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

[file]

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.

@DinosApple Some people will use a storage service for sure, but a lot of people store their tyres in their "storage space". The Swedish word is "förråd", a word that falls smack in between grand ones like depot and storehouse and small ones like utility room. ;) English should import it.

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

I've never been in a house in the UK where they pump water to the taps. Reasonably common to have a pump on a shower (the water tank needs to be a certain height above the shower head to get a decent output) but not across all taps.

Danish houses often seem to have toilets diagonally in a corner. It doesn't appear to be for a space reasons as the bathrooms normally have plenty of space.I always find it a bit disconcerting for some reason.

We have to have winter tyres in Germany as well. It doesn't actually get snowy/icy often enough to be an issue where we live, so we just have all-season tyres now which is much better - with our last car we had summer and winter tyres (already each on a set of wheels) which we left at the dealer and got them to swap them over when we had a service or when DH remembered to make an appointment. It was annoying, always seemed like an extra expense you didn't want to pay and so I think for about 3 years out of the 5 we had that car, we had the wrong tyres on for a whole season.

Despite Rep of Ireland being the UK's nearest neighbour, there are some differences in the houses at least outside the cities.
A lot of houses are still heated with oil that is delivered by a truck twice a year. Some rural houses also burn turf from their patch of bog which is the nicest smell ever but I don't think is great for your health. Wood burning ranges are also common.

The back door is used much more frequently than the front door outside the cities. I had relatives whose front doors I only used when following their coffins.

Irish homes were never as big into dining rooms as British homes. Everyone lived in their kitchens way before open plan living was fashionable.

Oh and the airing cupboard is the "hot press" and is usually co-located with the boiler.

MoreCraicPlease

Very much like Yorkshire re back doors, not as much now but it's still referred to that in Yorkshire you use the back door.

When growing up if you knew the person who's house you where going to, you'd walk straight past the front door a go around the back.

I seem to think it had something to do with the front door and room being for best and receiving 'guests' but family and friends are welcome in to the hub of the home sort of thing?

Maybe I'm only thinking of the shower ... Possibly, I'm remembering a loud as hell noise too early in the morning.

Some British houses had a servants and tradesmen's entrance and a front door. In fact even my parents' 1928 detached house had a small bedroom originally for a maid, a set of bells that were still there in 1961 when they moved in to ring to summon her from the kitchen and a back door which I assume she and delivery men were forced to use!

My Mum and Dad's house still has the working bells. It drives Mum mad if Dad is poorly and he presses the bell to tell her he wants needs something. They are elderly.

@MozzchopsThirty

Great idea for a thread!

This [[https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/900-Clear-Creek-Cir]]ClermonttFL347144M52988-42538 was the street we stayed on in Florida

5 beds and a pool for £171k which wouldn't buy me a 2 bed mid link where I am

It's because of the school district. We were looking at moving to Orlando at one stage, so I duly spent 4 days checking out houses, schools, areas generally. The school districts were generally awful. This is one area where I didn't even bother looking at houses because there was no way my kids were going to Lake County schools.

Re winter tyres in Sweden: 'tyre hotels' are increasingly popular, where they swap the tyres for you twice a year and store the summer/winter tyres for you in the meantime. Very practical!

@banivani, storing tyres in the storage room in the basement may be common, but it is actually illegal :-) Fire departments have tried to clamp down on it for ages - very very bad if there's a fire!

So lovely to hear about and see houses from other corners of the world! It is sad in a way to see that building styles that have developed because they are appropriate for the climate/culture for example are becoming less popular because of 'standrrd American houses' growing in popularity... I much prefer traditional styles.

Agree that the shack in South Africa was great. Very interesting to see!

Thinking of storage, those big glass houses in the Netherlands were often used for overwintering caravans. I liked the idea of having a summer crop of peppers and a winter crop of holiday homes.

Certainly where we lived in the Netherlands the schools werent fenced off as we see in England. Children would be allowed to play in the school yard at weekends & evenings.

More on German houses.
Playmobil, a German company. First set we got was the Preschool... And the building just looked so German. The biggest thing was the angle of the roof. I can't exactly explain it, but it just looked like a typical German house.

@GnomeDePlume

Thinking of storage, those big glass houses in the Netherlands were often used for overwintering caravans. I liked the idea of having a summer crop of peppers and a winter crop of holiday homes.

Certainly where we lived in the Netherlands the schools werent fenced off as we see in England. Children would be allowed to play in the school yard at weekends & evenings.

Schools (at least in my area) aren't fenced and gated off in Finland either, the children play in the school yards after school and at weekends. Daycare yards are open too outside of daycare hours though they have signs up saying only for the use of children under 10 years old.

Oh yes the schools aren't fenced in here in Germany either. You can just go in and play on the equipment in the afternoons/holidays/weekends. And the children can in theory just wander off, although I've never heard of it happening. They barely ever have a teacher supervising the playground, though! It's bizarre.

No only are playgrounds not fenced in in most of Sweden, the schools themselves are accessible to anyone and as a parent I have the right to observe my child's class. So if he's being a pain the arse at school, I can humiliate him by sitting next to him in class to keep him inline. (My DS is a sweetheart so wouldn't need this but I know one parent who did when her son was playing up as a teen. Imagine the embarrassment!)

Hah brilliant! Worst nightmare for a teen!

My favourite school related thing is that school is a legal requirement, so if you have a grumpy truanting teen, the police can and will come and pick them up to escort them to school every morning :o

(For SEN related school refusal I think it's handled differently).

Love the houses posted by the OP! Wonder how they compare price wise with UK houses.

About the Malaysian / Indonesian houses with the front room for guests.

This was the case in the UK until fairly recently. There would be a 'front room' which was for 'best' and only used with guests or on special occasions like Xmas.

The middle classes would have another room for family to be in, the working classes would more often congregate in the kitchen with a chair by the stove/fire.

It's also one reason that the kitchen became the 'heart of the family' and so why UK kitchens are preferred to be on the bigger side as they're seen as somewhere family congregates.

@Zofloratheexplorer

Thanks *@file* for your detailed response! Sounds quite straightforward. I remember bridging loans from when I was studying property law so they were a thing in the past.

Bridging loans exist in the UK but for some reason are very hard to get and very expensive.

Years ago I visited a secondary school in Germany.
There was a small group of youths drinking beer outside the door at around 9am.
I was told that because in this case the library was for public as well as school use nothing could be done about it.

Great thread OP!

Re the Australian water supply, to be fair to those good people at the various water authorities, over 90% of Australian houses are connected to mains water but we are not always very good at getting infrastructure to more remote areas. Tank water also makes good environmental sense in a dry country, but it should be filtered going into and out of the tank, oxygenated and so on if it will be used for drinking water.

We also have bridging finance here, or alternatively you just sell your existing house first and rent while you look for your second house. This is not as common in Sydney and Melbourne though because the housing market keeps going up.

Here is a fancy Sydney place near the harbour www.domain.com.au/20-wolseley-road-point-piper-nsw-2027-2013526071

Midrange older style house, short commute to CBD www.domain.com.au/60-service-avenue-ashfield-nsw-2131-2016760092

New ugly house, less expensive because it’s further from the CBD www.domain.com.au/23-sydney-smith-drive-penrith-nsw-2750-2016661759

@umpteennamechanges both of my relatives who live in farmhouses in the UK have ‘good rooms’ only used at Christmas like you speak of.

I was watching Ackley Bridge recently (about ‘poor’ people) and they very much used the kitchen as their day to day social space and even had a more formal front room for more special occasions. Doesn’t really make any sense to all be crammed up in one room but I do understand it and it must be from a bygone era type of thing.

Here’s me with just one living room and a kitchen far too small to socialise in. I feel very hard done by now!

Then not even*

It would have been very expensive to heat multiple rooms, and the kitchen may well have had a fireplace or aga so would have been the warmest room incidentally, without having to waste fuel on any other rooms.

I think that's partly why these other rooms were "for show" - because you'd only light the fire in there if you had company and that was a way to show you could afford coal, which was almost a status symbol in those days.