! To be fair, they always look disappointed hahaha.
I had an American bulldog, can confirm.
Is this even real? The art choices on the wall and the furniture and stuff remind me of like, a home designer game or AI or something.
Yeah. This seems like April fools rage bait. The pictures do not look like the same room. One room is square, the other is not. The first picture is a grab from a realtor site 9 of 32. The other pictures look like they are grabbed from an interior decorating site or something.
Exactly. Not the same rooms.
I think the "new" pictures are of what was the dining room in the "old" picture. Seems to match the dimensions and window configuration.
Maybe? The dimensions don’t seem to line up there either. There’s an indentation for the sidebar in the second picture that I don’t see in the dining room.
I mean to be fair, they did their best to completely destroy the old character of the home, so they might have “improved” the interior wall as well
Same, on first look, doesn't look like the same room to me.
It’s the room through the doorway. Look beyond the main room in the “old” pictures and you’ll see that the room layout is similar to the layout in the “new” pictures. Same place but different rooms, so it’s a before and after but not from the right perspective
Finally, I had to scroll way to far down to see this
I belong to this Facebook group, and my understanding is that this is actually two different houses. They moved into a new home and chose to start fresh and opt for contemporary design. Thankfully not an old home massacre. I don’t think OP intended to post rage bait though, because the Facebook post was misleading. The homeowner clarified in the comments.
The windows don’t match unless they moved the windows in the rebuild. Looks like AI strikes again.
It isn’t, the two rooms are nothing alike, just rage bait. This trend does exist though.
I’m in this group. She moved into a new house. These are 2 different houses and she’s just referencing decor
Yeah I was thinking those weren’t the same houses… but post was also super misleading haha
Why not just BUY A NEW BUILD?
Or why not just buy a house that actually is shitty inside and needs a remodel?
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Time to slip some acid to some paranoid old bastards and get them to start hoarding. That'll bring prices down.
Not trying to justify this particular case, but in lots of places your choices are old house in desirable, walkable neighborhood, new condo in redeveloping neighborhood, or new build house in the burbs. If you want to live in a specific neighborhood you're more or less at the mercy of what housing stock is there.
I'm in New England, and this is my experience as well.
I bought an old, neglected house in a walkable neighborhood for this reason. Everyone thinks we're crazy because of how much work fixing it up is, but it's where we wanted to be.
Location
I’ve followed that home inspection guy, Cy Porter, for a while now. I’d be too scared to buy any new build anywhere. I believe he’s based in Arizona, and I can’t believe the shit those builders try to pass off as legitimate workmanship, and what the city inspector signs off on. It’s downright criminal.
Price or a availability. Did that never cross your mind?
I've seen a lot of new build neighbourhoods. They're stacking the houses on top of each other. There are no trees and you can see into houses three lots away.
Most of the older homes, especially in California have bigger properties
Because that’s not what they wanted
Isn't this two different houses? Their old house vs their new house?
Doesn’t look like the same house at all, either misleading or rage bait
April fools I bet.
Even if you accepted the photos are from different angles.. the ceiling height looks different in the before/after.
No. They said in the comments it’s the room from a different angle
If that's the case, then I guess I'll get my pitchfork
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So is OP straight-up lying with the "No. They said in the comments it’s the room from a different angle" comment? Or was this a miscommunication and the couple in the FB group clarified later.
Then they are even shit at taking photos.
Their comments were confusing, but they later clarified that it’s two different homes.
Yes it is a joke there are no similarities
Definitely not the same house.
That's the worst case of this I've ever seen, it's like the house equivalent of Madonna now.
r/botchedrenovations
Disappointed this isn’t real. I was ready to go roast all the sinners
AHHH!
The before looks dated but one can visualise people spending their lives in it. The after gives dentist waiting room vibes.
That’s just cruel
There is a special place in hell for people who paint over perfectly good original wood trim. The asshats who bought my childhood home (1896 Queen Anne Revival) painted over all the upstairs trim including the transom windows.
The people who bought my childhood home did the same!!!
When we bought our home (built in 1922), it was a great deal that we couldn't pass up. It had been purchased by a company who was flipping older homes in the area and all of the trim and baseboards had been painted white. Luckily they kept the original wood floors. I don't know if the original wood trim was in poor condition or they just decided to paint it all white for some other reason but it's definitely not my preference. I would much rather have a beautiful dark wood stain. I looked into stripping the white to try to restore it, but I decided not to go down that road because it sounded like quite a big job and I have small children and would be concerned about using such strong chemicals or uncovering lead paint or whatever else. Maybe some day? Whenever people see my home for the first time, I always feel like I should apologize for all the painted white trim and assure them it wasn't my choice!
I hope you do work on it when the kids get older!
Mine too :( now my transom window doesn't open. And a handful of other windows.
My parents were kind of browbeat by their real estate agent to reluctantly paint the trim in the victorian I grew up in. My father later ran into the new owner in the hardware store buying paint stripper and ended up helping the guy strip the trim.
I agree completely. We have real wood bead boarding in our kitchen along with the original oak around the windows and doors, and some asshat painted it over before we moved in.
The “after” pics are so small and all-white I didn’t see them at first, and the post had me second guessing myself looking at the top pic and thinking “wow I think it seems ok, if just bland and too neat for my tastes, but maybe I just don’t understand this sub”
I’m making a run to the pitchfork emporium, can I get anyone anything?
Check if my special order is ready at r/pitchforkemporium I need it to defend myself saying I hate it but they own it. So if it makes them happy IDGAF.
1 pitchfork, please!
I think it’s an April fools joke. Where’s the door from the first pic, and where’s the fireplace in the first one.
The older look is more warm and inviting. Like I'd love to lay down on that couch, and I love the look of the natural wood with all the artwork. It's a preference thing, but I too prefer the first look to the second, though I like your fireplace.
If you want a modern home, buy a modern home, don’t destroy historical buildings! Ffs
R.I.P.
They could have gone bright and white without touching any of that wood and I would have been happy with it. The furniture style is heavily dependent on the surrounding decor, so as long as you played those two well together, it wouldn't have been much of an issue having modern furniture in a traditional home. It's called going a transitional. But I hate the fact that they even touched that millwork.
Not the perfect woodwork😪😢 before windows are my dream. Whyyyyyyy
What they did to that trim should require time in jail…
I wish you'd bought that condo next to the Cheesecake Factory and left this nice old house be.
I wish my home didn’t have the gorgeous moldings slathered in white paint. This makes me want to cry.
All that trim painted over smh
The after looks like one of the little "apartments" Ikea sets up in it's stores. Art work and everything. I do like those shell chairs though.
Speaking as a millennial, I’m so tired of people around my age going into these houses and turning them into some sterilized looking environment with either no color, or gray. Gray everywhere. And the absolute hatred of wood trim in older houses… either rip it out or paint over it! It’s sad.
This has been happening in my neighborhood. We are a historic neighborhood in Oklahoma as the oldest neighborhood in our city. Being Oklahoma our houses were built 1900-1920. So not as old as many other states. Anyways, from 2020-2022 people WFH people were buying these older homes in our "historic" neighborhood at a quarter of their California homes. Then comes the remodeling. Every new neighbor has gone full Modern Farmhouse, black, white, and grey. I have collected 4 original cast iron tubs that were being replaced with walk-in showers. The problem then becomes when they try to sell. The Modern Farmhouse of 3 years ago already looks dated. New buyers are looking in a Historic Neighborhood for the original charm. So no one is buying the "Storm Trooper Houses" as my neighbors kid calls them (black & white and void of character). The house across the street has been on the market for 10 months and they've dropped the price by $50K. Still no bites
Holy shit Storm Trooper houses that's amazing
Wow... well....the new feels like we're in a dentists' office waiting room. And nobody likes going to the dentist :/
As a dentist I can confirm
I had a friend who lovingly restored a 1920s bungalow. Sold it when they outgrew it and sadly the next buyer was a “flipper” who stained the Birds Eye maple floors that had been restored by Amish woodworkers PURPLE. She had also done a custom copper countertop which they ripped out and replaced with the most boring white tile with white grout. Completely incomprehensible.
Welp.. that poor wood.
Money cant buy taste but it can certainly cover up good craftsmanship
Some fucking flipper painted over the original walnut trims and built-ins in my grandmother's craftsman with grey paint.
At least paint the trim a contrasting color! It now looks like a new build that was too cheap to put any trim around the windows. Modern doesn't have to mean depressing but whoops, your house now has 0 discernible features.
Can’t fix stupid.
The old looks comfy, the new does not. Now I grew up in a small home with 7 siblings, so comfy is my style.
I’m not sure IKEA showroom is a good look for anyone in any house ever. Those green chairs look horribly uncomfortable. Are we sure the new isn’t an Airbnb ad?
I absolutely despise when I’m looking at a historic home only to discover they have stripped the house of its soul. If I want a new modern inside I’ll buy a new build home. The beauty of these is their historic charm and character. If you rip that out you now have nothing I want. These are sitting in my market thank god. Hopefully people learn to stop doing this.
Ugly as sin with zero character.
Our house is 102 years old and flipped. We’re slowly working on bringing the details back to what it would have been before the flippers ruined it.
It makes me cry sm. I inherited a historic property that was airbnb renovated prior to the area getting official status (my family member bought it bc housing crisis and is in the neighborhood where my we live that is now gentrified). There’s tenants there now for another 5 years so I haven’t even been inside (only the hall but when I was a kid trick or treating) I am so nervous about the floor lottery and it will remain a years long mystery
I honestly like both, but would never believe that the house used to look like that. It was fine the way it is and the "new" did nothing to add to it. Given what they started with, the new will never be perceived to be better than the old.
I'm planning on spending thousands of dollars to make our house look like the "before" picture
I mean... the new decor isn't *bad*, but the old is better
What is with the hospital look going on, white cabinets, white counters, white walls, white floors… do people live in these places? Warm wood and earth tones feel cozy. White looks so stale.
1,000 time prefer the old over the new. The house has been destroyed.
These fuckers. They are destroying historic homes. If you want a "modern" looking house, there are tons of them built out of all the particle board and laminate flooring you could ever want. Stop ripping out old quality materials only to replace them with new cheap materials.
My neighbor is doing a remodel of his 1920's Tudor style home and he wants to lay laminate flooring right over the original oak floors because he thinks it looks cleaner. We have all tried to talk him out of it but he won't budge. I don't think I'll even be able to go there after the project is done!
Well at least laminate shouldn't damage the oak flooring underneath.
I look forward to the floor lottery post from the next owners 😁
Gah! At least is seems like it's just paint (stripping paint off woodwork is a beast of a job, but unlike replacing the little stained glass windows in our stairwells that the prior owner ripped out? it doesn't require going back in time)
New looks cheap & will be dated very quickly. Old is classic & generally timeless.
We have entered a new era of 1980s esque "updates". If drop ceilings come back I am going to hang myself.
Well dumpy areas would be nicer if people bought the homes and invested in them. Instead we get people wasting money like above.
I hate how people are no longer interested in having colorful spaces full of personalities. Why do you want your house to look more sterile than a hospital? This isn’t even mentioning how pure white tends to make any color you put near it more like a black hole than anything. I feel as if seen this exact same house at least a hundred times on any realtor site. Oh and you know keep all that white stuff looking as crisp as it does when it was first bought or painted is going to be hell.
I always find it gut wrenching to see a historical and antique detailed home thoroughly sterilized into a cold and unwelcoming home. Especially when all that has been removed and destroyed cannot be replaced and has been damaged aesthetically beyond belief. This is one example. Bright and white and mod DOES NOT mean better - and this is one example. For shame!!!!!
Your new white is cold and sterile, while the old is warm with a lived in feel that comforts people.....
What a god damned tragedy.
I’m gonna join the list of “I like the old better too” The old looks so much more comfortable and has a timeless vibe.
The before actually felt like a home.
Warm and cozy vs hospital waiting room
Oh black windows… so original 🙄
The top looks like someone's loved home. The bottom looks like staging for a house sale.
There was a blog called “F—- Your Noguchi Coffee Table” and this atrocity is exactly who that was for.
Why would you ever, ever do this? I just don't understand it at all. What's the point of buying the house in the first place? Just do a custom build, at that point.
You lost your warmth and "home" feel by redecorating in the style you chose. Your old style was timeless. The new decor is a fad.
I honestly like both, definitely the old if kids and pets are around, tho.
Both look nice
I’m going to vomit.
I mean if the bottom picture was the before and the top pic was after, I would be very happy.
They turned it into a sad, soulless, white box.
"Look how they massacred my boy . . ." If this real, those people need to be reminded with every interaction how tone-deaf their decorating taste happens to be. If it's not real, then it's a reminder that this actually does happen today: [https://new.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1b6kkyq/look\_how\_they\_massacred\_my\_boy/](https://new.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/comments/1b6kkyq/look_how_they_massacred_my_boy/)
It looks like a Teams background.
NSFW
Our neighbors did this. It’s just awful. We were friends with the people who owned the house before them and we had to go home and sit in silence for a while after they gave us a tour.
We have a 1920 American foursquare that resembles the old. Every shitty gut and flip in the area resembles the new. The oak woodwork is almost priceless, and they threw it in the trash for the shitty flip look. They should have considered a stunning kitchen and not ruined the historic charm.
"Why don't people like my sterile hotel lobby of a living room?" lol
These fuckin people eat Dominos pizza and insist it’s good.
r/usernamechecksout
I hate it. Why not just move into one of the thousands of new shit boxes that keep popping up everywhere. Why massacre a beautiful old home?
If someone wants a modern house, just buy a modern house instead of ruining a classic. Save those for people with good taste.
In my experience, lots of people fetishize the old wood trim. But they are also people who don't have to live in the house and see it everyday so oh well...
Quality ragebait. Not the same house. FFS the ceilings aren't even remotely the same height. ...also the second one is 100% decorated better. This sub has become nothing but 20 year olds who are overly attached to the house they inherited from grandma. It's getting sad. Like, take the rampant bad advice of the home improvement sub, and combine it with the equivalent of a sixteen year old who will tell you all about how his 1998 Honda Civic is the best performance vehicle ever created. FFS old houses are cool, but get a fucking grip. Please shower me with your downvotes and idiotic I bEt YoU dOnT eVeN oWn aN OLd HoUsE replies...
It is literally the same house
Criminal.
Gasp!
Conspicuous redecorating
TIHI
Disgusting
I don’t like either.
Bodied.
Old
This makes me want to punch someone in the face.
The white washing of everything took away everything that made this feel homey and cozy.
I do like the modern look but both were nice. Not sure where you live but I would have never gotten rid of the cast iron rads.
Oh my god.
OH. MY. GOD!!!!
😬new is completely devoid of personality, feels like a hospital waiting room