Weird features spotted while house hunting

[Dazi]

I forgot about the place with the weird shower.  It looked like it was from a RV or trailer, but it was in a regular house.  That wasn't the weird part though...it had an exposed lightbulb in the middle of the ceiling of the shower stall (as in hanging with just the wire) and the light switch was in the shower stall on the wall furthest from the knobs.  It also had green and gold shag carpeting throughout the entire house...including the bathrooms and kitchen.

Yeah, my goal in life is to be electrocuted in the shower  .i


My friend also told me about a house she looked at that had that green outdoor carpeting throughout the entire place.

[Wavicle]

Not house hunting, but one of my professors talked about how she had previously lived in a lovely house deigned by a famous architect. However, all the doorknobs were in the middle of the doors instead of on the side.

The best part was that this was a physics professor, married to another physics professor. They were teased by all their friends for having doors that were clearly designed by someone who did not consider the physics of why the doorknobs are where they are.

[Rohanna]

^My FIL's cabinet doors are like that- I think it looks bizaare...

[Tsaiko]

Keep in mind, this was all one house.

1) The description said it had a driveway for parking. What it had was a backyard with a curb cutout you could use to get your car into the backyard to park. There was no driveway.

2) It was a three bedroom. The walls of the first bedroom were bright, Crayola blue. The carpet was bright blue. During the day if you walked into the room, you instantly looked like a smurf because of the color of the walls. Bedroom two had neon pink walls and neon pink carpet. Standing in that room during the day would make even the palest of people look rosy cheeked. The third bedroom had lemon yellow walls. Three guesses what color the carpet was. I didn't even know carpet came in such a bright yellow.

3) The shower walls were tiled. That was not the issue. The issue was that the tile continued up the back wall until it hit the 12ft ceiling that was in the bathroom.

4) All the second story windows were about a foot lower that what they should have been. So when you stood instead of looking out the window, you were looking at the upper frame of the window. To look out the window itself you had to kind of bend over.

5) The coup de grace was the kitchen. It was a small kitchen. There was the dishwasher and sink. But what about the rest of the appliances? We found the stove and fridge down a short hallway in what I guess was originally a mud room. If you stood at the stove, turned around, and took two steps, you'd wind-up in a small bathroom with a toilet and a door that didn't fully closed.

Yeah, that house just didn't work for us.

[lady_disdain]

Door knobs in the center are a very classical design because of symmetry and balance - who cares if it works? After all, these same people were placing faux doors besides a fireplace to balance the design.

Whoever did the wiring on my BF's apartment really wanted to kill someone. There are 2 (not 1 - 2!) electrical plugs right outside the shower. One is on the exact place I tend to reach for naturally when leaving the shower. Not fun.

[Wonderflonium]

Whoever did the wiring on my BF's apartment really wanted to kill someone. There are 2 (not 1 - 2!) electrical plugs right outside the shower. One is on the exact place I tend to reach for naturally when leaving the shower. Not fun.

That's so weird! Have you put those plastic plugs in them that are used to baby-proof?

[lady_disdain]

Whoever did the wiring on my BF's apartment really wanted to kill someone. There are 2 (not 1 - 2!) electrical plugs right outside the shower. One is on the exact place I tend to reach for naturally when leaving the shower. Not fun.

That's so weird! Have you put those plastic plugs in them that are used to baby-proof?

I am trying to convince him to let me just disable them and isolate the wires.

[exitzero]

A friend of mine bought a house that had wiring that was so awful, the people who lived there had their microwave in the bathroom, because having in the kitchen would blow a fuse every time they used it.

[Sirius]

A friend of mine bought a house that had wiring that was so awful, the people who lived there had their microwave in the bathroom, because having in the kitchen would blow a fuse every time they used it.

This sounds like a rental house my family lived in when I was in high school.  There were two circuits in the house - the whole house was on one, and the garage was on the other.  I remember one night trying to make Hamburger Helper in my mother's electric skillet, and my sister was trying to dry her hair and the circuit breaker kept tripping.  I finally took the skillet out to the garage and finished cooking on top of the clothes dryer.  This was many years before computers or even microwave ovens, so no telling what would have happened then.

[#1aunt]

Door knobs in the center are a very classical design because of symmetry and balance - who cares if it works? After all, these same people were placing faux doors besides a fireplace to balance the design.

That reminds me - one of the houses I looked at appeared to have a faux door next to the fireplace in the basement.  I opened it, thinking there way maybe a closet there.  Instead I discovered a narrow staircase leading to what was once a one-car garage.  It had been converted to a long, somewhat narrow room.  We called it the bonus room.

I really liked that house - the kitchen was gorgeous.  But the roof needed to be replaced and the asking price was too high.   Last time I checked it was still for sale. 

[Stormtreader]

Secret chamber?

Library & reading room

Crafts room and supply storage for those crafts

Computer room

Chocolate storage

Master bedroom

Playroom for the grandkids

Hide various collections in it - coins, stamps, music, books, chocolate bunnies..........

The bolded! 

Unless the room was secret even from me, it would be theoretical chocolate storage only

[Twik]

2. We looked at a gorgeous house with a finished MIL suite in the basement, granite countertops, brand new hardwood floors and appliances. It was so nice. There was a lovely, big shade tree in the front yard, the lawn was a decent size, and it was on a very quiet street. The drawback was that it backed up to a cemetery. The backyard was fenced in with 4' high chain link fencing, and there was a headstone less than 25' from the fence. When I saw the backyard I shrieked, and DH later told me that he would never live next to a cemetery. His reasoning is hilarious. Mind you, he knows that zombies aren't real, but just in case the dead emerge from their graves, he doesn't want to be the first one eaten.

As long as the house wasn't serviced by a shallow well, I'd love to have a place that backed onto a cemetary!  At least you know the neighbour's will be quiet.  Plus, it's lots of greenspace!  I'm one of those in favour of using cemetaries as parkland - going for walks, even picnicing as long as there are no services going on and one is respectful of the gravesites.

Where I grew up there is a house who has one wall part of the cemetery fence. I assume it used to be the caretaker's house. I can't remember if there is a door on that wall or not - it could have been removed - but there was a window and I once looked into it and saw that the room was empty. I guess if i lived in that house I wouldn't use that room for anything either.

Ever see the "Time Travellers" archeology show from the UK? I loved the episode where the woman discovered while digging in her garden that her house was built over a Saxon cemetery.

She felt it was incredibly cool.

[jaxsue]

Not house hunting, but one of my professors talked about how she had previously lived in a lovely house deigned by a famous architect. However, all the doorknobs were in the middle of the doors instead of on the side.

The best part was that this was a physics professor, married to another physics professor. They were teased by all their friends for having doors that were clearly designed by someone who did not consider the physics of why the doorknobs are where they are.

Weren't the doorknobs to the apartment in Family Affair like that? I always thought it looked odd.

[sbagirl]

DH and I stopped at an open house because it was a house we had been curious about and it had been on the market for quite a while.

It was an older house and the current owners had converted a closet on the first floor to a powder room.  The door on this powder room faced the front door of the house, and the toilet was right inside the door.  So, if you were sitting on the toilet and didn’t close the bathroom door, anyone who came up on the porch would be staring right at you. 

The upstairs bathroom was rather narrow.  The sink was on the left, the bathtub was on the right, and the toilet was in the back of the bathroom.  The owners had taken a large slab of marble (about 18” wide) and fastened it to the edge of the bathtub.  I guess they were trying to make it into a bench or something.  This only served to make the bathroom more narrow and you had to turn sideways and shimmy into the bathroom sideways to get back to the toilet.

My favorite feature, though, was this.  There was a closet in the upstairs hall which backed against the end of the bathroom that had the plumbing for the bathtub.  Inside the closet was a pipe, running from the bathroom.  Attached to the pipe was a garden hose, all coiled up inside the closet.  When I asked the real estate agent what that was for, he explained that Mrs. Owner liked to light candles and leave them all over the place and Mr. Owner had a large dog who tended to knock over said candles.  So Mr. Owner installed the hose in the closet as his own “fire extinguisher” and he was extremely proud of that feature. 

[TeamBhakta]

DH and I stopped at an open house because it was a house we had been curious about and it had been on the market for quite a while.

It was an older house and the current owners had converted a closet on the first floor to a powder room.  The door on this powder room faced the front door of the house, and the toilet was right inside the door.  So, if you were sitting on the toilet and didn’t close the bathroom door, anyone who came up on the porch would be staring right at you. 

The upstairs bathroom was rather narrow.  The sink was on the left, the bathtub was on the right, and the toilet was in the back of the bathroom.  The owners had taken a large slab of marble (about 18” wide) and fastened it to the edge of the bathtub.  I guess they were trying to make it into a bench or something.  This only served to make the bathroom more narrow and you had to turn sideways and shimmy into the bathroom sideways to get back to the toilet.

My favorite feature, though, was this.  There was a closet in the upstairs hall which backed against the end of the bathroom that had the plumbing for the bathtub.  Inside the closet was a pipe, running from the bathroom.  Attached to the pipe was a garden hose, all coiled up inside the closet.  When I asked the real estate agent what that was for, he explained that Mrs. Owner liked to light candles and leave them all over the place and Mr. Owner had a large dog who tended to knock over said candles.  So Mr. Owner installed the hose in the closet as his own “fire extinguisher” and he was extremely proud of that feature.

I used to attend a private religious school. Some of the classes were in the church building and some were in a newer, larger building next to the church. Whoever designed the men's room in the church made a glaring mistake. The window to the men's room was to the right of the church steps. And the glass was supposed to look frosted, but it wasn't as frosted as the builders had thought. So yeah, every time a male used that bathroom, you could easily see him from the butt up  . It was even worse if a guy turned on the overhead light. One of my classmates made the mistake of using that bathroom. He didn't know a group of girls went by, did a double take and broke out laughing. Well, until his friends told him later.