Things that make you go 'Wow' when visiting other peoples' houses

[expatinscotland]

Cool books, music, DVDs

Musical instruments

Period features - I'm jealous

Water features

Leather furniture

Antiques

big pile of wellies (with mud, natch) by the back door
big pile of labrador dogs (with mud, natch) by the back door
servant's quarters
coach house bigger than my house (mentioning no names.....)

Hmm, I'll have to think about that expat. Most of mine are from my grandmother who went through a phase of buying loads. Also several that I bought one holiday when we ran out of clean nappies. They have, of course, been well washed

expat I have all those teatowels

I am laying them all out now for your perusal

trunk, with labels suggesting sojourn in the tropics

pmsl at quince tree, for some reason
a moat

I always get kitchen envy............doesn't have to be tidy............just

my kitchen is the size of a matchbox, LGJ, so yes, kitchen envy is pretty common for me. especially kitchens w/Belfast sinks and/or flagstones . . .

or just room to turn round.

oh my

a bagpiper playing out front . . .

swans
a resident giraffe

Space always impresses me and good books and good cookbooks. And a decent cup of tea. Or preferably a decent glass of wine

walls painted in period colours
big kitchens with (non-smelly) dogs sprawled on the floor- and an old armchair for the hounds
Lots of books the sort that make me think 'oh god, I should have read that by now'
Plenty of light
a proper attic (with dormer windows)
friendliness
good coffee

EPIS

Long galleyish badly laid out, and worst of all..........not my choice.

reslly shabby chintzy old furniture
a duck decoy

Big shelves full of books.
A piano - any piano
A garden - any garden
Beautiful sanded and polished floorboards.
A big, slightly battered, very solid, obviously handmade wooden kitchen table.

expat, you have a matchbox for a kitchen? Wow! We have a postage stamp - not a big special one either, just the bog standard queen's head type.

an aga

a crappy terrace w/a yard

Oh, and an old-fashioned rocking horse.

ours we be okay, ticky, if we didnt have to have the fridge against one of the walls.

that dire electric hob, either, or that washing machine that sounds like it's making a bid for freedom w/every spin cycle.

but it's a rental so we make do.

original fireplaces

Books here too - it's jut not right to have a house without them.

And a room just for gift wrapping things, like Aaron Spelling had .