Trends: what women want in a condo

[shootingstar]

If I live by myself, I don't want to be living at a ground level. Not in a big city. But then, I don't want to way high up in the clouds, which we are in Vancouver....33 floors up. A fire drill is kind of drag....all that walking. And I take fire a real possibility because it did happen in Toronto when I lived on 4th floor and there was a fire above me. Smoke was coming through the air vents...believe me, it's a scary feeling. Thankfully I booted down the stairs.

[Koronin]

Both my current home and the home I used to own have walk-in closest off the bathroom in the master bedroom. Never really thought on way or the other about it actually. Although I would find a walk through closet to the bathroom a bit odd. I've had dishwashers in my old house, the town home we rented, my current home and the apt I rented and never use them. Personally for either just me or my husband and myself I find them to be a waste of money. I can hand wash dishes using less water and most definitely less electricity. One thing I do find odd is laudry right off the kitchen. In my old home and the townhouse it was basically a closet in the kitchen that was for laundry. I do like this house where at least I have a laundry room. It's right off the kitchen and small, but it is a laudry room, and it does lead to the garage.

[nuliajuk]

Laundry rooms off the kitchen - or even in the kitchen - are the norm in the U.K. I suppose it's because most homes don't have basements there. From a plumbing standpoint, I suppose it makes sense, although you'd want a drain in the kitchen floor to deal with emergency overflows. Which is not a bad idea if you have a dishwasher, actually.

[Koronin]

nuliajuk, thanks for that info. Actually that does make sense. The home I had before, the townhouse, and my current home do not have basements. The homes I grew up (we moved once when I was a kid) had laundry in the basement, as did my grandparent's homes. From what I can tell most homes in NC do not have basements. Where I live (near the coast) I'm sure the water table is too high to even consider basements, in the western part of the state you're dealing with mountians. There's no drain anywhere in the home for emergency overflows in any of the homes I've lived in where the laundry is off the kitchen.

[OakLeaf]

In Florida they put the laundry appliances in the garage. This is considered completely normal. Actually using the garage for storing and working on vehicles - which would involve getting grease, brake dust, etc., on your waiting laundry and folding table - not so much. That happens in the driveway.

[skhill]

If it's done right, laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms is a great idea. However, I have 2 friends who have both had water coming through the ceiling downstairs. Major pain. My 100 yr old house has the laundry in a utility room that used to be a back porch, just off the kitchen. Works fine for me. Except when the pipes freeze, it's not well insulated out there... There are all of 2 closets in the house, btw, both of them very very tiny, not even deep enough for a hanging rod. Seems like some houses these days have walk-in closets bigger than my bedroom!