to think that unless you spend £££, houses in the UK are not very functional??

[PussinJimmyChoos]

Seriously...what is it with houses in this bloody country (and yes, I am English!)...they are so NOT designed for family life....poxy pokey 3rd bedrooms, kitchens you can't swing a cat in, only one bathroom in most houses and no space for entertaining....

It pisses me off!! Struggling with space in our house atm and just thinking that if a bit more thought went into the design of it, it wouldn't be as much of an issue

And why are so many new builds so small?!!!!

I have never even thought about the mixer taps thing. I think I am so englishly used to seperate taps that I don't even notice that they're a bit crap.

I think in England that you do get a lot less house for your money, and if you don't have very much money to buy or rent you end up with a poky hovel. But that brings me to the stupid UK tenancy laws which are weighted to the convenience oft he landlord, not the tenant, which is a whoooole other thread.

I have lived in horrible rented flats - WORST of which were those which had a joint kitchen/living room (the kitchen was just shoved in the corner of the living room, usually in converted Vistorian houses and designed that way in order to cram as many flats as possible in). Hideous way to live

I agree, it would be great to have what Americans, Australians have, but we are densely populated. Just been on holiday and see what Italians and Spanish people live in, dark apartments, no gardens, squashed together. We maybe more luckier than them.

I believe we are the idiots living in the dirty stinking towns and cities. But then again do we want to travel miles and miles to get groceries, I don't.

I used to live in a 1930's house, I agree, the third bedroom was rubbish. Now I live in a 1960s house and it is much more in proportion, size wise, but the frontage was typical 60s blandness.

I think some of you are a wee bit precious, you know! We have a bathroom without a window (big mirror, though). It has very adequate ventilation and a powerful extractor fan. And this business about 'everyone must have their own loo'...! And not having washing in the kitchen because it's not 'hygienic' (what are you washing???)

Dear me. :)

Personally I find some (not all, obviously) huge American new builds OTT. Huge footprints, wasteful of energy...

But not everyone cares about showers or mixer taps. I've got a mixer tap in the kitchen and it drives me round the bend. I'm sick of having lukewarm drinks because the hot water hasn't cleared from the pipe yet. Couldn't give a stuff about having a mixer tap in the bathroom. I hadn't given it a thought before reading this thread.

I have a shower (cubicle) and a bath. I hardly ever use the shower. If I could only keep one, I would keep the bath. That's probably because I am 45 and grew up without a shower, but I have heard time and time again that a house without a bath loses value whereas a house without a shower does not.

When we were planning our house changes to squeeze in another bedroom we thought of moving the bathroom downstairs and having a shower room upstairs. We were advised not to do this, because "the main bathroom should have a bath in it" so we did it the other way round.

I lived in a nasty banlieue in Lyon once. But on the whole the quality of flat was better than the council estates I've been in here, shame about the racist attacks we suffered and we wound up leaving in the middle of the night.

We had a typical Victorian terrace, but knocked the dining room and kitchen wall down, so it's a bigger space. And got the kitchen custom done, and have a few cupboards to shove laundry into that act as a 'utility room.' Also, a loft extension makes a difference with a 2nd bathroom.

That said, we all tend to sit at the kitchen table most of the time, so not sure why I thought having more space would be a good idea

My mum's laundry DID smell of Rosemary, it was a lovely old cottage garden because they had an old cottage.

Downside being when I went out to get the coal for the Rayburn on a rainy night I had to walk down a path festooned with 5000 snails so it was always a crunchy walk...nothing like fetching coal in the pitch dark in the pissing rain with dead snails smeared on the soles of your feet...

So, it would be a snail tinted memoir.

LOts of Birmingham terraces are laid out with bathroom downstairs through the kitchen. This is just so wrong.

we sold our 4 bed newish build in NW england earlier this year and bought a house probably 3 times the size in Germany for an extra £60,000.

But a lot of that extra space comes from having a proper basement. We've got the same amount of floor space that we have in the ground floor repeated in the cellar.

This would be an idea for builders in the UK if the argument is that they have only a certain amount of land to build on and would then give people space for the utility rooms etc that everyone seems to want!

and on one of the previous posters wish list was a sauna - we've got one in the cellar - only used it twice in 18 months!! but looks impressive to visitors!

Am I correct that the trend with showers in UK is that they should ideally be a separate shower cubicle as opposed to one over the bath? It's the impression I get from (shudder) home porn magazines, and certainly friends of ours who have re-done 2 houses have installed shower rooms as opposed to putting the shower over the bath. why is this? It's a nice luxury to have a separate shower room/cubicle but it definitely isn't necessary when the shower can just go above the bath. Space problem solved! Once again home porn is to blame, I reckon.

There was a Homes Under the Hammer episode in which a Swedish woman purchased a flat in London and did it up. She took out the bath entirely and put in a spacious shower. The look on the presenters face was a picture.

No bidets anywhere, either :o.

My house is a Victorian terrace with the bathroom through the kitchen. I expect that originally, what is now the bathroom would have been a scullery with the toilet outside.

Going from this website which I thought was fascinating :)

There is no running water at all upstairs which some would find odd, but I like it. No running upstairs every time you need the loo! The bathroom is cold though and feels very separate from the rest of the house.

My cousins still had an outside toilet when I visited in the early 90s. We were quite terrified of it, but I did use it a few times.

I started this some time ago... just to dream a little

I'm not bothered about mixer taps either. I have 1 in the kitchen, although could happily do without, as washing veg etc uses cold water and generally by the time the mixer tap is at correct temp I've finished filling washing up bowl. Have seperate taps upstairs except bidet so can clean teeth in cold water more easily.

Practically every problem in this country is due to overcrowding. We are a tiny island with a huge population.

The net contributors are leaving and the people taking their places tend to be net takers.

My bathroom is downstairs off my kitchen. Originally my house (1930s) was built with no gas, electric or bathroom. The pipework now is amazingly higgledy piggledy, and the bathroom is a wierd (tiny) extension off the back. But round here that is what most terraced and older council houses are like, as they were modernised after they built, and tried to keep the extra bedroom.

I honestly dont see anything wrong with my bathroom downstairs. I quite like it, upstairs is just bedrooms. Visitors dont have to traipse up my stairs, and I can shower without waking the kids up. Also made potty training a hell of a lot easier!

Wow, thanks for that Alouiseg.

Btw, when I was an undergraduate (2003), there were three student houses with outdoor showers and loos (and none indoors). In my year, they were snapped up by the people at the top of the ballot because they were near college.

Expat - so really the problem is just that houses are too expensive? That's just a function of the restraints on supply and availability of credit here. The same happened in parts of the states prior to the credit crunch. Easy credit makes houses more expensive.

here, let me google it for you

Before you get all chippy on me the population of The UK has increased by 10 million in 30 odd years.

The age in which we start work has raised from 16 to 21/22 we live a lot longer too. Therefore: more people are dipping the pot rather than taking out.