So I’ve been looking at houses, duplexes, and apartments for a while now. One feature that I absolutely cannot STAND is a galley kitchen. For those who don’t know what it is, picture a little shitbox of a kitchen, in the shape of an H, and you’re the middle bar. On one side is a sink and possibly a dishwasher, on the other is a stove/oven and counter. You’re supposed to be trapped in the middle as you wash dishes or cook or whatever. And there’s often not even a window to alleviate the claustrophobia that one would undoubtedly suffer while being trapped in there!
Damn the galley kitchen, and it’s inventor!
So, what things about homes can you absolutely not abide?
I don’t like open floorplans. I detest those giant 2-story kitchen/living room/dining room/other spaces. Wall-to-wall carpeting is a vile abomination; given a choice I wouldn’t have a single scrap of it in my house or apartment. Also I’ve never understood the point of putting a wall of windows (often on mulitple walls) in a bedroom. Or Og Forbid a skylight. I prefer total and absolute darkness to sleep; and I don’t rise at dawn when I don’t have too. Also front doors that open directly into the living area aren’t a reall a good idea in this part of the country. They should be avoided whenever possible.
I just realized that the condo I live in has a galley kitchen, by your description, and so has almost every place I’ve lived for the last twenty years.
I don’t really notice it. The kitchen is kind of small, I will say that. It doesn’t have enough counter space. But I’m not prone to claustrophobia, so I don’t feel trapped while working in there.
Well, galley kitchens were invented by a maritime cook thousands of years ago, so he or she is dead. You get your wish.
Just be thankful that yours is so large. I once had a galley kitchen in an in-law unit that was as large as two old fashioned phone booths, with a fridge built into a wall that opened on the only place to stand. It did, however, have a two square foot window!
Carpeting (got allergies, will travel to hotels without carpet); extra malus points for nylon-6,6; for carpeting in kitchens and/or bathrooms; for carpet that hasn’t been cleaned since before Noah built the ark, or which curls up at the edges; for light-colored carpet in wet climates.
Gotelé. I think in English it involves horsehair glue, not sure what it is actually called, google is being stupid right now. It’s a wall finish which is supposed to hide the irregularities on walls and which consists of making (sharp) points come off it. There’s still blood from my elbows stuck to my grandmother’s hallway walls :mad: (well, you can’t see it any more, she painted over it).
Clogged bathrooms (ever been in one where you had to sort of slide sideways onto the toilet, because the sink overhanged it?). Well, in general, the idea that something is a room because you call it one: no, 3m[sup]2[/sup] is not a bedroom, even if you can manage to stick a mattress on the floor and slide in through the half-opened door.
Doors that open to nothing. The living room in the flat I currently rent has a door, rather than a window, but it doesn’t open onto a balcony: what would be the balcony’s protection is right there. Either give me a balcony, or a window (better insulation).
My mother hates “American kitchens”, which is what we call those that have a sort of window into the living room.
Most Australian houses are open plan, when I lived in Tasmania, (which is a lot colder then most of Australia) I was amazed at the amount of doors the house had. I was so stunned seeing the kitchen having doors on it. (but then again, I was only 3 years old at the time. ) I like my living room combined with the dining room, and partially combined with the kitchen.
I cannot stand a lot of glass in bathrooms.Most of it is that mottled stuff, I know rationally you can’t see through it, but it doesn’t help knowing that.
My friend of mine had a beautiful Queenslander, but the main bathroom had a glass wall and a glass door made out of that mottled glass. Even worse, there was a large glass window that looked onto the back verandah, with normal glass. But thankfully, as the verandah was falling apart, no- one used it.
You guys would love my kitchen - it’s about 15’x15’ with no doors and no pass-through windows and no pony walls - just an opening on two sides, one to the hallway and one to the dining room. And a nice big window over the sink.
We also have zero carpet in the house - just three small area rugs. I have a husband who’s allergic to cats and two cats - the cat hair in the house has dropped significantly since we lost the carpets.
We actually like an open plan house; one of the things I didn’t like in a lot of houses we saw was the house chopped up into small room after small room. Another thing we didn’t like (but easy enough to fix) was lots of colours on the walls - you get one coloured feature wall - that’s it. Not a yellow kitchen, a dark blue bathroom, a purple bedroom, an orange living room, and a bright red dining room.
If the galley kitchen is dressed up in stone, glass and wood with a nice view out the garden window, I’m gonna keep it, besides I call it my stepsaver kitchen. Nothing is out reach or more than one step away, with room for 2.5 kooks with elbows in please. One must clean up as they go or there will be no room on the counters, and it is best suited for short order cooks.
I hate most closet doors, bifolds, mirrored, or large rolliing slabs of splinterwood. I rip 'em out and hang up a heavy silk curtain instead.
I also hate open plans. I want rooms, not “areas” or “spaces.” And a galley kitchen is OK with me – if it keeps people from standing behind me while I’m taking a pan out of the oven or using a sharp knife. Don’t stand behind me, dammit.
Also – carpeting. Give me wood.
yes, it’s small, but i live alone, so it’s plenty big enough for me to cook or bake in. and despite its size, every time i have a cast party, that kitchen, tiny as it is, is jam-packed with folks who don’t seem to mind its confines.
there’s a crosstitch my mother made years ago when i was growing up that says, ‘no matter where i serve my guests, they seem to like my kitchen best.’ it now hangs over my sink.
I can’t stand bathrooms that are too small to maneuver in; also I need a bathtub. I never rented or bought a place that didn’t have, at minimum, a tub toilet and sink–with separate floor space for the toilet and sink–in the bathroom. When we renovated this house we expanded the master bath into the walk-in closet, to make it less claustrophobic.
That’s the only structural feature that gets on my nerves, or would stop me from wanting to live somewhere. Having done the demo for this renovation, though, I have to say that I am NEVER going to install wallpaper or wall-to-wall carpet ever again.
That’s one of the reasons I hate galley kitchens: when you entertain, everyone does end up in the kitchen, no matter how small it is, so why not make everyone comfortable (including me, who’s cooking) and have a nice, big, open kitchen?
I pretty much disagree with every single thing in this post! Kind of funny. Our bedroom, with eleven big windows, would pretty much be your nightmare.
I like my galley kitchen, too. It’s medium sized, with big windows and lots of counter space. At one end it has a wider area for a table. It saves incredibly on fatigue and the number of steps you need to take when cooking. I hate trudging around kitchen islands to get to a fridge. I’d like to put doors on the kitchen’s doorways, since I prefer an enclosed kitchen.
I hate open-plan houses and two-story open rooms and halls. You can’t control noise, privacy, or temperatures adequately.
I hate wall-to-wall carpet, and rooms without enough windows. Those boxy layouts (from the 80s/90s?) with one small window randomly placed in a corner of each beige room are so depressing.
Formal rooms, sometimes known as front rooms. What the hell? It’s 2010, why do middle-class people insist on modeling their homes after those 19th century aristocrats? These rooms get filled with expensive, faux classy furniture and then ignored in favor of entertaining guests in the nonformal living room and kitchen.
Brass or gold-colored fixtures. So very ugly, and they don’t look good with many colors. At one time, it was about all you could get, but today, when we have loads of finishes to choose from? 3/4’s of the time people go straight for the yellow crap.
Giant bathrooms, the kind that are bigger than the guest bedroom. It’s the room where you are most likely to be both naked and wet, so let’s waste money making it too huge to heat effectively. Just so you can say “Look at me, it echoes when I shit!”. The same ‘freeze your ass off’ thinking inspired the window in the bathroom, or better, in the shower. Need to move the humid air out? Turn on the exhaust fan. Then there is the conspicuous consumption-driven huge bathtub (usually jetted) that is separate from the shower. Who uses these? It’s a convenient place to put some laundry baskets, though.
Carpet sucks. It seems like a good idea but no matter how expensive it is or how well you take care of it, it looks like crap within a couple years. Which is not to excuse the travesty that is hand-scraped hardwood floors. It’s not so much that they are lumpy and butt-ugly. The real problem is that they are a fad that exists solely to give suckers with more money than sense a ‘upgrade’ option for already expensive wood flooring that will, in 5 years, look as dated as the brown, orange, and gold striped wallpaper that everybody used in 1977. Not to mention that back in the day, the purpose of hand scraping floors was to make them flatter after the boards were nailed down. Nowadays, we use machines to make nearly perfectly flat floorboards, then use another machine to make them less flat.
now there i agree with you! i HATE my master bathroom. way too small. that is the one thing i’d love to change. before i shuffle off this mortal coil, i want a garden tub and a hot water heater on steroids that will give me unlimited hot water for a tub the size of kansas.
My girlfriend and I live in the top two floors of an old Victorian town house, and the ground floor and front door belongs to a hairdressing salon (access to our is from the back yard). I’d be perfectly happy living like this forever. We get the benefit of their heating in the winter, they’re gone by five thirty so no worries about annoying them with my bass speakers, and there’s always someone around to collect our mail. We can leave our windows open in the summer (within reason), and there’s no risk of forgetting about the open curtains in the morning and inadvertently flashing someone as we leave the bathroom.
So yeah, if I had my way, every street would be shops on the ground floor and housing above it - it would be a better world
