Poor SIL, apparently she has notions

[DurtBurd]

SIL has spent the last 18 months building a gorgeous mansion house on family land in the rural Midlands (of Ireland, for those who don't realise they've clicked on a Craicnet thread). She has decided she wants people to use her actual front door rather than coming round the back of the house and in through the utility room. It's like the barely healed civil war wounds have been hacked open. As a Dub without a back door fetish (get your mind out of the gutter), I fully support her front door notions. Dh is horrified. MIL is mortified and wondering what the neighbours will think. It's all great craic.

Ooh, see as a Dub I think she's gotten her notions all wrong. I know I've made it because I can now come and go through the side door in the utility because I have a house big enough that it has more than one entrance accessible from the start because I moved north of the border where land is cheap. Coming and going through the front door is for small houses.

BUT, dictating the door anyone uses, regardless which one? Definite notions.

Actually, I need to know - which door will she use?

I don’t think the front door was ever used in my friends mansion even though we had to walk past it, and around half of the said mansion to get to the back door.

Front door all the way, have been town and rural. In fact I've blocked access past the sides of the house with fencing so some notions on me!

SIL be using the front door herself! Her argument is she spent enough making the front of the house look good, she's going to make the best use of it. She's also eschewed the tarmacadam drive. At this rate it's a good job she got the land sorted, she'll be disowned.

Would be likewise in SIL's.

Give her six months and she'll want all the coats and shoes mess away from the beautiful front entrance.

Wonderful. I can hear your posts in Marian Keye’s voice.

Fair fucks to her I say!

Dub living in Wexford here, it's back door all the time now, the front door is only used by people who don't know us 😂 Good luck to her trying to convert people!

The mansion has been equipped with a well proportioned cloak room off the hall. SIL is an excellently organised woman.

How bizarre, I'm a gypsy and none of us use the front door either (well those I know who live in houses).

This is really making me laugh. Great craic!

I have only just realised we never use the front door in any of my family’s houses. Never even thought it was odd before. Walk right past them and round the back (also rural midlands).

I must have notions - front door for all visitors (except my two very dear friends) side door for the Tesco delivery man (leads to the kitchen) and back door for immediate family and the dog (utility and dog bath area) - I’m really quite strict about people using the front door. I’m aware this is quite a weird thing.

When we were moving last time we viewed a house (in Dublin) that had the front door and the back door side by side, which was flipping genius. To be technical, I suppose both doors were side doors, as they were side on to the road, but both faced the end of the drive/parking area. This meant that with absolutely no effort you could herd muddy football kids into the utility area or open the front door and bring guests in through that even if they had tried to enter through the back door.

Anyway, SIL needs some sort of ornamental and very spiky planting at the sides to discourage people from nipping around the back, or possibly a water feature or a big fence to 'keep the dog in the back garden'. I have lived most of my live in Dublin or London and would have no truck with people coming around the back of my house, or, indeed, letting themselves into my house (unless it's my Mum and she's been invited).

Ha ha, she could be my SIL! Omg whichever door is nearer, the parked car!!. We use the back door most to be fair. Visitors who we don't know knock the front door. Regardless of door you come in as long as u exit the same door 😆 🤣 -opened that can of worms---

I'm Scottish and have a front and side door. Use the side door 99% of the time having 2 big dogs. Front door is rarely used tbh except when ds 's health professionals visit

Jeepers, is an embarrassment the collective term for front/back/side doors? Some of you are just showing off.

Is Tar MacAdam one of the neighbours?

I have a childhood memory of the parish priest making his one and only house call to us, possibly while I was in First Communion preparation. My mother, whose usual swear word of choice was 'sugar', said 'oh feck, it's the priest!' He used the front door.

Sadly, I now live in a semi-detached house in London where using the back door involves ringing the (front) doorbell to get someone to come round and unlock the side gate. We only do it if we have a bike to bring in, or a child asleep in a pushchair. I still cringe a little at the constant use of the front door.

My late Irish MIL had a house where you couldn't access the back door due to gates and the like, so she made up for it by leaving the front door unlocked at all times, with a holy water receptacle on both the inside and out in case of emergency.

I bet your SIL is the talk of the town though,

I had no idea there were such peculiarities in Ireland

Just wait until you hear about waving to pedestrians while driving. Now that's complicated. I'm from Dublin and go to very rural Clare regularly, I know I'm getting it wrong, but I don't know why.

I'll be honest, I had to call to MIL yesterday. She'd left the front door open to allow a bit of air through the house. Just for the shits and giggles I parked and brazenly used the front door. I was treated like an apparition of the Blessed Virgin herself when I came into the kitchen from the hall and not the yard.