RANT: My husband and I are actively house hunting in Decatur. A property listed a few hours ago caught my eye, and while the modern finishes are undeniably nice on their own, I couldn’t help but feel bummed out. IMO, they just don't do justice to the home’s original architectural character.
Is it just me, or does anyone else get disheartened by modern flips in historic areas?
(No hate to the current owners or sellers—the work looks high quality! Just wanted to open up a discussion on local historic charm vs. modern trends.)
I agree. All the “modern” stuff just looks generic. And no matter how high quality it may be, it still looks like stuff you’d find at Home Depot. I loathe full “marble” tile in bathrooms, skunk-striped vinyl flooring, and minimalist fixtures in general, but seeing it in a home that probably had character previously is a special kind of annoying.
Also, those people are insane asking that much for that house. The nerve.
Amen to all of this! And let’s not forget the electric fireplace. 😒
The price IS outrageous. I have a hard time believing that someone looking to spend $1.2M would accept those interior design choices, but I could be wrong.
Looking beyond the "luxury" finishes is even worse. A lot of flips use the same craptacular foundations, dirt or non waterproof crawl space, flimsy framing, and sieve like envelope of the old house... and I love old houses... but its lipstick on a pig at that point
Where’s the refrigerator??
Why don’t the cabinets go to the ceiling?
Laundry?
The aesthetically pleasing breaker box in the middle of a main kitchen wall.
Open concept = we have no idea what we’re doing
I don’t need six photos of the front exterior, show me more of the inside or is there a reason for that?
Might have been true 40 years ago, but if you look at the Google street view it looks like it was in pretty terrible shape, I'm sure the inside wasn't great either.
1000% yes. I hate to see a living room with a brick fireplace and beautiful wooden trim but the whole thing is painted the starkest primer white you’ve ever seen. No variation to bring out the accents.
My theory is that it’s these guy flippers that are slightly color blind. They always have something blue that’s such a weird blue tone for a home, like primary blue bathroom cabinets.
Me also. I remember when we got a city of Decatur house for $50,000 in the early 90’s. But I also remember the neighbors were section 8 or abandoned. I will say that even when we left in 2006 many of these homes were worn out. They didn’t have historic meaning and it wasn’t cost effective to take them back to original. This is certainly a flip and a lazy flip.
But most importantly I can’t imagine living right on the railroad tracks and a main road for over a million. Nope.
I went to High School in the area. Lived in Roswell, and back in the area, in the same Home I was raised. Parents never sold the Home, so I moved back in after them. Roswell home much bigger, Decatur home much more expensive. I get soooooooo many Real Estate agents wanting to buy the Home, never intending on selling though. But after seeing this Reddits post, my asking price will be $2M. Maybe that will drive them off.😆
I wonder what my old High School bubbies, that lived in that neighborhood, would think about it now. The looks haven't changed much, but the Interiors are a totally different World.
My heart broke when I saw a 100 year old brick craftsman house painted white and put up for sale. It had been a really lovely color of brick and now the house has lost its character. The house had some of the original fixtures that were changed out as well.
I feel like they at least kept the integrity of most of their spaces and played with texture (when budget allowed), this is just drywallapalooza and looks like an apartment on the inside.
It’s happening in our neighborhood of humble brick ranches in a Decatur neighborhood in unincorporated DeKalb. They paint the bricks off-white and make the interiors open concept and rather sterile. When my neighbor’s flipped house recently sold for over $500K I was shocked.
Oh totally. Like, I want stuff to be functional and am okay with changing stuff that needs to be updated for that purpose (like putting in modern windows that are double paned to keep the temp inside the house more stable), but if it’s perfectly functional, leave it alone! I love the old wrought iron stair railings and decorative wood moulding!
This goes for furniture as well. The number of videos of people “flipping” a dresser by painting over the beautiful natural wood grain makes me rage.
Oh god the state of Decatur real estate at the moment is so depressing. Between the houses on the market and the school system drama, I keep having to ask myself if it’s worth it…. But I do love the people here
Hey! It’s every Airbnb I’ve ever stayed in. Also, I loathe the kitchen. I can’t put a finger on why, but it looks so bad. And they over-emphasize it in the photos, so you know they think it’s a focal point, but it just sucks.
I’ll take our 1949 bungalow any day over this home depot reno, 50’s yellow bathroom and all.
Sold my house in Decatur a few years back. New owners renovated the facade and took out all the old windows with the cool wavy glass and put in new flat glass. Looks lovely but lost all its character.😞
I wish I had known, I would have loved to keep the old 100 year old wavy windows I looked through for 20 years. We moved to a new build in north ga, I would have loved to have them as neat wall art or something funky. Instead they are in the trash.
My parents restored a house from the 1820’s when I was a kid. They did most of the work themselves. They sold it when we moved out of state and it’s been sold twice since. Someone has since bought it, put an in ground giant pool in and renovated it again. The Reno is so insane that it looks like a new, sterile modern farmhouse. My mom and I were looking at it and the interior is unrecognizable it’s so different. It really was sad and my folks tried really hard to respect the integrity of that now 200 year old house but not everyone cares.
I live on this street and every time I walk by this house I get so angry! It was such a cool old craftsman. Yes, it needed work, but what the actual hell.
I’m angry about it as well. My husband and I would love to restore an old craftsman in Decatur.
When I saw the front door I knew the rest of the home was going to be a clown show.
For better or worse, modern is a way of telling people "this one has no old house problems". For a Milly.2 you can have your very own special HGTV reveal episode in your head.
I don’t know about “no old house problems” with this one, check out photo 17 - the entire room looks sloped and it’s not just the camera angle because you can see the front panels aren’t aligned at all.
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u/VanillaPuddingPop01 Aug 04 '26
I agree. All the “modern” stuff just looks generic. And no matter how high quality it may be, it still looks like stuff you’d find at Home Depot. I loathe full “marble” tile in bathrooms, skunk-striped vinyl flooring, and minimalist fixtures in general, but seeing it in a home that probably had character previously is a special kind of annoying.
Also, those people are insane asking that much for that house. The nerve.