Zen and the Art of House Design
I do wonder whether people who design and build houses actually ever live in, you know, houses. While it's patently obvious they would never live in anything so poky as a 3-bed detached, surely they've looked round one or two? Spoken to people who live in them?
The big issue is always the kitchen. Most people, by inclination, want the kitchen to be big. They want it big enough to prepare the meal, to cook the meal, and to eat the meal. They want a table. They might even want a rocking chair or something. A table and chairs, somewhere to sit and listen to the radio and watch the tv, to sit and have a conversation. The kitchen is the room, I'd argue, that most people would spend most of the time in.
But most houses costing less than half a million quid, ancient and modern, have crappy little kitchens, with layouts so bad that, even if there is enough room, the presence of the table would be a navigational hazard.
Instead, people get oversized so-called living rooms which they fill with furniture and televisions which are ridiculously large so as to make small things like footballs visible from across the room. And they "demand", or so we're told, insist upon, a separate "dining room" for all those dinner parties they don't have. Except the "dining room", so-called, is so small that you have to buy a smallish table and can only fit around 4 people into the room, as long as they don't mind cracking their heads on the wall if they inadvertently lean backwards, for example when laughing (hence the expression, "Ha ha, bonk").
What I really want is a cozy little living room that can be warmed easily, room for a comfy chair or two and a not-too-large TV, and a fecking huge kitchen with a long table, one you can get lots of people round, or do several different things upon. Prepare food at one end while a kid paints or draws at the other. Or just to spread a magazine on with a cup of coffee, the radio on in the background, and a view of what's cooking in the oven.
Looking for a new house, for me, is rather similar in nature to shopping for shoes or clothes. I hate everything I see, but I'll end up getting something, in the end, because I have to buy something, even if I don't like it.
My brother in law, over in Francelandland, designed and built his own house. Were you to buy the same thing on a David Wilson Homes estate, it would cost you a fortune. It's got a big kitchen with a separate walk-in larder/pantry, and there's table and chairs, so you can sit and talk and eat, and still see the over door window, to check whether the mozarella is bubbling up. Through an archway and you're into the comfy chair area, whilst still not being separated from what's going on in the kitchen.
Why do people put up with the shit that gets put up on all these estates?
The big issue is always the kitchen. Most people, by inclination, want the kitchen to be big. They want it big enough to prepare the meal, to cook the meal, and to eat the meal. They want a table. They might even want a rocking chair or something. A table and chairs, somewhere to sit and listen to the radio and watch the tv, to sit and have a conversation. The kitchen is the room, I'd argue, that most people would spend most of the time in.
But most houses costing less than half a million quid, ancient and modern, have crappy little kitchens, with layouts so bad that, even if there is enough room, the presence of the table would be a navigational hazard.
Instead, people get oversized so-called living rooms which they fill with furniture and televisions which are ridiculously large so as to make small things like footballs visible from across the room. And they "demand", or so we're told, insist upon, a separate "dining room" for all those dinner parties they don't have. Except the "dining room", so-called, is so small that you have to buy a smallish table and can only fit around 4 people into the room, as long as they don't mind cracking their heads on the wall if they inadvertently lean backwards, for example when laughing (hence the expression, "Ha ha, bonk").
What I really want is a cozy little living room that can be warmed easily, room for a comfy chair or two and a not-too-large TV, and a fecking huge kitchen with a long table, one you can get lots of people round, or do several different things upon. Prepare food at one end while a kid paints or draws at the other. Or just to spread a magazine on with a cup of coffee, the radio on in the background, and a view of what's cooking in the oven.
Looking for a new house, for me, is rather similar in nature to shopping for shoes or clothes. I hate everything I see, but I'll end up getting something, in the end, because I have to buy something, even if I don't like it.
My brother in law, over in Francelandland, designed and built his own house. Were you to buy the same thing on a David Wilson Homes estate, it would cost you a fortune. It's got a big kitchen with a separate walk-in larder/pantry, and there's table and chairs, so you can sit and talk and eat, and still see the over door window, to check whether the mozarella is bubbling up. Through an archway and you're into the comfy chair area, whilst still not being separated from what's going on in the kitchen.
Why do people put up with the shit that gets put up on all these estates?
posted by Anonymous at
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
1 Comments:
My husband and I don't really cook, so all we want is a tiny kitchen. We'd like bigger bathrooms with more counter space, bigger bedrooms with more wall space, and a MUCH bigger family room, so that we'd have room for a couch instead of a love seat, and some chairs, and coffee and end tables. We don't need "museum rooms" like a dining room and a living room-we don't entertain.
By
Omni, at 6:45 am
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