Which makes it great it hot climates. But yeah, in cold climates it’s Not A Good Idea.
And we had these tall buildings right next to each other, very close, in a sort of square pattern, which created ferocious wind tunnels as you walked between them. In Albany. A setup which also would have worked better in a warm climate.
I’ll trade you the tall buildings for the corrugated metal.
I agree with the wall-to-wall carpeting everywhere. I’d put down area rugs everywhere, but every place in NY is wall to wall.
The guy who built (and was the first occupant of) our house. Yech. He also put phone jacks in each bathroom. Apparently he never wanted to be more than an arm’s length away from a phone.
Heh, there’s actually a name for these! I understand the purpose of the design, but everytime I see one I imagine the thing shouting “HI!! I’M A GARAGE!!!”
My parents’ house has a laundry chute in the bathroom that goes into the basement next to the laundry room. It has the hamper right under it - I wonder if newer houses are ever constructed with these any more?
In the last 15 years my brothers have built one house with a laundry chute.
They’ve also built one with secret rooms. Not a safe room. Multiple secret rooms.
Aren’t those considered a death-trap for children nowdays?
Please, tell us more.
We have stairs from our garage to our house. The houses here were built before everyone had cars, so most of them don’t have attached garages. They tend to be too close together to add on an attached garage, as well. In my case, the back of the lot is higher than the front, so there are stairs down from the garage to the patio and the kitchen. Level lots are rare in Pittsburgh. It kind of sucks to have to carry the groceries down the stairs (and the garbage up the stairs), and it definitely sucks to not have an attached garage when it’s raining or snowing, but there’s not much that can be done about that around here.
If I had to pick, I’d rather have an easier way of getting the laundry up the stairs, rather than down. I wonder if anyone’s ever had a dumbwaiter for laundry?
They’re dangerous for children and pets. I would guess that’s why they’re not so popular any more.
That’s cool! I remember being a kid and reading about secret rooms in Nancy Drew mysteries, and wishing our house had one. I still kind of wish my house had one, though I’m not sure what I’d use it for.
I’d think that by the time they’d be old enough to reach the door (the one at my parents’ house has a pretty heavy-duty spring closure on it - not so easy to open and impossible to leave open) they’d be too big to fit, but I suppose since we are in the era of bubble-wrapping kids, someone must have thought about it as a possibility (it certainly never occurred to any of us neighborhood kids as something to try at the time).
It really would not be fair to reveal things about the secret rooms. They are entertainment rooms and I don’t mean sex rooms. That’s all you get.
I’m sure, if I had a secret room, it would be full of books. Like every other room in my house.
Were there any secret staircases? I wanted one of those, too.
I join the ranks of the kitchen-island haters. I prefer a long and continuous countertop, in a U shape as much as is practical, so you have a logical progression from refrigerator to sink to oven with plenty of counter space on both sides of each major appliance. And that’s the way our kitchen is – just like I drew it.
I also wish the laundry facilities were where most of the laundry happens – upstairs by the bedrooms. The leak thing I can understand; however, we usually have bathtubs, showers, sinks and toilets upstairs, too, and any of those is just as capable of throwing a leak. One objection that does have some merit, though, is that the noise of a washer and/or dryer would disturb people trying to sleep. I think the real reason for the separation is tradition: keeping the servants’ functions out of sight of the lord of the manor.
A story and a half is one story on the front, and 2 stories on the back. Imagine the whole back of the house is a great big dormer on the second floor.
My parents have a laundry chute in their house which is very useful; unfortunately, it was built so stupidly that instead of having an ordinary straight-shot down, it’s on a slant with a six-inch flat stretch at the bottom. Essentially, it’s a Clothes Stopper. It is so phenomenally idiotic it’s almost unbelievable. If you toss a shirt down the laundry chute, it invariably gets stuck on the weird flat stretch at the bottom. And then more and more clothes will stack up behind it until you have to stand at the bottom and poke at the clothes with a broom while your child stands at the top of the laundry chute and tries to maneuver a mop down the chute to poke the gigantic mass of stuck clothing until it all barfs out and almost kills you.
Anyway, I love laundry chutes in theory, but the one in my mom’s house is beyond stupid.
Laundry chutes violate fire codes. We have one in our bathroom and we’re avoiding doing any renovation to our sink area because it would mean changing or removing our chute. Apparently the open hole is the problem so a new one being constructed would have to have some sort of sealing flapper of a certain thickness that drops down when you open and then comes up and seals the opening when not in use.
I dislike houses that are just wrong for the area. My boyfriend’s parents live in a neighborhood of mostly 1 floor ranch houses with no basements. Some people, like his parents, have added second floors. But one family knocked down their house and built a mini-McMansion on a ranch sized lot. It looks incredibly dumb and they’re having trouble selling it because it’s valued at over 300k in a neighborhood of 150k houses.
We have a doctor in our neighborhood who has a beautiful house with beautiful landscaping. Taken by itself, it’s lovely. Compared to all the other houses in the neighborhood though, it just doesn’t fit. It looks like it belongs in Arizona, not MA. Of course, my house doesn’t fit the neighborhood either but my log cabin was here before their houses so it’s their faults that my house doesn’t fit. 
Columns on ranch houses. The guy who lives behind us has a massive lot. He built his house at the very top of it, right next to our property line because as you’re driving by, the location and the long curving driveway give the illusion that his house is larger than it is (in his mind). He also put fake plastic columns on the front of his house to “support” the illusion. I’ve heard from another neighbor that the inside is a normal-to-small house with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. But on the outside, to him at least, it looks much larger. I think it’s ugly. Luckily we have a large amount of trees between us so I don’t actually have to see his house unless I’m driving in to town, which I don’t do all that often. The funny thing is that his very large amount of land in a nice neighborhood, combined with his excellent landscaping, and the hoity-toity horse riding school across the street gives all the illusion of affluence that he needs. The columns looks silly and his house looks expensive just based on its location and upkeep.
My biggest issue actually directly affects me. Unusable loft space. We have a beautiful loft and a beautiful staircase which appears to lead to the loft. The stairs actually lead to the attic and the loft is only accessible through a trap door set in the loft floor/dining room ceiling. There’s no obvious way to connect the stairs to the loft. We have even asked 3 contractors for their opinion and they all suggested putting either folding attic stairs in the trapdoor or turning our pantry into an enclosed spiral staircase. The folding stairs option is the only remotely appealing option but we’d really rather the completely pointless staircase actually led to the loft. It’s right there in the middle of our house looking all pretty and functional when it’s not really.
Both houses we have bought in the last 10 years had carpet in the bathroom and both carpets were totally disgusting.
I also dislike granite counters, and granite or marble floors.
Specifically, the one that wigs me out is a mirror behind the toilet that descends below crotch level, so I get a lovely view of myself standing and delivering. Not super super pleasant.
Agree with everyone who said wall-to-wall carpet, specifically the hideous, disgusting wall-to-wall carpet we had in my previous apartment. It was one of our main impetuses for moving out, given that hardwood flooring is the norm in Montreal, not a luxury.
The vast majority of one-and-a-halfs have the 2nd story running through the middle of the house. In that scenario, the dormers are on the front of the house.
Wow. Bloody Stupid Johnson is real!
Although the ornamentation of dingbats is indefensible, such apartments are usually the only option for anyone of modest means who doesn’t want to live in a dump of an SRO hotel, or in a cookie-cutter tract home where they are utterly car dependent. Dingbat neighborhoods usually are near commercial thoroughfares which usually offer a variety of amenities and services which the dingbat dwellers can reach without a car. In L.A., if all the dingbat neighborhoods, like Palms where I live, had remained zoned for single-family detached houses, very few people could afford to live here. Rather than promoting car-culture and car-dependence, unassuming apartment houses facilitate pedestrianism and neighborhood cohesiveness. They give us the option of saying no to suburbia.
To answer the question: Any “feature” which is pasted or nailed on, and has nothing to do with the structural integrity of the building. This covers all the dingbat decorations, and to that we can add fake brick, pilasters, and dormer windows.
I’m willing to make allowances for columns that appear to be holding up porches, even if they are not really needed; at least they look like they could be holding something up.
Do you mean private houses? I thought The Sign Of The Sheep would be a pub or something like that. Not counting large, elaborate country houses, I was under the impression that naming your house was considered a working class affectation. John Lennon’s Aunt Mimi’s house had a regular address but she called it Mendips, and that was said to be exactly true to form.
Named houses in urban areas are typically affected. Named houses in villages usually aren’t.