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?!!!!

1. no own front door (no clear delineation of what you own and don't) --> what is the problem with that?
2. difficult with pushchairs --> if the design is good there is room enough in the downstairs hall to store is (like in germany or other continental europe)
3. hard if you own a dog (no garden) --> dogs need daily walks anyway
4. some very low quality flats have been built in this country! --> unfortunately true
5. the potential legal/ financial problems when you don't have outright freehold. --> agree, needs reform
6. your neighbours noise is your noise. --> would not be a problem if building is of good quality!

To clarify my point about no utility rooms, I do think it is a bit yuck to have to do your laundry in the kitchen (I now have a utility room but didn't until about two years ago.) The reason is that when clothes need soaking/the poo needs scrubbing off, etc. the only sink is your kitchen sink. I think the British habit of the washing up bowl must be because otherwise you would have been washing up in the same sink you would tip 'soaking' water down - particularly relevant in the days when there were no disposable nappies.

I do realise it is still a bit of luxury to have one in this country - but they seem to be the norm in most of the Western world, afaik.

Yes LadyP that's a good point, having thought about it, I don't know where I would put the laundry that is waiting to go in to the machine while it's already doing a load.

Particularly gross if it's dirty nappies, DH's stinking rugby kit, dirty gym or running kit etc. We always have about two to three loads a day in this house and TBH having a laundry room is an absolute godsend. We'd manage without of course, but it would be a right royal PITA.

Yes, but mousymouse, points numbered 2 and 6 are very hard to come by in the UK.

I have no utility (room for one- but not finances to build the thing) - would like one. When I used washable nappies I just soaked them in the bathroom - only took seconds to pop them in the machine.

In my apartment complex in Sweden (I lived there a few years ago) we had shared laundry facilities, and you basically booked out the slot you wanted for the washer and drier. People still ripped out their baths to make room for a personal washer, bit of a waste when you think about it - although particularly cruel for me as my apartment had a washer but I needed a bath far more in order to deal with crippling period pains.

My apartment had steps so steep to the second floor that it had to have half of each step cut out so you could put your foot down on the one below, if you see what I mean. It was still great, though. The main complaint is that I was at the end of the line for the hot water supply to the radiators, so too little got through to provide adequate heating.

DH, who lived in Sweden for longer (actually lived next door to my apartment for a number of years!) is still incensed by the lack of mixer taps in this country.

We had no covered parking - imagine clearing a foot of snow off your car every day for four months. Good times. (Admittedly not every winter where we were).

yanbu.

My house pisses me off on an hourly basis./ 1960's tiny terrace, 3 beds (the smallest of which won't fit a single bed in), no downstairs loo (despite there being space if they'd thought about it), stupid bloody chimney taking up space which could be used for storage, no storage at all, I can hear my neighbour running his taps .... I could go on but I will depress myself.

It is lovely in some ways (cosy, warm, laminate floors) but way too small and badly designed and I cannot wait to be able to move in a couple of years. I want a new house with en-suite and utility room, even the cheaper ones are better than my current house.

Shared laundry facilities at many US apartment complexes as well.

I disagree with the title "unless you spend ££ houses are not very functional"

My house is a council house, 1930s build. If it were privately owned it would be one of the cheapest 3 beds you could buy in the area. It has 3 bedrooms (2 doubles, 1 single) 1 square front room, 1 largish kitchen and 1 downstairs bathroom. It is compact, my washing machine is in my kitchen, my tumble dryer in the alcove between the back door and the kitchen, but my house is perfectly functional

However, in the UK unless you spend £££ houses arent very elaborate......

Just wanted to say it's not all bad with flats!

People look down on flats, becaus

1. no own front door (no clear delineation of what you own and don't.

• How odd. Isn't that like saying you don't know if the pavement outside your house is yours or not?

2. difficult with pushchairs

Yes, often. But not always - some have lifts; many have big hallways or a downstairs storeroom.

3. hard if you own a dog (no garden)

This is a bit of a poor point, I think. Many houses have tiny gardens - not much fun for a dog! I live in a flat, with two others under mine, and we have a patio garden. I wouldn't have a dog there as it's tiny, but not tinier than some people's proper gardens!

4. some very low quality flats have been built in this country!

Some very low quality houses have been built in this country! But I agree - it's the tower blocks that taint the rest. No one should have to live like that.

5. the potential legal/ financial problems when you don't have outright freehold.

Is this very different from the problems with terraced housing? I really want to know; we'd love to dream of buying a place one day and it will probably be a terraced house given the market round here.

6. your neighbours noise is your noise.

Same is true of a terraced house. Or indeed of a house by a major road/railway.

expat - yes I remember this from ER, Susan Lewis taking the baby down to the basement laundry area! I used to host entire laundry parties, where colleagues staying in hotel accommodation came round to use either the communal washing machine or mine in the evenings.

Lady, my bathroom is tiny - loo, handbasin, shower, that's it. There's no more room on the floor after that lot for us to have a full-size bathmat. But I still soak anything yukky in a bucket in there, not in the kitchen! Ewww.

having kids in a flat with no garden can really suck.

expat, does it have to? Would it still be crap if there were a big park nearby? Or woodland where they could make dens? Or do they need their own space, do you think?

(Sorry, I'm digressing a bit, but I want to know what it's really like when you have children in a flat.)

"My house pisses me off on an hourly basis". Me too Meglet, me too...

Oh lovely Victorian terrace, let me count the ways in which you piss me off, daily:

• front of house is boiling, back of house is freezing. No zoned heating or even a blinking thermostat to control the heating
• terrace - so trapseing through house to get to garden
• no parking
• 65cm wide hallway, yes 65cm. Now that's a motivation to stay slim...
• House is split over 3 floors, but is only 1200sq ft total, so each floor houses two small rooms. Living room a whole floor away from kitchen, via 60cm wide v v steep staircase. Yeh, because that's just great fun with a toddler
• Creaky floorboards, so if I need to pee anytime after about 5am (PG, so this is a frequent occurence), I wake DD up
• Terrace = v close proximity to neighbours. I can smell them smoking outside. Yuk.
• No downstairs loo, or upstairs loo. It's lurking on the middle floor next to DDs room so really inconvenient in the day, and at night.

It does look nice though so I'm hoping someone will buy it quick before I'm stranded in this ridiculous layout with a toddler and a newborn! Any offers?

Good thread, puss. IMO the essentials for a family of 4 are:

• Large through-lounge
• Dining room/ mahoosive kitchen/ diner
• Utility room
• Room for hanging laundry in loft (heat rises so clothing will dry more quickly without the need for electric dryers)
• Pantry
• 3 double bedrooms
• good-sized garden with side access for bikes and proper cycle storage
• 'loft' storage built above every ceiling (also good for insulation)
• sauna

Okay maybe not that last one

Mmm ...

Speedy, could you please become minister for housing? I thought it was only stately homes that had a pantry, but I quite fancy one now!

'expat, does it have to? Would it still be crap if there were a big park nearby? Or woodland where they could make dens? Or do they need their own space, do you think?'

Yes, yes it does have to. Especially until they're old enough to go a park on their own, which means in many cases they need to be quite road savvy if they have to cross any roads.

Make dens in woodlands? LOL.

Otherwise, you get to spend a big part of everyday, on top of everything else you have to do, either going to the park, over and over, or getting nagged to go to the park. In the rain. No chucking them out in the garden to splash. Nope. You gotta go, too.

I'd sell my soul for a garden to have them out in whilst I pegged out the clothes, tended the garden, play a quick game with them rather than long blocks of time traisping to the fucking park, could have a trampoline in, other children over to play in, BBQ/make tea (with kitchen door open) whilst they play, do activities in (like tie-dye, water pistols, giving them pails of coloured water and telling them to paint the house, etc.

It is a fucking nightmare not having a garden, IME.

I'd sell my body for £20 a pop to have a garden. I seriously would.

The thing that puts me off living in a flat/townhouse in this country is the lack of decent fire escapes. I don't know whether they actually do have them elsewhere but they always seem to in e.g. New York etc. Whereas our high rise blocks have a lift and a couple of staircases. If you're in a high rise block, you don't have much choice about it though generally.

it's fine with one child who doesn't walk/isn't active. but otherwise, it's shitty shite.

oh, and flats = neighbours. terraced house = neighbours on two sides. flat = usually neighbours on three sides if not four.

god, i'm depressing myself here, thinking about another long, cold, fucking winter in this flat with three kids.

Ah, ok. Thanks expat. You see, I have lovely, idyllic, out-of-date memories of making dens in woods, and going wandering up the canal towpath on our own at age 8, and so on. But we did live in the sticks, and this was 20 years ago!

Thanks for the candid advice. I would love to kid myself that it'll all be ok to have a baby now but the more people tell me otherwise the easier it'll be. I hope I didn't offend you by asking? It really was just a genuine question and I don't think it's easy to answer unless you're in the same situation.

I agree with Speedy that a garden needs to be a reasonable size too. Ours is literally 3m square and while I'm very grateful for that, after 5 minutes DD is screaming because there's not enough room to run about or actually do anything out there.

So we spend our weekends tossing a coin to see which London park we'll shiver around this time. And she's desperate to get out of the house by about 8am, and again in the afternoon, it's seriously tiresome.

I would shave off all my hair if I was able to move to a house, tomorrow, that had a garden big enough for a small child to run about in, play in a sandpit and perhaps have a swing or a slide or something.

expat - I'm so bored of the park it's not true...

expat, cross-posted with your last post, so my last isn't a reply to it. Sorry, I didn't realize I was being so trivial and crap.

Yeah, see, you were 8, LittleRed, not 2 or 4 or a 7-year-old with dyspraxia who's not very good with directions.

We're in the sort of sticks and, well, the roads are 60mph, many with no pavements.

Oh, we had 2 kids in a second floor flat with a car park rather than outdoor space of any sort at all.

WAY fun lugging two of them and a double buggy up those stair because most of the UK doesn't believe in lifts, either.

NOT.

We had to because I wasn't 28, I was 32 when we started.

But like Crazy, I'm getting so desperate for a garden I'd do something very very rash to get one.

The UK isn't densely populated, but England is. It is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. We need to move more work out into the other parts of the UK and redistribute the population a bit.

But I like living in a tiny house. I would just like a bit more land to go with it.