US Expat Describes The Best And Worst Things About England

[rapunzel]

Here in Oz most homes and apartments have open floor plans. Many homes provide a door from inside the garage into the house or it is just easier to enter the house through the front door after putting the car into the garage. Carports on older homes are usually at the front or side of the house and in most such designs it is still easier to enter via the front door. Back doors - they often do lead out from the utility space, which can be a separate room or an alcove off the kitchen. Sometimes the backdoor leads out from the kitchen or the family room. Often houses have a downstairs bathroom that has a door to the backyard, which is handy for when you have a pool or entertaining space out the back. Quite often the rear of a house has numerous sliding glass doors that allow access to the backyard from the living, dining, family room and/or kitchen. Some houses have covered backporches or patios with various ways of accessing that space from different downstairs rooms.

Almost all homes and apartments in Oz have a separate laundry space. This may be a small room which may also contain the water heater, but almost always contains a laundry tub or, in newer, more compact apartments, they now have laundry closets. Laundries may be at the back of the house or sit next to the garage insdie the house.

If you want to see Australian floor plans go to the link below.

http://www.iwantthatdesign.com.au/designs

 

[rapunzel]

Here is another link

to more traditional Aussie houses and floor plans.

http://www.storybook.com.au/tag/traditional-floor-plan/

 

[MrX]

While relatively few Irish people actually live in apartments (they're less than 7% of homes here lowest number in the EU), I've noticed that the ones I've visited tend to have a laundry closet setup these days too.

A lot of them seem to have a big closet in the kitchen that contains a gas boiler and the washer and dryer stacked or a washer-dryer combo unit.

Some seem to have it in the hallway in a big closet. I think there's been a move away from siting the machine in the kitchen as that space is needed for a dishwasher where as in the 70s and 80s dishwashers were still a bit of a luxury item, nowadays you'd have a hard job renting out an apartment that didn't have one.

I think though, it's quite hard to generalise about "Europe". It's a collection of countries that can be quite dramatically different tin some ways and very similar in others. However, on things like housing the differences can be pretty extreme at times.

Link below is from EuroStat the statistics agency for the EU (and some EEA countries) and just shows a graph of different housing types across the entire EU and EEA.

Just to give you an idea of how different things are from one country to the next.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/st..._by_dwelling_type,_2011_(%_of_population).png

 

[rapunzel]

The other thing of note is that in Australia appartments and houses come with built-in closets, wardrobes, larders and other incorporated storage spaces. Some older homes and units may not, but by and large built-ins are the norm. Also kitchen cabinets are built-ins as well and cooking appliances a standard inclusion - dishwashers are becoming more widespread in rentals, though many landlords will provide a space, but leave it up to the tennant to put in their own dishwasher. The same with refrigerators and washers - tennants usually bring their own. On the other hand, laundry spaces in many rentals do come with a dryer.

Ausralian housing trends are changing. Our housing is very expensive now and it costs the average household approx. 60% of total income to either rent or repay a home loan. Home ownership is falling as more people are forced to rent. Our governments have decided to leave public housing to the private sector and there is a critical property shortage. Homelessness is on the rise and some analysts are rumoring that Australia has a housing bubble that is close to bursting. Not enough new housing stock is being built to satisfy demand and existing housing stock is snapped up by local and overseas investors; all of this serves to artificially inflate prices and reduce real value. Most existing home owners now opt to renovate, extend or build new on their existing properties, instead of selling up and building somewhere else.

We have a split economy where a small section of society are doing extremely well and everyone else is feeling the pinch. The Australian economy is loosing approx. 1500 full-time jobs every week and these are now replaced by part-time and casual positions. In short, if you don't already own your home you are stuffed.

 

[davey7]

"The idea of residential laundry rooms didn't become popular until the 1950's and 60's in the U.S., before that the only available plumbing option for a washer was usually in the kitchen."

Actually, that'd true be for warmer climates without basements, but elsewhere in the states the washer usually ended up next to the laundry tubs in the basement, otherwise I can see the kitchen being a logical place.

From what I recall, the paranoia about bathroom cleanliness has meant that the bathroom in most American (and I'd assume Western in general) homes is cleaner, germ/bacteria-wise than kitchens where the counters are covered in stuff from food prep, dishwashing, etc.

 

[MrX]

Yeah, bathroom cleaning goes a bit over the top in most of the world.
Lots of tiled surfaces and powerful cleaning products get used.

The basement really wasn't a feature of 20th century construction here at all. Houses are usually either built with a suspended wooden floor over the foundations with about a 2 or 3 foot space over a ventilated concrete sub-floor

Or, in more modern construction they tend to just have a poured concrete floor with insulation layers and a screed over the top which is then either finished off with wood, tiles or carpet on the ground floors areas.

Our house actually has wooden suspended floors which wreaks havoc with washing machines. We had to actually build a new utility area in the former garage to make sure they were sitting on concrete as we literally managed to wipe out a Miele after only 10 years due to extreme vibration caused by the floor being too springy.

Some of the Novotronic control system boards sheered off due to the endless vibration and the repair bill was unjustifiably high so it ended up scrapped unfortunately.

 

[davey7]

Yeah, that's the crawl space. Most of the northern US had basements before the second world war (if you have to dig down 42 inches for footings, you may as well have a basement, plus you needed it for gravity heating systems, either steam, hot water or hot air). Crawl spaces are pretty common when there is a high water table - the first floor got closer to the ground at a certain point, probably because of improved pumps, drainage and waterproofing, as well as fashion.

 

[circlew]

Actually, I've never known anyone who had full size laundry equipment in their kitchen. I'm thinking it must have been something more common in the Northeast.

Around here, most laundrys have been in the basement if there was one, except in large, fancy houses, where they may be on the first or second floor.

Most of my relatives and friends in the South have had their laundry equipment in a room off the carport, in a separate laundry room in the house, or in the case of those with wringer washers, in the wash house or on the porch.

I personally would not want the laundry machines in the kitchen.

 

[48bencix]

Love the Kitchen Washer and Dryer

I really enjoyed the article and all of the comments. I have my full size washer and dryer in the kitchen and enjoy how easy it is to take care of laundry while doing other tasks like making dinner.