This much I know, I never want to live in an ‘executive home’, and neither do I want to live in a house that belongs to a ‘collection’ of homes that have been built to a ‘high specification’. And which feature bi-fold doors. Quite frankly, having been house-hunting in Surrey for the best part of two years looking for something I can afford, I don’t care if I never see another bi-fold door as long as I live.
What’s wrong with a back door with a simple hinge, or a French window? When did we all get so lost up our own posteriors we needed the entire back wall to come off our house, even if it’s a three-bedroom dormer bungalow? When we decided to make three-bed dormer bungalows worth more than a million pounds, that’s when.
Honestly, house-hunting in Cobham really does take the biscuit, or should I say biscotti. If it’s not executive homes on housing estates calling themselves ‘collections’, then it’s dormer bungalows that have ideas so far above their station they need bulldozing to put them back in their place.
When I first started looking, I would see a picture of a sad, ugly bungalow on Rightmove and think, ‘Ha ha! Who would buy that?’ Out of grim fascination I would go to look round, and the place would reveal itself to have been so chavved up inside that it now featured shiny white poured concrete floors in a minimalist kitchen, with bi-fold doors opening on to a perfect square of artificial turf, and some sort of B&Q gazebo on the tiny patio.
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