Can anyone explain the design of 1930s houses to me please?

[whatsthecatch]

I'm thinking of moving to a 1930s house with the typical bedroom layout of 2 good sized bedrooms and then a third tiny "boxroom" type room that is classed a the third bedroom.

Now I have 2 DCs it seems unfair to expect one of them to have a big room and one to have a tiny bedroom.

I have always wondered why typical 1930s houses are designed this way and would love to know what the thinking is behind the design? Did they expect a family to have their children sharing the second bedroom regardless of age/gender? Was the tiny room designed as a bedroom at all? We have family with a 6ft tall son who grew up in the tiny room and they had to take the skirting boards off in his room to fit his bed in!

So, anyone know about 1930s architecture? My 1970s house has 3 similar sized rooms so obviously architects were thinking differently 40 years later!

Thanks

I used to live in a 30s terrace btw & some of the houses were 3 bed incl the aforementioned tiny box room & some just 2 bed but had a bigger front bedroom. Same size overall.

My dad grew up in one of these and the box room was used for a sewing machine, woodwork materials, clothes like hats in boxes which didn't fit in the main bedrooms.

Basically parents in one bedroom, kids in the other, ideally in separate-sex beds. Two changes of clothes if you were lucky, maybe a box of treasured toys per child. No recognition that a child needed a desk for homework or anything.

If you wanted space and comfort, you went to the pub - that's what public houses were for! (and, renting a crap student house in the late 90s, we did the same thing, going to the pub to write essays somewhere warm, lit, with large tables and working plumbing...)

stubbornhubby Thu 14-Apr-11 11:55:32
it's to do with the layout of the ground floor, and supporting walls

I seeeeeeeeee, that makes complete sense. I'm so dull this is one of the most intersteing things I've seen in a while

Been interesting. Thank you. thing is though, apart from the rubbish 3rd bedroom, those houses have great proportions in the reception rooms, don't they?

My grandmother raised 10 children in a 3-bed cottage (and one of those was a box room that could only be entered through the bathroom). The idea that it was 'unfair' to put a child in a box room would have been laughable; NOBODY had the space we now take for granted, including the parents.

I now live in a 30s semi, and the previous owners' two children had the boxroom as their shared bedroom (with bunkbeds) and used the bigger bedroom as their dayroom/playroom. That seems like a good idea, depending on the children.

We now have an extra two bedrooms in a loft extension, so have the luxury of having our two children in the top floor. We use the second bedroom on the 1st floor as a study (dp works from home) and the box room has floor to ceiling shelves for storage - complete bliss as none of the rooms are big.

NonnoMum - I always hear that about 30s houses, but our reception room is pretty small. The previous owners enlarged it by knocking down the hall wall, which certainly opens it up, but it means the front door opens straight into it, and it's really hard to keep cosy as warm air whooshes straight up the stairs.

Compared to its Victorian neighbours, my unsympathetically-modernised 30s semi has its aesthetic drawbacks. But it is much, much lighter and brighter inside, and was also significantly cheaper (and when I say significantly, I mean £150k less than anything of comparable size). And yes, the garden is enormous.

We're looking at the moment and can afford either a thirties house (and not a pretty bay fronted one) or a tiny Victorian semi and the thirties houses are sooo much bigger and more liveable in

I've been reading this thread with interest as we live in a 1920's house with a very similar layout to what has been described. The reason we fell in love with it was the huge garden - 100ft to the front, 500ft to the rear!!!!

However the third bedroom and the kitchen were tiny but we have been able to redesign the house to fit in with our needs. The kitchen has been knocked through to the dining room so we now have a good sized dining kitchen. The box room was opened up onto the landing and a staircase added which leads to a loft conversion which now gives us a huge third bedroom.

With a bit of planning 1920's/30's houses can be adapted for modern living.

Sometimes it was a master bedroom, a boys' room and a girls' room, and the box room was exactly that - a glorified cupboard.

It can actually be good for kids to share, and people should always consider adopting the 1930s pattern of living as an alternative, as family meals in spacious dining rooms and convival bedtimes with siblings can be very pleasant.

you didn't play or do homework in your bedrooms because they weren't heated. You did your homework in the back living/dining room (as opposed to the posh front room) because that was the only warm room, as well as it being where the table was.

The layout was a standard design used into the 50s and 60s because it was cheap to build. There are millions of houses in the UK that are exactly the same layout, just as before them we had nearly identical Victorian terraces and semis. They suited the way people lived when they were built but, as with so many houses, they often don't suit modern living. Fortunately most of them have a decent size garden and often they have space beside them as well so you can extend them to gain extra space. A single story rear extension is a really cheap way to get a bigger kitchen. A two story side extension is more expensive but could give you more bedroom space and an extra downstairs room.

And don't forget that at certain periods of history, (some) people positively disapproved of young people spending time in their bedrooms on their own, rather than being in the family rooms where everyone could see what they were up to - just like people today might have concerns over children having access to the Internet in a private bedroom.

e.g. Aunt Stanbury in 'He Knew He Was Right'

in my mums house we extended the box room into my mums bedroom so the front bedroom was a little smaller and the boxroom a little larer

Grendelsmum, we still live like that!

I've just bought 2 Trollope novels and a couple of Henry James on the back of your Trollope reference, Grendel!

I love one-click buying!

Delighted that my reference has sold more Trollopes!

Shall I try and sneak a Trollope reference into every property thread for the next week?

I've just been reading on wikipedia, it seems kitchens were large until the 20s, before this they were a living hub, then came the idea that work (in the kitchen) should be separate from living, relaxing and entertaining. So they were built to be as small and efficient as possible (to save space/money and maximise the space left for living rooms) with room for only one person at a time until the 80s when the extractor fan was invented which allowed open-plan kitchen/living spaces without smells, fumes, steam etc, and this was also when open-plan living started to become fashionable. And now because of cooking programmes etc, large kitchens are more fashionable again.

Wow - so much information! Thanks everyone.

I've been thinking of this thread as I was driving around today looking at the houses!

I've also been thinking of my aunt's old house, built in the 1800s. A two up -two down with outside loo! I guess this arrangement with 2 bedrooms in the house was considered adequate for normal working people and later, a third boxroom was a huge improvement!

This is so interesting.I love architecture and history,sepecially domestic stuff.Our 1964 house is built exactly like a 1930's one,right down to the smallest bedroom being over the hallway.My dds love sharing a room and the small bedroom is destined to be my craft room.

I second Mirage. I live in a house built in 1953 and the layout is identical with to the 1930's house.

Dh and I have the bay windowed master bedroom over the living room, ds has the generous bedroom at the rear of the house. Dd (8) has the little bedroom over the hallway. But we are quite lucky, our 'box' room is approx 8 x 8ft. She does have the stairwell protruding into her floor space but her midheight bed goes over it so quite a neat solution.

I would love to give dd a bigger bedroom but funds just don't allow it. We are considering having a loft bed custom made for her when she is a bit older, with integrated storage underneath custome built to incorporate the stairwell.

We have knocked through from the kitchen to the dining room to create a spacious kitchen/diner which runs across the entire back of the house. It is lovely.

I have to say I think if more kids spent their time downstairs with the family, or playing out, and less time in their bedrooms, there might be less of an emphasis on consumer perfection and better personal relationships instead. We also probably give kids too many toys. It would take a lot of pressure off people in their early lives as parents if the expectation was that kids should share bedrooms and toy collections should be streamlined.

hmm, you may be right Boffin.
I think I shall trick my children into playing downstairs by turning the radiators down in their rooms.

it makes me sad that gardens are often so small.