AIBU to be amazed at how far you have to walk in some houses?

[ChachiChichi]

Ok right I'm in a holiday cottage and it's taking me a good 60 steps (ok I wrote this as a guess originally , it's actually 33 but the point still stands!) between the living room and kitchen. The bedroom feels miles away. How do you manage when you live in a massive house? I only have to walk 1 step between my living room and kitchen and I don't have any corridors in my house (just a small landing). I'd find it boring walking around just to get to the kitchen /living room/ bedroom/ toilet.

AIBU to think there's just too much walking involved with some houses and it makes them boring and tiresome?

It's great having teenagers out of the way at the other end of the house... until you have to call them for dinner.

I'm glad I don't live in a tiny home with no space to move. Movement is healthy.

@YesIReallyDoLikeRootBeer I was wondering the same so I've measured from sofa in the living room to kettle in the kitchen because coffee happens multiple times per day - 19 steps

Ooo random.

21 steps to walk across the kitchen itself.
50 steps from further part of the kitchen to the furthest away reception room.

I do like space. But yes it’s a lot of walking.

It's a lot of walking but also a lot of vacuuming and mopping when you have a big house. Can do without that.

I would love to have this problem. The bigger the house the better. I used to live in an apartment, literally 1 step from the living room to kitchen, 3 steps to the bathroom and 4 steps to the bedroom. If I remained home all day I hardly got any steps in. When I bought my house I enjoyed walking several steps to get to my kitchen from the living room! And going up and down those stairs a dozen times.

My mum‘s house isn’t huge like what OP is describing.

Before I had so many issues caring for mum, I used to actually enjoy doing those chores around her house. There is something about a house that makes it feel worth looking after. With a small flat it just feels like a constant battle to keep on top of it.

In her house, there’s actually space to put things and ways to make it look lovely. So I rather liked chores there. I accept that it might be different if I actually owned it 😂 But I think I’d enjoy looking after a house.

There's a difference between having large rooms and having a daft layout.

I grew up in an Edwardian house. We ate in what would have been the servants' zone. I think it would have been a combined sitting room and work room for them. It was a large, sunny room, with doors leading off it directly into all the service areas of the house: kitchen, utility rooms, pantry. The dining room was literally at the opposite end of the house. It was only used for entertaining (but my parents were great 'entertainers', loved any excuse to host, so it was actually used every 3-4 weeks). It was such a long way from kitchen to dining room that everything took ages to it, it took relays of people to get everything transferred and the food would get cold. Perhaps the distance between kitchen and formal dining room was a status thing - it showed you had many servants. Mum bought a hostess trolley.

You have me counting steps around my house. 12 from my side of the bed to the ensuite. 50 from the kitchen to the furthest bedroom. All this is one level. 60 from the furthest living area to the furthest bedroom. No idea if that is considered big or not. Indoor steps also tend to be shorter than my regular walking outside steps.

It’s funny you mention the chair. DP and I were laughing about this. That it doesn’t matter how big or small your house is becasue really you spend 99% of the time sat in the same chair 🤣

Wasn’t that so your guests had half a chance of getting out of the house alive when the kitchen caught fire?

I've just done it. Kind of.

37 steps take me into my loft, into the street or into my neighbours'.🙈 That's a big property @ChachiChichi. YANBU.

I live in a tiny flat where the maximum steps from any part to another is 15. There's 15 stairs to the front door, too. I can't actually walk very much (though usually more than 15 steps) so, if I lived in an echoing mansion, I'd get one of those e-scooters to zip around it. That'd be fun.

my walk has become the ministry of silly attempting this. It’s a dozen lunges from sofa to back door to get the cat in. 37 steps seems huge. I will do a more scientific test tomorrow.

I feel like this when I’m at my mum’s. It was the house I grew up in but having lived forever in tiny places (slightly bigger now) I find it a right slog if I’m staying there for a while. Trekking across the kitchen… she has also put the fridge in her out place which to me is ridiculous but it works for her.
I lived for 10 years in a s/c bedsit - or studio I guess. I could almost stretch out from my bed and open the fridge.

I know a couple who built a 4000 sq ft home. I couldn’t begin to guess how many steps it would take to get from the front to the back.
And it’s gorgeous too - I can’t think of one critical thing to say about it.
Huge garden, a pool.
I’d live there in a heartbeat.
I’m not about to call them up and ask them to count how many steps it is from their kitchen to their bedroom, either.
That’d think I’d lost my mind.

My ability to get steps in because of my house is quite good. It’s mainly on one floor, I’m not sure how I’ll get bungalow legs here. Bugger calling kids for dinner though, we do a lot of shouting.

So what do people consider a large home, by measurement?

21 steps to cross the kitchen?? So it’s 12 m wide?

I grew up in a big house. We used to do quite a lot of shouting .
eg Mum in the kitchen would send one of us to go through 3 large rooms to bottom of stairs and holler ‘DINNER!’ . My brother’s house has a gong for the same purpose.

Also - you never went upstairs without taking things with you . House rule …

My house is long and on 3 levels so from the kitchen sink to my chair in living room, it’s 12 steps across kitchen, up 3 steps to hallway, 4 steps across hallway and 2 steps up into lounge. Then 14 steps across the lounge to sit. We have bedrooms upstairs but not counted….
used to live in a bungalow for 5 years. When we first moved here the stairs were a challenge as I wasn’t used to it!

Of course I had to test this as unsurprisingly, it's something that has never crossed my mind.

From bedroom to kitchen 33 steps.
From bedroom to get doggos bowl (Lab,breakfast, say no more) 62 steps.

I have short legs though, if that makes a difference.

Have a one level houses, no stairs.

My grandparents had a big house in Dulwich, London with a split staircase - up then went both left and right. My mums childhood home. Was great as a child playing hide and seek with my sister. My grandad died in his 60s and nan came to live in a much smaller house near us. I miss that big house, but there's no way they would have been able to live in it as elderly people.
After living in a Victorian house (London) for decades when married, I now live in a flat post divorce. I hate not having stairs and no space. Two steps from sofa to kitchen. 14 from sofa to bathroom. 18 to bedroom. Thankfully I'm moving out of London to the coast and the place I'm buying is bigger! Plus it's 200m to the beach.

Are you so bored on your holiday that you resort to crticising the size of other people's houses?!
You'd hate mine. Even I get fed up of the stairs!

I'm away so can't count. We live in a 3 storey house that also has a roof terrace, so roof to basement is 3 flights of stairs. Our bedroom is ridiculous- we have a king size bed and there's still 5m of floor space left between the end of the bed and the window.