Differences between US and U.K. homes

[Youngatheart00]

Just a ponderous thread as it’s my day off and I’ve been thinking, mainly following the abundance of Netflix we’ve all watched over the past year, but also some of my travel experiences (not recently, obviously!)

Some of the differences I’ve noticed are;

• many more of the US homes seem to be fully open plan downstairs. Some don’t even seem to have doors between the rooms?

• the bathroom count / ratio to bedrooms is much higher! (Eg 3 bed / 3 bath or even 2 bed / 2.5 bath)

• heating systems, I don’t recall seeing radiators, instead vents in the floor, are these used to flip between hot and cold air depending on the time of year? How effective / efficient are they compared to our big radiator bars here?

• toilets - they seem smaller and the flushing mechanism is different

• baths - they also seem smaller, short and strangely blocky

• Space and size - all of the bathroom stuff is unusual when the overall size of homes, even cheaper ones, is so much larger. And some ‘back yards’ are absolutely huge! Obviously more land space in the US compared with the U.K. but still, notable but often not much privacy / fencing?

• waste disposal units - what ARE these?

• closets - I haven’t seen any free standing wardrobes. Are these just not used in the US?

Anyone got any others to add or any comments?

I have been to Aberdeen but it's been a long time. Granite Noir, you say? As in Stuart MacBride? You betcha.

I've got a gorgeous typed letter from Ian Rankin, thanking me for something or other. I do treasure it but I've forgotten where it is, and I think of him as a dear friend whenever I see him on telly.

I’ve heard him interviewed and he does come across and really nice and normal...

He’s a bit gory but has a good feel for the place - you can pretty much pinpoint his locations on Google Maps.

42BitOfFun

I'm jealous. Ian Rankin's books have given me so much pleasure through the years. I love detective fiction, especially British detective fiction, and even more especially Scottish detective fiction.

We had dinner with Ian Rankin at the Secret Herb Garden just outside Edinburgh. Well, we were at the next table and had a chat in the queue for cheese. Well I say a chat but my friend said “this cheese is amazing” and Ian Rankin agreed. He seemed very nice.

Total thread derail but I used to live in Quartermile where Ian Rankin lives now and confirm he was a thoroughly lovely chap.

Trying to get it back on topic-ish.....When I lived in the US I once had to spend some time in Waco Texas for work. On the first day I was introduced to the team I would be working with (one of the first things they said was “don’t go out in the evening without your gun.” Erm....what gun?!?) but they were so very lovely and it turned out that one of the ladies was an avid reader of the Scotland Street series of books and was obsessed by all things Scottish. She was fascinated about flat living in Edinburgh and I shared rather a jolly month with them reminiscing about home, which otherwise would have been awful month....Waco is not lovely!

@RonSwan, is it really that bad? I’ve been binge watching Fixer Upper on Discovery+ and watching what the Gaines do to old houses. There has been some fascinating different houses on there and they don’t always go in and rip out loads of wall especially in the later seasons. I’m also loving there friends who have businesses locally who they go to and get bespoke stuff from especially Clint Harp and Jimmy Don. They even went to George W Bush’s tree farm which seems to be local-ish to get a tree.

@ElGuardiandenoche, I stayed in a hotel so I guess didn’t really get to see the “real” city or indeed the suburbs but I never felt particularly safe and that is my overriding memory.

I also never ate so much deep fried food as I did in that month of my life...chicken fried steak (!) deep fried pickles.... I mean I’m Scottish and grew up with a deep fat frier, but my goodness Waco was another level!

What do people do for flooring upstairs if carpet is put? Wooden floors are so loud upstairs surely.

On a different note, every time I stay with my son, I eat sliced potato bread and love it! Comes in a wrapper like uk sliced loaves and I can’t find it in the uk anywhere. Can find potato farls, cakes etc but not the delicious sliced USA version.

@HeyGirlHeyBoy

What do people do for flooring upstairs if carpet is put? Wooden floors are so loud upstairs surely.

Lots of people will put carpet in an upstairs hallway. In a typical two-story American house, the bedrooms will be upstairs, so there's not a lot of walking around up there.

[quote ElGuardiandenoche]@RonSwan, is it really that bad? I’ve been binge watching Fixer Upper on Discovery+ and watching what the Gaines do to old houses. There has been some fascinating different houses on there and they don’t always go in and rip out loads of wall especially in the later seasons. I’m also loving there friends who have businesses locally who they go to and get bespoke stuff from especially Clint Harp and Jimmy Don. They even went to George W Bush’s tree farm which seems to be local-ish to get a tree.[/quote]
Waco is a shithole, as is most of Texas. (I'm American.)

You are seeing highly edited versions of these communities on those home renovation & repair shows. Very highly edited.

Those houses esp in Laurel (Home Town) are selling for $45,000 for a reason. Anywhere even remotely safe or desirable they'd be $150,000 and up, before the renovations took place.

Another note: there is something so gross and off-putting about Chip Gaines, I find the show unwatchable.

I have hard wood flooring everywhere
It isn’t loud as when you are walking around people are in their slippers and mostly people are downstairs during the day.

I just hate carpet as it can never be cleaned properly on a day to day basis.
Also I hate the sound of vacuum cleaners so we use a brush. So much quieter

What do people do for flooring upstairs if carpet is put? Wooden floors are so loud upstairs surely.

I live in a two story house; all the bedrooms are upstairs and have carpet. The downstairs flooring is all wood, with tile in the kitchen and half-bath. It's the same for most people I know who live in two-story houses. Or one story houses, for that matter; bedrooms have carpet; other rooms have hard flooring.

@HeyGirlHeyBoy

What do people do for flooring upstairs if carpet is put? Wooden floors are so loud upstairs surely.

We build our houses so that the wood floors are not noisy. It’s perfectly possible but easier if you do it during the design and build stage rather than try to retrofit.

STC ratings are your friend here.

We had carpet in the kid's bedrooms but oak floors in the master. I think it's done that way because if you have young kids they tend to fall as toddlers and roll out of bed occasionally.

Our wood floors are not noisy at all. As ZZ says, it's a question of having a proper subfloor and underlayment.

Ah OK, interesting. Thanks.

@RonSwan @PerveenMistry.

Thanks for your insights. It’s interesting hearing about other countries. I’ve been working my way through the property shows on Discovery+ and it’s been fascinating.

We had carpet all the way through the house, apart from kitchen, utility room and the bathrooms.
It was Air Force blue when we bought it and when I came to replace it about 6. Years later , I decided on Air Force blue again after seeing the state of the cream carpets in my friends’ villas..
A lot of people tiled their downstairs which looked lovely..but central Florida still got a winter and and could make it quite chilly, plus there was all ways the risk of accidents of people stepping in from the pool with wet feet and sliding across the tile.

I loved my walk in closets. In 2002 we bought my dds wedding dress in may and her dad boxed it in the walk in.
In letters to guests , I used to say , if your wondering what’s behind the boxed in partition , it’s my dds wedding dress. When we arrived in October it was still there and untouched.

A couple of years later, I decided I was more than generous with closet space and had it sealed off with a proper locked door , instead of a sliding Louvre door. There were huge mirror wardrobes on the other side. That was great . Anything we wanted to leave that was personal was the. Locked away in the closet.

We also had a huge Louvre door cupboard in the kitchen, and there was another one under the stairs for hoover etc.

There was such a lot of competition amongst villa owners. It really was keeping up with the Jones. Mine was a 4 bed /2.5 bath
I looked at all ways to make that into a 3 bath, but it would’ve been a lot of hassle and would’ve meant knocking out the utility and moving the washer and drier into the garage that was our games room and I just couldn’t be arsed. Plus it would’ve looked messy.

New homes were springing up all the time, 4 bed / 4 bath and basically you were on a hiding to nothing. We’d gone down the tv in every bedroom route , plus the one in the lounge, all channels from tv company. The there was free internet access. There were videos, books, cds available,
Then we bought a big hot tub and I just thought, enough is enough.

One of the reasons we bought where we did as there was no HOA.
Most of them prevented pool use after 10 pm and we knew that would’ve gone down with the guests like a lead ballooon. Plus like others said, there’d have been too many piffling rules
We paid $150 a month for pool and gardener so we’re quite happy with that and to be honest the area always looked good and well maintained.

Most people didn’t have a lot of grass anyway with it being so hot.

It was a great time. Had some great holidays there . It brought the family back together at holiday time. It could sleep 9 and we all had plenty of space.
In 9 years of owning I probably spent about 1 year there, quite easily.

Oh and one of the first things I did when my family moved out in the uk, was to turn an unused bedroom into a walk in closet.

Surely it would be more than that with a family

Perhaps, but dryers are big. I can fit two loads of laundry into my dryer, and people who have to use coin-operated machines in an apartment building basement don't like to waste quarters drying small volumes.

I know women who blow dry for 40 minutes daily.

I have the biggest home use dryer they make, but I admit to often running it for relatively small loads. Right now it's full of washed pillows drying with three tennis balls to fluff them up again.

I would vote tooth and nail against taxpayer funded or mandated maternity leave. Pregnancy can be planned and saved for.

One of the big problems in the US is that people who are doggedly determined in their opposition to paid maternity leave for women are also opposed to abortion and contraception. Not saying this is you, @PerveenMistry, but there are big voting blocs holding the idea that in effect women should be punished for pregnancy.

America needs to sort out what it wants. If there is not to be natural increase and women are to be put off reproducing, then immigration of large numbers of people will be necessary. Voters who are opposed to immigration tend to be opposed to abortion and contraception. Again, not saying this is you, @PerveenMistry.

Can't read all 18 pages so apologies so if these have been explained.
The vents in the floor are forced hot air. It is separate to air conditioning (though I bet someone has combined it somewhere).
It's not a bedroom unless it has a built in wardrobe.
Most utility rooms are on the same floor as bedrooms, or basement. I don't know a single US kitchen that has a washing machine in it.
People do have kettles, but most are boil on the stove ones (I broke my mother's and it was a pain getting a replacement).
Waste disposals are getting less frequent. It's for food waste and grinds it up. I was always scared I'd get my hand ground to bits.
We used to have a trash compactor.
This may be limited to massachusetts but you can only sell food and few other non food items like flowers in supermarkets. Liquor is sold on a different floor or building (though this does seem to be changing).
And no one seems to do online food shopping!

I would vote tooth and nail against taxpayer funded or mandated maternity leave. Pregnancy can be planned and saved for.

Specifically on that topic though - how do you plan and save when a pregnancy could result in twins or higher multiples?
An unexpected C-Section?
A NICU stay?

What about hospitalisation for hyperemesis, bedrest for placenta previa? Induction because of pre-eclampsia?

A friend of one of my DDs cobbled together six weeks unpaid plus her entire two weeks of paid medical leave after a C-section performed because induced labour didn't progress at 36 weeks following a pre-eclampsia diagnosis, with twins, having had treatment for kidney stones and also a tumour during pregnancy, which ate up her medical leave. Oh and she had gestational diabetes too.

This woman was the picture of health before she got pg.

Six weeks is brutal after such a hellish experience. Even with a night nurse, she and her DH are shattered.

And though they are both on very decent salaries, they have nothing left at the end of the month after paying the might nurse (necessary in order the get the sleep they need so they can work.)