What we prefer in our homes is culture, not nature

[Andrea9]

Following up on theme questions regarding which appliance preference for rentals -

whether electric water kettle vs. kettle..... airco vs. fans.....

here's a great informative article on cultural difference and appliances:

Moving in with an expat taught me that what we prefer in our homes is culture, not nature

Happy hosting

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Beautiful! I was saying walk-in bath tub

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 ah, I see. I think here those are very unusual except for the elderly or disabled.

[Susie5]

@Huma0, we do have walk in showers in the US (I think it would be considered a  high end item) but they would have a complete door. I've never seen the design you show in the picture.  Here is a typical one.  

Susie

[Huma0]

@Susie5 it's funny isn't it, these small cultural differences and how we refer to things. We wouldn't call that example a walk in shower here, but an enclosed one. The concept here is that you simply 'walk in' to the shower without having to open and close a door!

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

I think that we call enclosed shower just shower or enclosed shower, not walk-in shower. I have only seen walk-in shower in hotels but not in homes. To build a shower is not that high end. I recently plan to remodel one of my half bathrooms into a full bathroom, and the handyman recommended an enclosed shower and gave me a quote, which was not so costly. it seems a huge jacuzzi is more high end than an enclosed shower. 

[Huma0]

@Huaai0, no I don't think either the enclosed shower or walk in shower need to cost a lot of money. I have both types here and got them inexpensively by shopping around, but then we have a lot of choice for these kinds of things in the UK so prices are very competitive.

What is likely to cost a lot of money here is a wet room set up. You see similar things in quite affordable hotels in many other countries, but here we have really high labour costs, so having a wet room is inevitably expensive.

People tend to think of a walk in shower as more of a high end product becuase you need a reasonably large bathroom to fit one in and space is usually limited here in European cities, especially London!

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

You are so right, and we are on the same page. Here labour is expensive, too. To get a handyman to fix a stuck toilet may cost a couple hundred dollars. It was $80 may years ago but now no one would be interested in a small job that can earn less than a couple hundred bucks. Neither walk-in shower nor enclosed shower is expensive or "high end." On the contrary, they are "low end" compared to many other things. Since water is free we keep bathtubs so we can have a full bath and  I primarily wash my doggie in the bathtub. 

[Huma0]

@Huaai0 a discussion with recent Canadian guests made me realise that it's as tough in Canada to get decent builders etc. to fix stuff in your house as it is here! You are right. They are not interested in the small jobs and so it is a constant struggle for me to get small things sorted out.

[Huaai0]

@Huma0 True, English craftsmen are world famous. Just look at Albert and Victoria Museum. Here you might get in a trap. A friend of mine found a handyman on a newspaper to fix her fireplace. The intial quotation was $1,500, but when making the payment, the handyman added one zero and made it $15,000. Since the handyman was middle eastern and my friend Chinese who was afraid of fighting and confrontation, she asked her boyfriend, also Middle Eastern, to handle and mediate this LOL. I have seen lots of disputes like that these years between home owners and builders.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Huma0 lol 😄

when my daughter was a little girl we passed by a cabrio parked on the street.

So I said - look how nice this car is.

She looked and asked - is it expensive?

- yes.

- hm... then they coud also put a roof on it.

😄

[Huma0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 that's so funny! I love that story.

[Huma0]

Another difference, which I keep forgetting to mention to overeas guests when they check in is the bathroom light pulls. In the UK, we seem to have far stricter regulations about electrical safety than other countries (for example, we have the three point plugs for this reason). We cannot have a normal light switch on the wall inside a bathroom. You either have to have it on the wall outside the bathroom, or you have a pull swich which is attached to the ceiling. This is so that people with wet hands don't electrocute themselves I guess.

We also don't normally have regular plug sockets in bathrooms. The same American guest who broke the walk-in shower was not expecting this. I went into the bathroom and was suprised to find a hairdryer in the basin. Why, I thought, would you put an electrical appliance in a wet sink? Luckily it wasn't plugged in though as she couldn't work out how to do that.

I had to explain that we only have special shaver sockets in the bathrooms. They look like this:

You can use shavers, electric toothbrush chargers, epilators and that sort of thing which come fitted with special plugs for these sockets. You cannot use our regular three point plugs in them. Again, she looked at me like I was insane when I said she needed to plug the hairdryer in the bedroom. And yes, there is a mirror in the bedroom close to the socket...

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Your house is very beautiful. You must have a flair for home decor. Or did you hire an interior designer?

[Huma0]

Thank you @Huaai0! No, I have never used an interior designer. I have always been really interested in interiors and enjoy doing it myself. I just choose what I personally like and then try to somehow achieve that within a rather limited budget (I love finding a bargain!). I don't worry if it is to other people's tastes or not, because if you try to please everyone, you will end up with something really bland.

I do think it depends on the style of property and the location though. I try to decorate in sympathy with the age and period details of my house, without making it look like a set design for a historical movie.  However, I did have one Korean guest recently who commented that, for him, staying here was like staying in a museum! I think he meant that as a compliment though 🙂

[Huaai0]

@Huma0

Having been to England twice and having stayed at family hotels and Airbnb, I think that your place is definitely ABOVE average in London, if not in UK. Your fireplaces, furniture, chandeliers, are not cheap. You also have a small garden, which I believe must be a luxury in London. Your built-in book case is my dream. However, I'm unable to build that kind of book case in my townhouse as we have all drywalls, and such remodeling needs to be approved by strata and may cause disturbance to my neighbour. The cabinet above the toilet tank is pretty and looks classy, so are the mirrors. Too bad I have never seen anything like that here in BC. A very nice home decor store here in downtown Van is closing as the boss told me that their business was not good and that they could not afford the rent anymore. So this is the reality.