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

We had a thirties house once. It had been owned by an old woman who basically lived in the front reception room because by the end of her life she could hardly get up the stairs! Not sure what she did about using the bathroom, but there was no hot water or central heating. The whole place had to be stripped out and renovated.

When dh first showed it to me my reaction was, 'no way' because I considered it ugly on the outside. But when I went in, I was amazed at its fantastic proportions: two huge reception rooms, two large bedrooms (with the third smaller one) and best of all, a massive hallway - which was so much bigger and lighter than our Victorian house.

The kitchen was small but we built an extension off the back so it became a really good size. The carpets we pulled up and the floor boards were amazing so we sanded them all and kept them exposed.

When we eventually moved from it I was sad to go because despite its unattractive exterior (pebble dashed!) it was the loveliest family house - so bright, airy and spacious.

I am a big fan or 1930s houses, and they look better painted cream - they often have nice windows, sometimes even leaded. Or if you have original Crittal metal windows there are firms who can refurbish them for you. Unlike Victorian houses they make a lot more of light and space and are easier to run, as people were not expected to have domestic help by then. The gardens are usually generous and sometimes you even get a bijou 1930s garage if you are in metroland, which might have seemed unusable ten years ago but now cars are a little smaller could even be pressed into service as a garage again, perhaps. Or bike store, of course.

I think there's even a case for going back to modest kitchens and spending more time in a proper dining room rather than always feeling you have to spend £20k doing a Sarah Beeny and knocking through. We do too much rebuilding and faffing about with houses, IMO.

WRT to turning down the heat in children's bedrooms, don't forget to turn off the power supply to the upstairs as well so they have no gadgets and light.

Well, I've just been browsing at the garden centre and happened upon this range of books

I got a bit excited by the "1930's house explained" title, and thinking of everyone on this thread I started to read. But in the section about bedrooms the book just explained that two large bedrooms meant one for adults and one for children. So still no good explanation of the design intention of the third "bedroom".

Read a lovely bit about how the bay window of the master bedroom was meant to be filled with a 1930s three mirror dressing table, positioned by the window for maximum light.

I didn't buy the book as I'm saving up for my house move

Sorry, 2nd page of the link has the 1930s book.

This house is for sale near us. The gardens are beautiful, but same bedrooms that we've got now and over£100K more!

Sorry, link doesn't show details.

Bedroom 3 is 5'10" x 6', and the bathroom is about the same.

Just wanted to show that it wasn't just terraces and semis with this layout.

I live in a 1950s house with this kind of layout but we were able to extend it around the garage, so that the box room has been extended over the top of the garage and is now the biggest bedroom in the house and the kitchen has been extended across the back of the garage. The only downside is that we can only get into the back garden by going through the kitchen.

When I was a child we lived in a 1930s house with the same layout but no scope (or money!!) for a side extension. I had the box room and my Dad's solution to me not having space to open my bedroom door was to fit a sliding door. When I hit my teens and flounced off to my room I'd slam the door and lose any dramatic impact because it would just bounce back open again .

my grandparents had a lovely 30s house, but my mum was an only child so the box room was the box room.
It was beautifully built - stained glass window by the stairs, bay windows in the front room and master bedroom, deep skirting boards and beautiful oak doors. Grandad grew up in a very overcrowded couple of rooms in Camden Town so it must have seemed wonderful to them - though when they first moved in when the house was new they only had the downstairs, so no bathroom.

Granny always hated the kitchen though, because it was so isolating being stuck in the tiny little room by herself. When dh and I nearly bought a 60s house with a small kitchen my mum told me I absolutely MUST NOT.

I know this is a "dead thread", but everyone seems to misunderstand the way 1930's were designed. Firstly, the small "kitchen" everyone refers to was not a kitchen at all. it was the scullery where the dirty work was done - washing dishes, preparing vegetables etc.

The large rear room was not a "Dining room". It was the living-kitchen for cooking, eating and day-to-day living. You can often find that the chimney breast was made to take a Yorkshire range or similar. The small front parlour kept for Sundays and guests - usually the vicar :-)

Children were expected to share bedrooms. The concept of each child having their own room would be laughed at! Bedrooms were for sleeping. They were unheated so no-one would have wanted to spend time in them other than under the bedclothes.

The design was simple and functional right up until the 1950's/60's when home appliances such as washing machines, fridges, freezers etc. became affordable and commonplace and the fashion for "dinner parties" amongst the middle classes came into vogue. Until then "high tea" was the norm, and even this would be held in the living-kitchen.

Best dead thread I've ever read! Thanks for reanimating it mand I've enjoyed reading this and live in a 1930s detached house, so it's all making sense!

I grew up in a 70s house; 1 tiny and 2 larger bedrooms.
Can you move an internal wall to even out the room sizes? Upper floors are often only stud walls so should be easy.

I think we often forget the pace of change in the past few generations.
My dad is not old (61) yet he didn't even have his own bedroom, inside loo or plumbed bath.
His family lived in the downstairs of a maiden aunts house. He slept in the dining room, my grandparents slept in the front room, they packed up their beds in the day. They had a tin bath and an outside loo. There is photos from his childhood which look positively Victorian.
The kitchen was tiny and the facilities basic but a huge garden (to allow them to grow food). Dad only had a few toys which he kept in the sideboard in the dining room, he looked after them like treasure and they are still in immaculate condition today.
My grandfather finally inherited the house and lived there until just before he died. Even though he moved his bed upstairs he made little improvements to the house (we added insulation and a hot water boiler as he wouldn't add central heating), visiting was like a history lesson.

Yes don't forget children had far less stuff! I grew up in a house like this and my sister and I shared the second bedroom while my brothers had bunk beds in the box room. Not ideal but we managed! We were outside an awful lot of the time tbh.

A lot of it is down to fashions in home design. When I was a kid it was all about the through lounge (not my cup of tea at all) and the kitchen was separate. Even houses built in the 1980/90s still seem to feature this layout quite often. The big open plan kitchen/family room is a relatively recent phenomena.

I've also really enjoyed this thread's revival, really interesting.

mandamac I love the idea of having a scullery and then a range in the living/ dinning room, would much prefer that to some of the canvernous glass extensions that I've seen on quite a few houses, I wonder if it is a fashion that will be returned to as energy costs rise. It also explains why loads of DH's family use their Dinning Rooms as a living room, whilst their sitting rooms lie empty, obviously just an old/ inherited habit.

Our house is 1930, and yes, we bought it for the 200 foot garden and lived here 12 years before having the money to put a big kitchen and decent sized bathrooms on it.
In 1930 the only heating was the fireplaces in the four main rooms.
The back boiler was fitted in the 1950's (we ripped it out when we put in the woodburner)
We took out the wooden window frames in 2008.
When DD's room was decorated last year we splashed out and gave her four electric sockets rather than one !

We moved into a 1930s house a few years back. Lovely stained glass in the front door and landing window and coloured Minton tiles in the hall. We have 3 good sized room and one tiny little one which is a bit too small for DS2 TBH...but when were repainting we discovered that the wall between DS2's room and DD's room is a false one - I am guessing that the little room might have actually been a dressing room for DD's room which would have been the 'front bedroom' ie the master. In the 1930s house we lived in as a child the master bedroom has a dressing room with big built in wardrobes.

Just wanted to say that I love my house - it feels solid and spacious and full of light especially in comparison to our old Victorian equivalent of a Barrett home!

I would like to add that in our 1930s house, we have a small kitchen and separate dining room so I find that instead of feeding DD her tea whilst I prep dinner for my DH & I (he doesn't get home till late), I make the effort to sit down with her, chat, listen to the radio together whilst she eats and make it more of an occasion rather than me getting on with stuff whilst she eats in some huge kitchen diner. I guess its more old fashioned, everything stops for tea time!

Same her Scuttlebag! We used to live in a modern house with a kitchen diner and now own a very beautiful 1920's but with traditional design. I'm quite enjoying having to sit down for a meal every time as there is no space in the kitchen for a table at all so the only dining table is in the dining room, I.e. Where it should be!

That's nice to hear Bim, I'm not the only one! Sometimes I peel the veg at the table whilst DD is eating so I can still get on with stuff, other times I sew or crochet feeling somewhat like a rather old fashioned housewife! I like the fact that when we have friends round for dinner we can eat and chill over dinner without having to look at the piles of dirty dishes or the kitchen bin. We're just a smaller version of downton abbey to be honest

Oh wow, zombie thread! I just found my own post on this from 2011 - I read the post a bit and thought, oh that sounds like my old house, and then realised it was

Loving this thread. We are in the process of buying a 1930s house. I love the stained glass and the fab front doors.

We live in a house like this and DS1 loves having the small bedroom. He doesn't want to move into the bigger room now that his brother has left home. Ds1 is in his twenties and nearly 6 ft tall!

My house is 30s. Small (but gorgeous) kitchen, two big bedrooms, big bathroom, big bay fronted living room and massive front and back garden! Loads of room to extend (if could afford it I would). I love it and it's curved corners and sturdiness. I currently sleep on the sofa bed in living room so my girls can have a room each (single parent). It heps that it is quite close to the city centre!

I know this is a bit of a dead 'un, but I have to politely disagree with Mandamac (sorry!) about the way Thirties houses were used. Victorian houses were certainly used in that way. The kitchen was for clean food preparation and didn't even have a sink, which was instead in the scullery. The family lived, cooked and ate in the kitchen, while the parlour was only for 'company.' My mum remembers her grandmother still living this way in her Victorian house in the Thirties and Forties. We live in a sea of Twenties and Thirties semis, and a local history society uncovered this brochure for the roads next to ours, built in the Twenties : docs.google.com/document/d/1uMjh_KBD_WXBV3udCcWuAZQEWtnvjzfyzhPqCtvjdjY/edit (you need to scroll down for the estate agent's blurb)

The illustrations do make the houses look very posh, but really they're not! They're just lovely family houses. In our Thirties house we have a 12 x 12 kitchen (a useable size) with the third bedroom above (same size), while the little room at the front is the bathroom. All of the houses round here are the same so the bathroom wasn't moved at an earlier date. So don't be put off Thirties houses - some have slightly bigger third bedrooms!
What I'd like to know is why Thirties houses were built with an inside and an outside loo. Our inside loo is separate to the bathroom, so isn't a later addition, and we have an original outside loo attached to the house, next to the coal shed (brick built). The garden isn't big enough nor the house posh enough to ever have had a gardener. Any ideas?