Houses in other countries (inspired by what baffles you about other countries)

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Inspired by the thread on things that baffle you in other countries, where quite a lot of the discussion related to homes in other countries, I thought it’d be interesting with a thread showing standard homes in different countries and some information about how choices have been made when it comes to their layout etc.

So here are two links to two different homes in Sweden. This one (you’ll get straight to a gallery with pictures and the layout is at the bottom) is a fairly typical house built in the 1970s:
www.hemnet.se/bostad/villa-6rum-rodeby-karlskrona-kommun-fasanvagen-6-17145055#gallery

There are several areas to sit outside, wooden decking areas. There is a large hallway, easy to store clothes and put away shoes. There are two lounges – very common, and normally desired, for families; one for the parents, one for children to have friends in etc. The kitchen was probably a room of its own in the 1970s, but it’s now more or less open to the lounge. There is a separate utility room, and a big storage room with a separate entrance (“förråd”). There is also an indoors storage room, “Klk”. There are bedrooms on the ground floor as well as on the first floor – this is very common, people like not having all bedrooms next to each other (so do I!). Sometimes when the children get older parents like to move downstairs and leave the upstairs to the children completely (including cleaning haha!). In this house, the downstairs bedrooms are kind of tucked away, but it is also common to have a bedroom literally inside the entrance door for example.

When this house was built and bought, the upstairs probably wasn’t ready – people would buy a house that was ‘half-done’ and then when they had saved more money they’d do the upstairs too. So there is no proper bathroom upstairs, just a loo; this is very unusual. (And usually, all bathrooms and loos are fully tiled – all new built houses always have fully tiled bathrooms and toilets, so this is a house that has not been renovated to what is now standard.)

It is also very typical that there are no doors to the lounge/hallway for example. I think that is one reason why Scandi people feel that English houses are so crowded/small/narrow, there’s no open space (even without expanding it would feel more airy if there weren’t doors to three rooms on the ground floor from a very narrow hallway, for example).

So people buying this house would probably fit a proper bathroom upstairs, for example. The downstairs looks quite ‘normal’ and ready to go.

This is quite a standard, recently built flat for families (in fact, it’s just being built, so there are options for the first buyer to choose between, different bathroom tiles for example).

www.hemnet.se/bostad/lagenhet-4rum-majorna-goteborgs-kommun-fixfabrikens-gata-4-17184735#gallery

Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one of them also has a washing machine and a drier. Two balconies (this is unusual, one is standard), open plan living again. Quite a lot of cupboards/storage, including in the hallway and built in wardrobes in every room. Specific cleaning cupboard in the kitchen area. Big windows – really important, this is one thing I miss in England.

(Bedrooms are never presented as 'double' or 'single' - I don't know any 'child' living at home who had a double bed, and everything is measured in sq metres - it'd be pointless information for someone that a double bedroom, it doesn't say anything about the size, apart from the fact that it is at least 2x2 metres ;-) )

Would be really interesting to see a standard home in Italy/France/Spain/Ireland/the Netherlands for example and hear about the choices made there/what people like and want, I’ve never been in any :-)

I can post some homes in Denmark later on too if anyone's interested.

I find that interesting about keeping the curtains open in Sweden and no one being supposed to look.

I've been going for evening walks and I'd say around 80-90% of the houses in my (UK) village have curtains shut. Personally I find it cosier and more private with them closed, but I love a nose at the houses where you can look in.
I have to be subtle though as I usually wear a very bright head torch .

@VetonCall, the Ascot Drive Midridge - oh the cupboard space in the kitchen! That is one thing I miss in Britain. Even newly built houses seem to have so little cupboard space in the kitchen (even in reasonably sized kitchen). Where does everyone keep everything?

Yes, Canadian houses generally have loads of storage space, and space in general. Master bedroom suites have huge walk in wardrobes, then there's the basement, ceiling height kitchen cupboards, walk-in pantries, bonus rooms and huge garages. Gardens/yards are usually small in the suburbs though and the houses are built really close together. They maximise the indoor living space in each plot rather than a smaller house with more space around it. Houses are usually very carefully staged for selling here too, basically they want it to look like nobody actually lives in it, even if it's being marketed as a 'family home'.

There are no letterboxes in front doors but no mailboxes in gardens either - there are 'blocks' of 20 or so mailboxes all around the neighbourhood and each house has one allocated to them, ours is at the open end of our cul de sac and across the street. There are 4 bigger lockers for parcels and if you have one the mailman/woman will leave a key to whichever locker it's in in your mailbox and then there's a letterbox to put it back through once you've retrieved your package. People (me!) sometimes ski or sledge to pick up the mail 😂

It gets very cold here - attached photo is the forecast for early next week 🥶 but houses are really well insulated and really warm with very efficient forced-air heating via vents in the floor (no radiators). UK houses are generally much colder despite the temperature difference. Houses here also have outside sockets which you plug your cars into overnight in winter to stop the batteries dying in the cold 😄

There are lots of fairly strict neighbourhood and city bylaws here - you can't fence in your front yard, back yard fences have to be chain link and max. 4 feet high if they face onto a public footpath, you're not allowed to keep chickens, cats are not allowed to roam outside, you're not allowed to keep a caravan, motorhome or boat on your driveway or the street, if a public footpath runs by your property you have to shovel 'your' section of it every day in winter etc. etc.

I forgot to add this about post in Germany.

If you live in a flat or house with one entrance for multiple houses, each individual flat or house doesn't have its own number like 23a or flat 10. Instead you must have your surname printed on the mailbox, and unless something is addressed to you personally, it won't get delivered. In our building two families have the same surname so they have their initials on the post box as well. I think they actually are related so presumably they just hand over the post if it goes to the wrong house.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

One thing I miss now we are back in the UK is the bottle deposits. Something quite satisfying about being paid to recycle (even though you weren't really, as you paid for the bottles...)

Every time we are on holiday DD loves returning the bottles. Saying that one supermarket was really complicated, water bottles in one machine, milk in another, yoghurt pots in a third. It took us a while to figure it out.

One day a girl came with a large crate of bottles, it looks like she collected them from a fairground/camping ground and made a decent chunk of money.

We once got stopped at Hull port with a boot full of crates of empty beer bottles. One custom officer was confused. The other laughed and explained to them that returning the crates and bottles to the supermarket in Germany was expected behaviour... It was a common sight at the port apparently.

Usually it's just two machines, one for Mehrweg, one for Einweg. (Single use vs reusable). Some supermarkets only have the single use ones, and some have fancy machines that can take both types.

Sometimes older people or homeless people go around collecting bottles and returning them for the money. People generally seem to think this is a good thing but it makes me a bit uncomfortable if I'm honest. It can't be a lot of money to make, and it must be people who can't get work for some reason or other - I think it's unfair and they should be able to be paid a decent wage. Germany has really good employment rights so for people to praise this kind of money making feels wrong to me.

@BertieBotts

Usually it's just two machines, one for Mehrweg, one for Einweg. (Single use vs reusable). Some supermarkets only have the single use ones, and some have fancy machines that can take both types.

Sometimes older people or homeless people go around collecting bottles and returning them for the money. People generally seem to think this is a good thing but it makes me a bit uncomfortable if I'm honest. It can't be a lot of money to make, and it must be people who can't get work for some reason or other - I think it's unfair and they should be able to be paid a decent wage. Germany has really good employment rights so for people to praise this kind of money making feels wrong to me.

I know, that's why we were so puzzled about the way this supermarket sorted the glass. DD loves the plastic single use ones, she enjoys the machine crunching the plastic.

The girl I mentioned was maybe 15/16? I am sure she used it to boost her pocket money. And I think it's better to return the bottles properly than having them in a big plie of rubbish unsorted.

Germany has a good social security system but every system has its faults so people may need the extra Euro or two.

I think it's probably a sign of us all being a bit packed in and living in older property, but I often think our homes are not well considered. I lived in flats in cities for a good few years. Lots of which were odl or not purpose built. So don't have the great features German or Japanese apartments might have.

I'm remembering how annoyed my youngest used to get about being too short to reach the machine at the Getrankmarkt (probably spelt that wrong!). It had the conveyor for the crates at the bottom, then the bottle bit was about adult shoulder height. If it was a couple I could lift her up, but we often waited until we had a sackful.

Like vetoncall in Canada in the Midwest USA I have to clear the pavement outside my house every time it snows and put salt down to prevent slippery ice.
This happens quite a lot in February and often people hire people whose job consists of doing this.
Or you buy a snow blower.

I remember the bottle return in the Plus and Albert Heijn in the Netherlands. It gave a voucher to be spent in store in return.

House purchase and sale was very easy in the Netherlands. Everything via the estate agent. We asked the agent what would happen if someone pulled out of a purchase once the price had been agreed. He said it would be the best day of your year as the person pulling out would lose 10% of the agreed price. We explained the English system to him and he looked baffled!

We agreed the purchase price and a few weeks later went to the notaris to sign forms and pick up keys. The vendors had already long gone but I dont know if this was normal as the neighbours did suggest that they had done a bit of a flit!

Really enjoying this thread.

re the bottle recycling, it's always annoyed me that we stopped taking our bottles back to the shops in Britain. I remember taking glass bottles back to to the shop and getting to keep the penny, it was early 80s and was already on the way out. Baffles me as to why we stopped

Yes, we stopped in the UK. I also remember relatively recently the milk man who still serves people on my street today and returning the bottles (we don't drink milk now so stopped it).

In a lot of the UK we don't have much space and we don't have enough money for new houses. At least our older hosues in the UK are likely to have attics/lofts etc. My son bought his first house last month and it has the usual loft ladder and some storage space up there and a garden shed. His older brother bought a really nice detached Bellway house just over a year ago for about £300k and that I think has no loft space but it does have a garage so he can store things in there and it has an upstairs bathroom, an en suite too and downstairs toilet too whereas my other's son's house just has the one upstairs bathroom - in fact lots of the houses we looked at last Autumn for my son only had a downstairs bathroom as the 2 up to 2 down houses he was looking at were built without bathrooms originally (they also have no parking or garage which is another issue too as they were built before people had cars).

If you look a lot of older terrace houses have incorporated what ws the outside toilet hence the bathroom being beyond the kitchen.

Mind, some houses were built before kitchens as we would know them. Just a small space under the stairs. No oven. The local baker would allow his ovens to be used by local households once the baking was done.

My Facebook is now showing me houses!

I like this one:

www.eiendomsmegler1.no/boliger/3c68e90e-0537-4e02-8cdf-84d65e3e51df/bilder

@Xenia

Bottom line is the UK seems to have the least space and smallest homes sadly. Squashed in like sardines. We have 17m more people than when I was born for example.

My son just bought a 2 bed terraced with garden for £350k England (SE). You don't get much here for your money.

I could buy this for that price

I don't have anything to add, but this is my favourite thread on mumsnet right now. I love nothing more than looking at other people's houses!

Bertie Botts
Much of your first post applies to France too.
I was shocked when I moved to my first rental to find nothing but a sink unit in the ‘kitchen’ and wires hanging out of the ceiling where the lights should be!

Oh they take light fixtures with them here in Finland too, was not fun when I moved into a flat after escaping my ex with nothing but a suitcase of clothes and there wasn't even any lights in the flat except the florescent one in the kitchen and hallway!

I'm hazy on the difference between fixtures and lamps ;) but in Sweden a flat will come with fixed lights in the kitchen and bathrooms (something functional with oomph). Nothing stopping a previous tenant from taking the bulbs mind, but the lights are fixed. The rest of the rooms will have the sort of set up with a hook for ceiling lamps and a little socket, so you add your own lamps. Normally no wires hanging out. Anyway, people take their lamps, not the other bits.

Lack of storage is a problem in all newer builds here too, at least in apartment buildings. If they're building to sell, they get money per flat, so make much less out of "other areas". So there are no communal areas being built anymore. If they're building for renting the problem is similar, the cost of land and building is so high they avoid building all the "extra space". A flat built in the 1950s--1970s would have had a spacious storage space in the building cellar (sometimes attic), and sometimes another storage space meant as a food cellar, like a big wooden cupboard. Now our storage spaces are much smaller and sometimes they get out of it altogether by building little box rooms in flats and saying that's the storage space. Who wants to keep their winter tyres in the flat, like.

I thought of something that always genuinely baffles me whenever I go to Ireland. Whyis there a loud noise when I turn on the water? My relatives said it's something to do with the pump working when you turn on the taps, but I've never been in a house in Sweden and heard a pump.

banivani someone was talking about water tanks in the loft in Ireland and the UK earlier, that's probably what they mean.

That's interesting re the storage for winter tyres @banivani. I hadn't thought of that, I think they're a legal requirement over there.

We used to have a UK tyre business. It's not that common for people to use winter tyres here (being ex trade we do). We'd get a core of organised people come in October/November to get them swapped. Then the others who'd arrive on the first cold snap.
We used to occasional store them for our repeat customers and offered two services - changeovers (where the tyres are removed from the wheels and the winter tyres put on - around a 45 minute job) or bolt ons where the winter tyres were already on a wheel suitable for the car (10-15 minute job).
How does it work there?
(We have four spare wheels with winter tyres on already, and I let DH get on with it!)

nightscreams - that's lovely and not too far from Cardiff. My son's house is on the tube (only just but even so...) and just outside the M25 but not vastly different from that one on the link except it has 2 not 3 bed rooms but his is not detached and the one on the link has a downstairs bathroom which for some reason we have taken against so one of our criteria was the upstairs bathroom he was able to achieve (and one that does not lead off a bed room which so many of them did which had had it built off the back).

On water tanks mine here in England is in the loft - to use the gravity I presume..... I don't think we get a loud noise with the water however.

On storage space one of my children owns a place in the Barbican in London built in the 1960s/70s and they did design well in terms of storage space which you don't get so much in some modern flats. Mind you theory I try to have fewer and fewer possessions but the adult children keep bringing things home to store here....

Commenting so I can come and properly read this thread I love this stuff

Marking my place here as I have something good to offer after home learning has been completed.