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Sister House
I like to look at other houses, especially those in my own neighborhood, to see if they have any good ideas I want to use. Today I saw a house for rent with no one living in it and with only one window blocked from view. And for the first time ever, this house had my exact same floor plan (only reversed).
I'm not sure I got any great ideas, but it was interesting to see how it had evolved over time in comparison to mine. As I collected my observations, I began to realize that it wasn't always clear, when things differed, which house had been updated or even whether they had started the same to begin with.
Small Living Room
My house has a small living room off the side of the regular-sized living room. This small room has a closet (which we use as a coat closet) and a door into the hallway, just as if it were a small bedroom. Plus, there are hints of wall between this room and the big living room as if there used to be a full wall and they just cut a huge hole in it to make it accessible to the big living room.
However, one day I got to meet the original owner of my house, and he said it had always been like that; this room had never been a bedroom.
The same was true in my sister house, but they had added an accordion door so they could close it off if they wanted to. This would work great for my mom's idea that you could have the TV in one room and the musical instruments in another room and both could be in use at the same time. It's also good for turning the small living room into a guest bedroom.
Currently, we have furniture in the area where the accordion door would be--a CD rack on one side, and a chair facing into the small living room on the other. So, we won't be using that idea.
I've always thought it would be nice to have at least a curtain there, for visual privacy if not aural, when you have a guest, but I have never installed one. The one time I had a house guest, she kept telling me she didn't need one and not to bother.
Big living room
My living room has a painted cork floor. My sister house's living room is carpeted. I can tell that my living room used to have carpeting because some of the yarns were still embedded in the paint at the bottom of the wall.
I prefer the cork--it's great for dancing and easier to keep clean than carpeting. My long-term plan is to install hardwood flooring. Wood can be damaged by moving your furniture around, but cork is even softer!
Dining room
In my house there's a bar between the big living room and the dining room. It's basically the only interesting thing about my house, but it's missing from this one. (If it were here, it would stick out from the left side at about the point where the carpet switches to tile.)
Both houses have a broom closet/pantry (near door on left) and door to the back (far door on left). They put their AC unit in the window instead of in the wall next to the window. That was wise.
Kitchen
The kitchen is laid out in exactly the same way as mine, though reversed, with one slight difference. I have one short wall with an oven on it. We have located the oven as close to the dining room as possible and added a trash can and a little cart with a small work surface on top to the other side. We have a gigantic (broken) fume hood.
My sister oven is also pushed over to the side closest to the dining room, but on the other side is a set of narrow cabinets. There is still a big fume hood, but it's wedged between the top cabinet and the wall. There's plenty of room for a huge oven here, but if you have a normal-sized oven, there is wasted space. The cabinets match the other cabinets in the kitchen perfectly, and the counter has matching tile, so I'm guessing these were original.
I've looked and there's no sign that my kitchen ever had these tiny cabinets. I do kind of like them, and they would definitely be useful, though I would want them to be wider, leaving enough space for a standard size stove. In my house, we actually replaced our broken stove with a huge old one, so I do like that we have one side open so we can have whatever size stove we want and then fill in the rest of the space with movable/removable things.
If we did have a built-in cabinet, where would our trash can go? The obvious place is between the kitchen and dining room (on the other side), but that's where we have our crates of bottled water piled up. I wonder if we could set up the bottom cabinet to really be a trash can somehow. That could be cool (except for when guests are trying to find it).
All the counters in the sister house are covered in tile (like in the old Robinhood house). I definitely prefer a smooth surface for the counter top. It's easier to clean, and I don't want to try rolling out pie crusts on tile counter tops! Most counter tops in my neighborhood seem to be made of this same type of ceramic tile, so I'm wondering if my laminate counter top was an update. Which era was orange popular during? The 'sixties? My house was built in 1955.
Bathroom
Exactly the same, but with an uglier color of tile. Our bathtubs are open on one end, so we need an L-shaped curtain rod. This sort of curtain rod tends to sag at the corner, so we've got ours strung up on a hook we put into the ceiling. In my sister house, the shower curtain rod is held by a chain to a hook in the ceiling!
I think I'd rather have some sort of wall or part wall sticking out so that we can have a regular straight curtain rod, but these guys didn't figure out how to do that.
Bedrooms
Exact same layout, and we both have carpeting, but instead of sliding doors (with mirror tiles stuck to them) on the closets, there are accordion doors, like the one between the living rooms. They look flimsy and ugly, but I've never had accordion doors, so I don't know what they're like to live with. It seems like they could be great.
My closet doors are so heavy that their plastic wheels have worn down and they are hard to slide, so I've just taken them off the closet and put them behind the bedroom door or in the garage. I've thought about curtains, but those seem annoying, too. Maybe I'd just like better sliding doors.
Air Conditioning
My house came with two broken window AC units, one in the wall in the dining room and one in the wall in the "master" bedroom. Too bad about whoever's in the other bedroom! But then it also has central heat and air conditioning.
My sister house has window AC units in the bottom window of both bedrooms and the small living room plus a top window in the dining room. I definitely prefer that to stuffing them into big holes in the walls.
Even better is central AC. But maybe they have central AC, too. What else would those two vents in the hallway above be for? That's where my furnace is, but I also have a small door between the vents so you can access it. Maybe my renovators walled off part of the small-living-room closet and made a new door, but these renovators make you go into the closet to get to the furnace. I don't think it's such a great idea to hang clothing in your furnace closet, so I probably like mine better.
Outdoor Storage
The original owner of my house came out into the back yard and told me, "Oh, the patio finally cracked." He had built it himself, using a huge number of wire hangers to reinforce the concrete. I got the impression that the concrete is two feet thick!
He also said that he had enclosed a carport. I now have what looks like a one-car garage until you realize that it just has a regular house door through which a car could not fit.
My sister house still has a carport and does not have a patio. I'd like a carport, but I'd like to be able to put two cars under cover, and it sure is nice to have a big storage building. (To my friends from other states: we do not have basements because our earth is made out of limestone and/or the water table is very high (in Houston), and our attics are tiny since we don't need steeply sloped roofs to keep the snow from caving in our houses, plus they get to about 140 degrees in the summer.)
Both my house and the sister house have more storage on the end of the house, accessible via two doors (one shown above).
Colors
This house has mostly white walls on the inside, like mine. It has blue tiles in the kitchen and a blue wall in the big living room, but tan tiles and tan carpeting everywhere. The outside is a boring tan.
My house was more hideous. It had all white walls except for one bedroom that had pink walls. The living room floors were maroon, and the counter tops in the kitchen and on the bar were orange. The oven was brown; the fume hood, harvest gold (with stickers). The hall carpet was pink; the bedroom carpets, blue. The tile in the bathroom was light green with dark green trim. The outside was pale green with white trim. Basically, you were almost guaranteed to like at least one color and dislike at least one color. (The pink and maroon are now gone, and the new stove is white, along with the fridge and washer I added.)
Overall
Overall, they are surprisingly similar after 56 years of divergence.
If at any time you found yourself thinking, "Man, if that were my house, I'd ____," I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I'm not sure I got any great ideas, but it was interesting to see how it had evolved over time in comparison to mine. As I collected my observations, I began to realize that it wasn't always clear, when things differed, which house had been updated or even whether they had started the same to begin with.
Small Living Room
My house has a small living room off the side of the regular-sized living room. This small room has a closet (which we use as a coat closet) and a door into the hallway, just as if it were a small bedroom. Plus, there are hints of wall between this room and the big living room as if there used to be a full wall and they just cut a huge hole in it to make it accessible to the big living room.
However, one day I got to meet the original owner of my house, and he said it had always been like that; this room had never been a bedroom.
The same was true in my sister house, but they had added an accordion door so they could close it off if they wanted to. This would work great for my mom's idea that you could have the TV in one room and the musical instruments in another room and both could be in use at the same time. It's also good for turning the small living room into a guest bedroom.
Currently, we have furniture in the area where the accordion door would be--a CD rack on one side, and a chair facing into the small living room on the other. So, we won't be using that idea.
I've always thought it would be nice to have at least a curtain there, for visual privacy if not aural, when you have a guest, but I have never installed one. The one time I had a house guest, she kept telling me she didn't need one and not to bother.
Big living room
My living room has a painted cork floor. My sister house's living room is carpeted. I can tell that my living room used to have carpeting because some of the yarns were still embedded in the paint at the bottom of the wall.
I prefer the cork--it's great for dancing and easier to keep clean than carpeting. My long-term plan is to install hardwood flooring. Wood can be damaged by moving your furniture around, but cork is even softer!
Dining room
In my house there's a bar between the big living room and the dining room. It's basically the only interesting thing about my house, but it's missing from this one. (If it were here, it would stick out from the left side at about the point where the carpet switches to tile.)
Both houses have a broom closet/pantry (near door on left) and door to the back (far door on left). They put their AC unit in the window instead of in the wall next to the window. That was wise.
Kitchen
The kitchen is laid out in exactly the same way as mine, though reversed, with one slight difference. I have one short wall with an oven on it. We have located the oven as close to the dining room as possible and added a trash can and a little cart with a small work surface on top to the other side. We have a gigantic (broken) fume hood.
My sister oven is also pushed over to the side closest to the dining room, but on the other side is a set of narrow cabinets. There is still a big fume hood, but it's wedged between the top cabinet and the wall. There's plenty of room for a huge oven here, but if you have a normal-sized oven, there is wasted space. The cabinets match the other cabinets in the kitchen perfectly, and the counter has matching tile, so I'm guessing these were original.
I've looked and there's no sign that my kitchen ever had these tiny cabinets. I do kind of like them, and they would definitely be useful, though I would want them to be wider, leaving enough space for a standard size stove. In my house, we actually replaced our broken stove with a huge old one, so I do like that we have one side open so we can have whatever size stove we want and then fill in the rest of the space with movable/removable things.
If we did have a built-in cabinet, where would our trash can go? The obvious place is between the kitchen and dining room (on the other side), but that's where we have our crates of bottled water piled up. I wonder if we could set up the bottom cabinet to really be a trash can somehow. That could be cool (except for when guests are trying to find it).
All the counters in the sister house are covered in tile (like in the old Robinhood house). I definitely prefer a smooth surface for the counter top. It's easier to clean, and I don't want to try rolling out pie crusts on tile counter tops! Most counter tops in my neighborhood seem to be made of this same type of ceramic tile, so I'm wondering if my laminate counter top was an update. Which era was orange popular during? The 'sixties? My house was built in 1955.
Bathroom
Exactly the same, but with an uglier color of tile. Our bathtubs are open on one end, so we need an L-shaped curtain rod. This sort of curtain rod tends to sag at the corner, so we've got ours strung up on a hook we put into the ceiling. In my sister house, the shower curtain rod is held by a chain to a hook in the ceiling!
I think I'd rather have some sort of wall or part wall sticking out so that we can have a regular straight curtain rod, but these guys didn't figure out how to do that.
Bedrooms
Exact same layout, and we both have carpeting, but instead of sliding doors (with mirror tiles stuck to them) on the closets, there are accordion doors, like the one between the living rooms. They look flimsy and ugly, but I've never had accordion doors, so I don't know what they're like to live with. It seems like they could be great.
My closet doors are so heavy that their plastic wheels have worn down and they are hard to slide, so I've just taken them off the closet and put them behind the bedroom door or in the garage. I've thought about curtains, but those seem annoying, too. Maybe I'd just like better sliding doors.
Air Conditioning
My house came with two broken window AC units, one in the wall in the dining room and one in the wall in the "master" bedroom. Too bad about whoever's in the other bedroom! But then it also has central heat and air conditioning.
My sister house has window AC units in the bottom window of both bedrooms and the small living room plus a top window in the dining room. I definitely prefer that to stuffing them into big holes in the walls.
Even better is central AC. But maybe they have central AC, too. What else would those two vents in the hallway above be for? That's where my furnace is, but I also have a small door between the vents so you can access it. Maybe my renovators walled off part of the small-living-room closet and made a new door, but these renovators make you go into the closet to get to the furnace. I don't think it's such a great idea to hang clothing in your furnace closet, so I probably like mine better.
Outdoor Storage
The original owner of my house came out into the back yard and told me, "Oh, the patio finally cracked." He had built it himself, using a huge number of wire hangers to reinforce the concrete. I got the impression that the concrete is two feet thick!
He also said that he had enclosed a carport. I now have what looks like a one-car garage until you realize that it just has a regular house door through which a car could not fit.
My sister house still has a carport and does not have a patio. I'd like a carport, but I'd like to be able to put two cars under cover, and it sure is nice to have a big storage building. (To my friends from other states: we do not have basements because our earth is made out of limestone and/or the water table is very high (in Houston), and our attics are tiny since we don't need steeply sloped roofs to keep the snow from caving in our houses, plus they get to about 140 degrees in the summer.)
Both my house and the sister house have more storage on the end of the house, accessible via two doors (one shown above).
Colors
This house has mostly white walls on the inside, like mine. It has blue tiles in the kitchen and a blue wall in the big living room, but tan tiles and tan carpeting everywhere. The outside is a boring tan.
My house was more hideous. It had all white walls except for one bedroom that had pink walls. The living room floors were maroon, and the counter tops in the kitchen and on the bar were orange. The oven was brown; the fume hood, harvest gold (with stickers). The hall carpet was pink; the bedroom carpets, blue. The tile in the bathroom was light green with dark green trim. The outside was pale green with white trim. Basically, you were almost guaranteed to like at least one color and dislike at least one color. (The pink and maroon are now gone, and the new stove is white, along with the fridge and washer I added.)
Overall
Overall, they are surprisingly similar after 56 years of divergence.
If at any time you found yourself thinking, "Man, if that were my house, I'd ____," I'd love to hear your thoughts.