The estate agent’s lip curled slightly, a micro-expression I’ve spent twenty-eight years capturing from the gallery of the Old Bailey, usually right when a defendant realizes the CCTV footage isn’t going to play in their favor. He sucked his teeth-a sharp, sibilant sound that echoed in the empty hallway of the house I’d spent forty-eight months ‘improving.’ This was Julian. Julian sold houses that looked like they belonged in glossy magazines, all minimalist lines and neutral palettes. But here, standing in front of my meticulously installed, double-glazed, anthracite-grey uPVC windows, he looked like he’d just bitten into a particularly sour lemon. He didn’t say it was ugly. He said it was ‘efficient,’ which is the architectural equivalent of being told you have a great personality.

I realized then, with the same sinking dread I felt last night when I accidentally liked my ex’s photo from 2018 at 3:08 in the morning, that I had committed a grave sin. I had tried to modernize a soul that didn’t want to be modern. This Victorian terrace, built in 1888 with pride and London stock brick, was now wearing a cheap, plastic mask. I thought I was adding value. I thought the ‘B’ energy rating would make the price skyrocket. Instead, I had stripped away the texture, the history, and about £58,000 of market value.

The Suffocation of Lime and Brick

My neighbor, a woman who has lived on this street for 68 years, watched me install the cement render back in 2018. She didn’t say a word, but she watched from her porch, clutching a mug of tea as the workmen slapped that grey, suffocating paste over the breathable lime and brick. I thought she was jealous of my ‘maintenance-free’ facade. Now I know she was mourning. You see, period properties are living organisms. They were designed to move, to breathe, and to handle moisture through a delicate equilibrium of porous materials.

When you introduce modern cement-which is as rigid and unforgiving as a judge’s sentencing remarks-you trap the moisture inside. The house begins to sweat. The bricks begin to rot behind their grey shroud. I spent £8,888 on that render, and all I did was accelerate the decay of the structure I claimed to love.

It’s a peculiar form of cognitive dissonance. We pay a premium for a Victorian or Edwardian home because we love the ‘character,’ and then we immediately set about murdering that character with a sledgehammer and a Screwfix catalog. We rip out the cast-iron fireplaces because they aren’t ‘clean’ and replace them with flat-screen TVs that look like black voids on the wall. We tear up the uneven floorboards and lay down grey laminate that feels like walking on a Tupperware lid. By the time we’re finished, the house could be anywhere. It could be a new-build in a suburban sprawl or a budget hotel at an airport. We’ve erased the specificity of place.

The Forgery of Perfection

I remember sketching a man accused of art forgery back in 2008. He was brilliant, in a twisted way. He understood that to make a fake look real, you have to include the flaws. He’d use old pigments and cracked canvases. He knew that perfection is the biggest giveaway of a lie. Our modern homes are starting to look like bad forgeries. They are too perfect, too smooth, and utterly devoid of the narrative of time.

When you see the work of specialists who actually understand the chemistry of the past, like Repointing company Hastings, you realize how much we’ve lost by choosing the easy path. They don’t just slap on a coat of something ‘new’; they respect the original intent of the builders who laid those bricks over a century ago. It’s about restoration, not just renovation. It’s about admitting that the Victorians actually knew what they were doing when it came to managing damp and thermal mass.

The Price of Being ‘Too Clean’

Every time the chisel slips, I feel like I’m scarring the face of an old friend. I keep thinking about that photo I liked last night. Why was I even looking? I was looking because I was nostalgic for a version of myself that hadn’t yet made these mistakes-a version that still believed that newer was always better. We do it with our relationships, and we do it with our houses. We seek the shiny, the new, the uncomplicated, only to realize that the depth we crave is only found in the layers of the past.

Julian, the estate agent, walked over to the corner of the living room and pointed to a small patch of damp rising near the skirting board. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is because of your render. The wall can’t breathe, William. You’ve turned your house into a plastic bag.’ He wasn’t wrong. The moisture had nowhere to go, so it was climbing the internal walls, pushing through my expensive, Farrow & Ball ‘Elephant’s Breath’ paint. It was a physical manifestation of my own hubris. I had spent a fortune to make the house ‘waterproof,’ and in doing so, I had ensured it would stay wet forever.

The Market Wakes Up

There is a financial cost to this, of course. In the current market, a sympathetically restored period home can command a premium of up to 28% over a ‘modernized’ version in the same postcode. Buyers are tired of the grey-box aesthetic. They are waking up to the fact that uPVC windows are a liability that will need replacing in 18 years, whereas timber sashes can last 128 if they are looked after. They are starting to value the thermal mass of a solid brick wall over the flimsy insulation of a quick-fix renovation. We are seeing a slow, quiet rebellion against the ‘flipping’ culture that treated houses like disposable commodities rather than enduring shelters.

I’ve decided to take the house off the market. Julian was relieved, I think. He didn’t want his name associated with a ‘plastic bag.’ Instead, I’ve started a new project. I’m going to strip it all back. I’m going to find the original fireplaces, even if I have to spend 48 hours scouring architectural salvage yards. I’m going to replace the plastic windows with timber ones made by someone who cares about the grain of the wood. I’m going to hire people who understand that lime mortar isn’t just an old-fashioned whim, but a structural necessity.

Exhaling After Eight Years

It’s going to cost me £38,000 to undo what I spent £28,000 doing. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when my bank account is already looking a bit thin. But as I sit here, sketching the way the light falls across the one patch of original brick I’ve uncovered, I feel a sense of peace I haven’t felt in years. The lines are right. The texture is honest. I’m no longer trying to forge a new life; I’m finally learning to live in the one that was already here.

Maybe I’ll even message my ex and apologize for the ‘like.’ Or maybe I’ll just leave it as a reminder that some things are better left in the past, preserved exactly as they were, flaws and all.

The house seems to agree. Since I chipped away that first square meter of cement, the air inside feels different. It feels lighter. It feels like the building is finally exhaling after holding its breath for eight years. We don’t own these houses; we just look after them for a while. And the least we can do is ensure that when we hand over the keys, there’s still something left worth keeping.