I follow lots of cottage and old victorian house accounts and I live in one myself. So I get that some things in old houses will always look a bit 'oldey-worldy' and 'rustic' especially if you have walls and floors that aren't quite straight etc. I had to make my peace with that a long time ago as it really used to stress me out and tbh we couldn't afford to reskim and replaster each and every wall or replace all the door frames etc.
However, everything that we did get done, we got done properly. Skirting boards are level, paint work is finished properly, we've bought good quality stuff without breaking the bank. Whereas they forked out on an extension, redid every room when they moved in, but everything looks rotten, slapdash and somehow worse than it looked before? When she puts photos of her kitchen on the grid I can't stop staring at the floor and how damaged and scratched it looks. It's not like they regularly throw parties and have a high footfall so what they hell do they do in the house?