Snooping around: Jewels of suburbia

Property of the week: Gretton, Northamptonshire. Your life can unroll glamorously under a glass roof in the huge open-plan kitchen/living area of this four-bedder. Around 3,500 sq ft of space has been coaxed from a Victorian sewing factory. You benefit from another living area perched behind glass panels on a mezzanine level, and a secluded space by the wood-burning stove in the formal sitting room. The garden is small. Cost: £625,000.
Jackson-Stops & Staff, 01604 632991 Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff/Jackson-Stops & Staff

Wreck of the week: Otterham, Cornwall. This £300,000 stone and slate barn is skeletal; you won't get much change from £200,000 for the renovations. When habitable it could be worth up to £600,000 with its 4.75 acres. The planners will allow four bedrooms (three with en suite), a triple-aspect living area and a dining hall. When the adjacent cottage and farmhouse have been renovated your neighbours will be close, unless you buy the lot for £650,000-£700,000.
Stags, 01566 774999 Photograph: Stags/Stags

Take three: jewels of suburbia. A few minutes down the road from this three-bedder in Roundhay, Leeds, is one of Europe's largest parks with 700 acres of gardens, a lake and amusements. Back indoors you get a double reception room, a new kitchen and a bathroom. Buses whisk you the three miles into the city centre and there are shops and a cinema complex close by. The garden, while well screened, is mostly to the front. Yours for £255,000.
Enfields, 0113 237 0987 Photograph: Enfields/Enfields

Take three: jewels of suburbia. For £249,000 you get a decent space on one of the best roads in Erdington, just 10 minutes from Birmingham city centre. You get three receptions, a conservatory, a kitchen, four bedrooms, two bath/shower rooms and a garage. There are hearths with Living Flame fires and the garage has a mechanic's pit. The tapering garden is smaller than you might expect.
Waller & Farnworth, 0121 386 3330 Photograph: Waller & Farnworth/Waller & Farnworth

Take three: jewels of suburbia. This three-bedder in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, is suburbia at its mock-Tudor finest. The beams extend to the walls and ceilings inside and they, along with exposed brick, slate floors and fireplaces, create the illusion of antiquity. £485,000 buys you two receptions, a kitchen/dining room, two bathrooms and two garages. A station with services to London Waterloo is very close by: you are hard by the railway line.
Townsend, 020 8547 1066 Photograph: Townends/Townends