Refurb or rebuild?

A house not unlike our own, this one in Manor Green Road. The property, I believe, of a family who had thought that it would be a good idea to build a second house at the bottom of their large garden.

Access denied on that one, so they went for an extensive refurbishment instead. Including, as well as new space, stripping off all the rendering off all the old block and brick work, including that to the slender chimney right. A stripping off that involved serious action with some kind of small electrical version of a pneumatic drill. The rendering was not just falling off as soon as look at it.

I suppose that the idea is that when the whole thing is rendered anew at some point, it will all look beautiful, not like a refurb. at all. But for me it is all getting too close to the bone, too gross an interference with the fabric of the house and I would not care to do such a thing to ours.