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.

This is such a great thread!

What a great thread OP! Apart from the houses/flats it's fun to see how listings are different in different countries. Swedish listings often have loads and loads of stylish photos for example (v shallow).

As another Swede I'd like to bitch about the fact that the Karlskrona house have installed a foreign butler style sink instead of the practical and unbreakable stainless steel double sink undoubtably there to start with. Style over substance. Hrmph. I lament the practical solutions of houses past, now abandoned for whatever is new and flashy.

Something else that can be unusual is that Swedes don't worry as much about privacy in the form of fences etc. This house in the small town of Hofors for example (if you love wood panelling, do check it out, it's as though a sauna exploded in there) has exterior photos that show that they have very little in the way of property boundaries.

Something I found really interesting when I was house hunting in Italy was the number of places that hadn't been modernised in decades or longer. I even saw one house that had the original 17th century kitchen!

My first home in Germany was a flat/apartment. It had a laundry room in the cellar... But all the flats had to buy their own washers and dryers. The slots in the cellar were numbered so you knew where to install yours. We also had our own cellar for storage etc.

The second home was a house, and it had full metal roller shutters on all the windows. Complete blackout.
(We also had full length glass doors on the upstairs bedrooms instead of windows, with horizontal railings. They terrified me!)

Our Cyprus house was considered very strange.. as it had central heating. Cyprus has a winter by the way, and the houses aren't insulated. The temperature could get as low as zero.

This is an interesting and potentially even more interesting thread as what I am more curious about (having lived in numerous geographies globally but currently located in prime central London) is the diversity of house buying tastes between period old housing styles compared to new build developments. I am thinking along the lines of aspirational expat quality lifestyles so assuming well above average purchase price if not luxury housing. In olde Britain (and other old world colonial legacy European nations) unlike many wealthy developed nations there is much appreciation in period properties (old but modernised sympathetically) with elevated demand and pricing with limited stock. Recent and new builds tend to attract less of a premium apart from shiny new metropolitan luxury riverside, park side, hill top or sea view properties in larger private residential developments with all the added bells and whistles such as landscaping, sporting and aquatic facilities, sky gardens, private clubhouses and cinemas with decent hotel grade concierge etc etc.

Do many other overseas nations have a desire for older period housing stock? Be it keeping the facade and exterior architecture (as sometimes protected) as well as some of the original interior architectural features. Or are new builds (particularly luxury developments with added life's amenities) more popular and desirable? I am thinking along the lines of luxury holiday villas etc in hot overseas expat communities. Many of these newly built with older local period architectural features.

Just some thoughts to stimulate discussion between global house buying tastes between old and new architectural choices and preferences.

Always interested that French/Italian/Spanish houses often seem to be allowed to deteriorate quite a lot and people don't seem bothered by peeling paintwork, holes in roofs etc - I panic about the tiniest little thing and would love to be more relaxed about house maintenance.

@FatCatThinCat

Also common in older Swedish homes is an attic with stairs access like this. Ours are behind a door in the kitchen. The attic has a proper floor and would be used to hang out laundry to dry in the winter.

You can see a room at the end of the attic which is a summer bedroom. During winter it wouldn't be used. Our house is like this and the summer room was actually DD's bedroom. This mean she had to put her coat on to get to it in the winter as the attic was -20C.

This is fascinating. I grew up in the north of Scotland which has strong historic ties to Scandinavia. The layout of this attic space is identical to the layout of my great aunt's attic, complete with small bedroom and stairs from the kitchen. Suspect in her case the small bedroom would have been for a servant though.

Loved my florida villa with pool.
Love the white skandi houses too.
I have a white bungalow inside and out.
Can’t get enough of it.

So interesting to see all the houses and differences! Like others I had no idea that there were Australian households that use rain water directly.

@afromeg: The Scandinavian countries used to be very homogeneous, with a definite dominance of one traditional culture, but especially Sweden is now a much more mixed country (25 % of all residents were either born in another country, or their parents were). Finland and Iceland are still quite homogeneous – Denmark and Norway somewhere in the middle. I’d say all are quite influenced by American culture now, unfortunately ;-( (There are so many other interesting cultures too!)

@skyebluepinks, both kitchens in the cheaper houses look quite basic, interesting! Even the kitchen in the more expensive house isn’t very big – is it not as much of a thing to have big kitchens in NZ?

@theotherboelyn.. Wow about Korean flats having one thin wall that can be smashed! Never heard of. Do you know how that started, was there a fire at some point for example? And really interesting with digital locks too. That really feels like a new thing here still.

@BerryPie, that idea with one room that doesn’t get used much sounds a bit southern American (from friends who live there). Yes, feels like a waste of space… How does it work with visitors who need to use the loo, is it always ok to walk into the rest of the home, or would it be normal/better not to ask to leave the nice room?
I love basements too! So convenient, and very common in Scandinavia too. Should have picked an older house with a basement.

@sometimesonly – no window sills in Italy, wow! So strange. Do you use the outside ones for anything?

@banivani, yes I loathe the far too big focus on styling everything in Swedish ads! Also the hundreds (well…) of photos from the surroundings, like cafes in the vicinity etc. I’m not buying a cafe, I'm looking at homes! And yes, the Butler sink I realised is very untypical too! Should have found a normal double sink one!

@TheOtherBoelynGirlThe old fashioned tiled stoves in this flat are suuper desirable in Sweden – quite often they don’t work, but people find them atmospheric. When I’ve shown them to English friends they’ve found them hideous and pointless :-)

Any houses somewhere in Eastern Europe, or anything typical for them?

I remember when we put our first house on the market here in Sweden. The estate agent kept trying to take photos of the dogs (perfectly groomed westies) and I told him not to as the dogs weren't for sale. He thought I was very strange.

My husband is Tunisian, this is similar to our apartment (first floor). His mother, father and younger brother live in the ground floor apartment. Like @BerryPieandCustard, our apartment has its own separate entrance which nobody uses as nobody would ever bypass the family, only the main entrance is used.

This is a very typical living arrangement, our apartment was built on top of the original ground floor family home and each house is walled with a main gate. Nobody can see into the courtyard inside - it’s very private, the benches are typically built into the walls and it always smells like jasmine, it’s everywhere in Tunisia. There’s also usually an area in the courtyards for washing rugs, etc - I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who washes rugs in the UK but here they have a dedicated bath As the house is on the Mediterranean coast, there are a lot of tiles (floors and walls) and the house needs repainting yearly because of the sea spray.

The other houses on the road (all the same style) belong to relatives or people they have known their whole lives so class as family, which I understand is very common too.

I love this thread!

I’m not Japanese but I’ve lived in Japan for a long time and during that time I’ve lived in a very old wooden house in the countryside and a number of apartments in the city. Houses in Japan are usually freezing cold in winter because there’s no central heating. People either use the heating setting on the aircon or oil stoves or electric heaters and only heat one room at a time. On the other hand, toilets and baths are really high tech. I’m sure everyone has heard about the heated toilet seats and bidets but I love the baths more. The bath is not for washing but for soaking after showering and they are really deep and can be automatically filled and kept at the right temperature at the touch of a button. Some even have intercom systems so you can call someone in the kitchen to bring you something while you’re in the tub 😄

One annoying thing is that people take their light fittings with them when they move so when you move into a new place you have to buy lights for all the main rooms otherwise you’ll be sitting in the dark.

I’m sure there are more differences but I’m so used to living here that I’ve lost track with what is normal!

@Sometimesonly

I live in a city in Italy and there is a huge variety. I live in a 1960s flat and I love the light and high ceilings. I would quite like to move to one of the 1500s/1600s buildings in the town centre with all the interesting nooks and crannies! I do miss internal windowsills like you get in the UK- all ours are on the outside.

@Sometimesonly I am Italian and had to think for few minutes about what houses don't have windowsills in Italy! I personally never lived in any house without one, and I think the norm is to have internal windowsills like in the UK. I can only think about very old type of properties not having them (like big historical buildings or some rural houses with very deep walls). I am very surprised a 60s flat doesn't have any and I would say it's not the norm, unless it's something regional perhaps?

Also wanted to ask your opinion on windows opening on the inside. It took me a while for me to get used to the opposite when I moved to the UK, but now I am so used to it that I don't even see it!

Lived in France for a few years and found their preference for these utterly bland new build bungalows baffling. There were so many beautiful old houses but people preferred these identifit new build houses which had absolutely no character - all painted cream, white walls inside, grey floor tiles in every room. They on the other hand thought that Brits were crazy to love these old houses which they reminded them of their grandparents and they considered to be money pits.

I personally never lived in any house without one, and I think the norm is to have internal windowsills like in the UK
Really? I have hardly ever seen those in Italy apart from in the mountains! I think it's because if you have the roll up shutters (tapparelle- don't know how to say it in English ) then they have to be inserted within the window recess outside - hence outside windowsills. If houses have old fashioned shutters that you can push open then the sills are inside. I like the windows opening inwards - makes them easier to clean and no need to pay a window cleaner!

So strange. Do you use the outside ones for anything?
Not really. My neighbour used to put her pan of soup out on it to cool down - until she knocked it off and almost wiped out my son who was walking underneath. I'm too paranoid to balance anything on them!

@Sometimesonly

I personally never lived in any house without one, and I think the norm is to have internal windowsills like in the UK Really? I have hardly ever seen those in Italy apart from in the mountains! I think it's because if you have the roll up shutters (tapparelle- don't know how to say it in English ) then they have to be inserted within the window recess outside - hence outside windowsills. If houses have old fashioned shutters that you can push open then the sills are inside. I like the windows opening inwards - makes them easier to clean and no need to pay a window cleaner!

Thanks for the explanation. Still don't know what you are talking about hahahahahahaha! Sorry, I don't doubt what you are describing. I have just never seen them. I am from Lombardy and lived in Emilia Romagna too. Maybe it's a regional thing having them outside instead of inside? Where I grew up the norm is on both sides, either with tapparelle or wooden/metal shutters.

This is what I mean (not my flat but similar idea). The dark line outside is where the roll down shutters go. All the houses I've lived have been like this.

Our house in Norway was similar on the ground floor to the OP's Swedish one, with the open plan layout, but large basement and no upstairs. The bedrooms and main bathroom were at one end, oddly with its own front door and hall with storage, with an internal.door into an identical front all with the same cupboards.

Outside was decking and then a shed and a woodshed, with a plastic roof over, and garden all round had very shallow soil with granite rocks poking up all round. Bit like the Peak District. Apparently local planning permission was a mere matter of 'you think you can build a house there? Good luck to you!' So foundations went into fissures between granite rocks and material added to make it support a house.

This meant tax breaks if your house could conceivably be a multi-family home, so most basements had high windows set into window wells (often home to hedgehogs and frogs), and an exit to stairs leading outside. Ours had a room with high kitchen cupboards and a cooker hood to convince the tax people it was a kitchen - below was a deep freeze. Most of the basement walls were still unfinished bare pine, which smelt nice.

Also there was a laundry room in the basement, with a chute from upstairs - it had washer, dryer, ironing board and hanging space. Most people had the chute in the bathroom but ours was under the kitchen sink - we never figured out if the kitchen had been the bathroom before the bedroom wing was added, or if the family who built it stripped off in the kitchen. This is the country of skiers nude and in bikinis and where gingerbread men don't have buttons but strategic pink icing, so who knows?

Like most Norwegian houses we had a large fireplace in the lounge but also a wood stove. We were rural on the coast so power cuts were at least weekly in winter, so you'd light a bag of power cut candles (what Brits call tea lights) and heat up food on the hot plate on top.of the stove.

Houses in towns and suburbs would be more likely to have an upstairs, but all would be painted in cheerful colours.

@Sometimesonly

This is what I mean (not my flat but similar idea). The dark line outside is where the roll down shutters go. All the houses I've lived have been like this.

Thank you! Now I see what you mean. I think I have seen them only in holiday areas/new builds? It might be a sign I have been living too long outside the country!

Baku, Azerbaijan: Mixture of 50s-80s Soviet
apartment blocks - very concrete blocky, and some beautiful 1900-era blocks from when it was a wealthy city (Nobel made his fortune there), looking like ones in Paris with little ornamental metal window boxes and curly plaster - most were faded and in need of paint 20 years ago but more are done up now.

Big difference is arrangement of rooms to keep heat in in winter and out in summer - the main bedroom and lounge had no external windows, only onto a long sort of conservatory room that was almost all windows on one side. In summer you'd only use it for storage and close it off after 10am. The lounge had an amazing wrought-iron chandelier with over 100 light bulbs - but power cuts and surges meant we never had more than half a dozen working!

We had mains water which allegedly was safe to drink but was so chlorinated it would take the surface of your skin off, so you'd rinse in bottled water after a shower. I'm told it and the power supply are much improved now, at least in the city.

French door locks - I've stayed in ordinary apartments where doors look like something from Fort Knox (and these were in good areas)

The American thing with gated communities - necessary in some parts of course, but otherwise much more about perception than reality

Oh, and a slight tangent, but as said on the other thread I've never understood why US realtors/estate agents fail to have floorplans on their listings. Fair enough if it's a tiny condo, but otherwise it seems a bit odd

@SexyGiraffe love love love the white box.

@file Thanks OP, that's really interesting to know. American influence is so widespread - it's everywhere.