I just read Phantom's post (which is, btw, brilliant), and was inspired to write about this:
Yesterday I went to look at a model home in a new development near my house (the development is called Moreland Estates, which I think is to try to get people to not notice that they can pass a cup of sugar out the windows of their palatial homes to their neighbor's windows).
In any case, I visited and looked around. This particular model features 5! bedrooms and 4 baths on the top floor. The master bedroom has a living room in it (called an "owner's retreat"), one of the possible bedrooms was open to the hall and was made into a living room, the main floor has 2 living rooms ("family room" and "formal"), and the finished basement had yet another living room.
All that space for sitting around on couches and yet...very little storage space (if you don't count the closets in the master bedroom).
Basements in these homes are always finished*...where are the root cellars and box rooms of the past? Where are the butler's pantries? Where, for that matter, are the medicine cabinets?
The answer I got from the sales lady? Butler's pantries don't sell. Well, I'd buy one.
We live in increasingly bigger and bigger houses with less and less room to put the supplies of living. Is it any wonder that we end up using the unused third living room (or in my case the dining room) as a storage shed?
*Our basement is not finished and we are using it for storage, but we also have a HUGE number of large tools down there. The table saw alone takes up a kitchen's worth of space.
Through My Glasses, Dorkily
13 years ago