Trading up, trading down – in pictures

Trading up: Berkshire. If four bedrooms and two receptions cramp your ambitions, you can fulfil existing planning permission to add two more rooms and a utility area. But it’s the ancient parts of this £650,000 cottage in the village of Hermitage you will want to linger in: recent renovations have glorified the timbered ceilings and the huge inglenook fireplace, and added oak latched doors and stripped wooden floors. Outside there is more than a quarter-of-an-acre of garden and a carport.
Jackson-Stops & Staff, 01635 45501
Photograph: Jackson-Stops & Staff

Trading up: Devon. The fact you have to compete for a parking slot further up the road is of negligible importance, because you can walk to the shops and the river in the sailing resort of Dartmouth. Renovations have stripped the wooden floors, installed a bespoke kitchen and added a free-standing slipper bath, while history lingers in the form of fireplaces and window seats. All three bedrooms are doubles and there is ample banqueting potential in the 27ft kitchen/dining room. Yours for £450,000.
Marchand Petit, 01803 839190 Photograph: Marchand Petit

Trading down: Hampshire. The cliffs of Christchurch bay and the shops round the village green are a stroll away from this £395,000 three-bed cottage in Milford on Sea. One of the bedrooms has an en suite and a capacious balcony overhanging the walled courtyard garden. The farmhouse-style kitchen with Rayburn and Belfast sink will accommodate a dinner party, but the guests will have to haul upstairs to the sitting room unless you reclaim the smaller downstairs bedroom. Your car must live in a free public car park up the road.
John D Wood, 01590 677233 Photograph: John D Wood

Trading down: Essex. They call it Secret Cottage because it’s tucked behind the village pub in Herongate, near Brentwood. The bad bit is that the pub walls loom eight inches from your living room windows; the good is that a decent pint is a slipper shuffle away. And the prospect is better out back where a landscaped garden ends in fields. Open studwork, vaulted beamed ceilings and a large brick hearth redeem the interior where, if you desire a second bedroom, you’ll have to use the landing. Downstairs living space is commodious, though, with a sitting room and dining area and a kitchen/breakfast room. Yours for between £225,000 and 235,000.
John D Wood, 01245 344222 Photograph: John D Wood

Dream home: Worcestershire. This is decadent luxury in a timber-framed casing in Ipsley on the outskirts of Redditch. While the outside is quaintly antique, the interior has been reinvented with a sauna, a Hollywoodian main bathroom with roll-top gold clawed bath, a second kitchen – always handy when you haven’t tackled last night’s washing up – and glass-walled garden room with heated floor. The gardens themselves are large, stately and floriferous with a waterfall well and pond. Cost: £795,000.
Knight Frank, 01789 297735 Photograph: Knight Frank