MetaChat - What's your favorite detail about your apt or house?

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10 April 2009

What's your favorite detail about your apt or house? →[More:]I'm looking for a new apartment, and aside from the stress, I'm really enjoying seeing all the little details that make certain places special.

Yesterday I saw a few super long closets, and a teeny weeny cute mini-dishwasher. If I had that dishwasher, I'd buy these eye stickers and make it a little face.

post by: rmless2 at: 10:16 | 40 comments

Nice wide board pine floors. Porch. Big double kitchen window.

When looking for a new apartment I try very hard for these three things: gas stove, full bathtub, and onsite laundry.

posted by Miko 10 April | 10:34

That none of the rooms are squares or rectangles (except the guest bedroom). Our condo is in a six-flat built at the turn of the last century, so the inside walls have been shifted around fairly often and none of the resulting rooms are rectangles or squares, but some odd shape.

The exterior porch was turned into what is now my sewing room. What is now the master bedroom, therefore, has an exterior old-fashioned sash window looking into my sewing room. The cats are flummoxed by it. The master bedroom used to be the dining room (when the conversion happened, half the units still had the built-in breakfront in them; sadly it has long been removed from our house) and is an octagon.

posted by crush-onastick 10 April | 10:35

My deep, traditional-style Japanese tub.

posted by flapjax at midnite 10 April | 10:39

Double height bright airy living room

posted by Wilder 10 April | 10:46

The fireplace in our apt. living room - we never use it as I'm sensitive to wood smoke, but I love how our living room can be centered around something other than the TV.

posted by muddgirl 10 April | 10:51

Parking spot is right next to the front door (condo parking lot; coulda been assigned one far, far away...).

posted by Melismata 10 April | 10:53

When they remodeled my house 20 years ago or so, they put in this great old gas stove. (Well, not that particular one. That is not my wallpaper, I promise you.)

It's a pain in the ass to keep clean, but it works great and is very spiffy when it's not covered in cat hair and caked-on food.

posted by mudpuppie 10 April | 10:55

Our fireplace. Our house was once owned by a stonemason, and when he enclosed the carport to make a den, he built one entire wall out of big, rugged rocks, 12 feet tall, and with a hearth that's bench-height and runs the width of the room.

The rest of the room needs some work (60s paneling and carpet, yeesh) but we both love the fireplace a lot.

posted by BoringPostcards 10 April | 10:59

The huge bathroom, with full length bath. The fact that it has four doors to the outside. The fact that it is on a quiet street that is actually a bike commute artery.

The fact that it's just generally cozy.

posted by danf 10 April | 11:00

The back porch--it's just the usual glassed-in sun room thing, but I really like it. Anything that plays up the indoor/outdoor-ness is up my alley.

posted by box 10 April | 11:03

100'-long back yard. OK, so it's only 13 feet wide, but even that is a real luxury in the city. It gives us enough room for off-street parking, a nice-sized garden, and a sitting/grilling area. It really is what sold us on our house. You can see our Scion xB and raised beds on Google.

posted by mrmoonpie 10 April | 11:06

mudpuppie- that is the coolest stove!

posted by rmless2 10 April | 11:24

I love my retro kitchen, which is poorly laid out but a good size for two people to work at once without stepping all over each other.

I also love the gigundo living room, which has comfortable seating for a dozen or so, and more could squeeze if they brought in chairs. Having a big living room is great.

posted by kellydamnit 10 April | 11:33

Windows, windows everywhere. I can actually have plants; my house is full of light. And the covered deck off the kitchen with built in benches. I love, love LOVE my deck; the roof makes all the difference.

posted by mygothlaundry 10 April | 11:35

I wish I had a deck. I miss having a second story porch, that was sweet. Get home, kick back, enjoy the breeze, have a beer. Nothing better...

posted by kellydamnit 10 April | 11:47

mudpuppie, if I ever get the scratch, I'm installing a similar stove! It's awesome.

I love our hundred-year old softwood floors that, when I walk on them in my bare feet, let me feel the wear patterns of a hundred years of people walking on them. And I love that we've got a hand-dug, brick-lined well that I can look down. And that our french doors were, according to one of my neighbors, scrounged off the set of Singles. Also that we've got 27-years left on a 30-year roof warranty.

posted by stet 10 April | 11:48

This thread is making me jealous! I'm thinking of renaming it "Cool Things You Could Have If You Didn't Live In NYC"

posted by rmless2 10 April | 11:55

My favorite thing about my new house is that I don't know where all of it is yet. It has secret passways behind the walls, and trap doors, and after months of living here, I am *still* finding new areas I didn't know existed.

The man who owned it originally was a fire marshall, and he did woodworking as a hobby. So even the secret tunnels are finished, and some of them even have lights! There's even more than one closet that has a closet (and one of our closets that has a closet? Has a closet.)

I can't wait for my niece and nephew to visit this summer, we're going to have the world's best game of hide-and-seek.

Also, because it's in the middle of Portland, I can walk anywhere - to get groceries, dinner, a drink, watch a show. LOVE it.

Downside is we have a backyard that's the size of the master bedroom, but it's big enough to have people over for cooking out and enjoying the night. Feel like I landed on my feet with this one - in our price range, we were expecting to buy a really rundown, in a crappy neighborhood, house. I saw it the day it went up, and we offered what she asked. Which was for some reason $20k less than the market value.

posted by Sil 10 April | 12:07

mudpuppie, that is an awesome stove. Stoves like that last forever too.

posted by Sil 10 April | 12:10

The thing that sold me on the condo was the adorable private balcony/patio thing that looks out into a massive forest.

posted by sperose 10 April | 12:32

I rent, but we have a huge back yard for the dog, and a walk-in closet in the master bedroom. We love our fireplace, too. And I pay a good price. I'm very fortunate.

posted by toastedbeagle 10 April | 12:43

My flat, in a giant block of flat, in a neighborhood of giant blocks of flats, is pretty soulless from the exterior, but inside the fact that it was my boss' bachelor pad is pretty evident. The place has been lived in and is totally comfortable; there's even a safari helmet hidden in the entertainment center we found!

posted by mdonley 10 April | 12:45

Sil, I want to spend hours just exploring your house. That sounds amazing. I love the idea of a secret passage. (there's a company that makes bookshelf-doors for just that... when I own a home some day I may designate a room as secret and get one of those.)

posted by kellydamnit 10 April | 12:46

kellydamnit, that's one of the things we are going to do, but we are going to build our own.

Our bedroom has another room off of it (the only way to get to the extra room is through the bedroom unless you take a secret passage from the office by crawling into a speaker), which we are currently using as our library and exercise room (it has a nice skylight that opens, which makes yoga and pilates quite pleasant), so we are talking about getting rid of our cheap bookshelves in there and building our own. If we do that, we will definitely cover the door to one of the secret passages with a bookcase.

Yeah, it kinda fulfills some daydreams I had as a kid (secret passageways! trap doors! hidden rooms! hehe)

(also, I am apparently feeling super parenthetical today)

posted by Sil 10 April | 12:51

My place is kind of a dump. There's no bathtub. The floors are hideous linoleum and battered carpet. Also the door opens into the very confusing back courtyard, so I have to meet visitors out on the street to show them the way in, I can't order delivery food, and I have to wait for my landlord to bring mail around, which doesn't always work very well.

But the rent's not going up any time soon, there are Meyer lemons and birds of paradise outside the window, and my landlord's a very nice eccentric guy who will occasionally dogsit. And there is absolutely nothing generic about it.

posted by tangerine 10 April | 12:59

My house is very generic. There is no interesting architecture to speak of, but we have a: Quiet street, good neighbors, big garage, walk-in closet, large enough bedrooms, screened-in back porch, big backyard, we live on a pond and get to see all kinds of wildlife, big kitchen, huge pantry, and plenty of sunlight in most of the rooms. I also love that I don't have carpet. They day I got rid of all of the carpet was a great day.

posted by LoriFLA 10 April | 14:22

i LOVE my flat. two story 3 bedroom maisonette with gorgeous cornicing and creaky big wide blond floorboards everywhere. also in a completely nuts neighbourhood which i also love. also it has my hubs, cats and computers in it!

posted by By the Grace of God 10 April | 14:35

My place is less than three years old. The builder used better than average materials throughout (even in the framing, wiring, and roofing). My favorite part is the Arts and Crafts style window framing (inside), with good-quality wood. Also, there are gorgeous custom cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms.

The stairwell has floating steps, and at the top landing is a branching, tree-like post/rail thing (hard to describe).

The upstairs floors are pine (downstairs laminate); it's the first place I've lived in without the standard late-twentieth-century carpet treatment.

I have my own laundry room (last place was icky shared condo laundry) and a small, 18 inch dishwasher. I haven't had a dishwasher since I was a kid.

I'm also in the middle of my downtown, within walking distance to groceries, all of the office buildings I ever go to, libraries, bookstores, movie theaters, etc. If I didn't go to Costco once a week, I could get rid of my car.

On the downside, the builder is not a cook and didn't design the kitchen work-flow well. The fridge, sink, and oven are too far apart. I also hate the granite he used for the kitchen counters.

posted by D.C. 10 April | 16:14

The building that houses my apartment has turn-of-the-century details that haven't been eradicated by updates. The showers, toilets, and kitchen sinks are new, but the glass doorknobs, strange little closets, and creaky wood floors aren't. I love the buildup of paint that smoothes the edges of all the woodwork, and the high, high ceilings. My bedroom window, four floors up, looks out onto a very small wooded gorge, which now has daffodils and crocuses growing in it, and birds of all kinds filling it with music. The window faces due east, and so every morning especially the whole effect is very
Vivo sola, soletta
là in una bianca cameretta:
guardo sui tetti e in cielo;
ma quando vien lo sgelo
il primo sole è mio
il primo bacio dell'aprile è mio!
except that I am not dying of consumption.

Also, there's a nice grassy courtyard, flanked by the u-shaped building's wings, where I can safely walk my cat.

posted by notquitemaryann 10 April | 16:49

I like the fact that it's in New York. It's also pretty big for a NYC apartment. The rent is not completely ridiculous.

Otherwise . . . eh, y'know, it's a place to live.

posted by jason's_planet 10 April | 17:36

My apartment is literally on top of a subway stop. That's the best thing about it. Other than that it's a completely generic (although nice) apartment.

posted by gaspode 10 April | 18:12

The favourite part of our new house is the front door, which I insisted on having even though it cost almost $3k. In the photo, the glass panels are masked up so I could give it a coat of sealer. It doesn't look all that special until you realise that the door itself is 240mm (8') high. It is a "pivot" door, so it swings from a pivot about 100mm in from the right-hand side and includes a hydraulic closer built into the top jamb which also prevents the door from slamming open or shut (otherwise, at about 100kg, it would rip the front wall of the house off).

The door is made of cedar and, when finished, will have a long stainless steel vertical handle and biometric locks (so no visible lock hardware on the outside of the door).

Many people think it's a ridiculous indulgence, but I don't care.

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by dg 10 April | 22:03

Oh, also, behind the entry area that that door opens to, is a garden enclosed by the house on three sides (with glass walls) and the covered outdoor living area on the other side. When it's all finished, it will be a lush tropical garden right in the middle of the house, but outside. If I have figured things out properly when designing the house, it will also act as a chimney to suck hot air out of the house in summer (two of the three glass walls are louvre windows).

Because we designed the house ourselves from scratch, there are lots of things in it that I love. I just need to get off the computer and get back to building it so we can move in :-(

posted by dg 10 April | 22:09

dg, your house is going to be amazing!!

posted by Sil 11 April | 01:19

I get the keys to my new apartment on Tuesday, and hand over the keys to my old apartment at the end of the month. Right now, my favorite part of my new apartment is that it doesn't have my old landlord.

posted by rhapsodie 11 April | 01:28

dg, Spidey is going to have one awesome hangout.

posted by LoriFLA 11 April | 10:02

I want Sil's house. Secret passages!!! *dreamy sigh*

I had a tiny apartment once where the windows were pocket windows. I'd heard of pocket doors, but not windows, before moving in. I loved them, even though they would sometimes stick in hot weather.

My current house is a manufactured one; so nothing special. But it's affordable, has three bedrooms, two full baths, a corner lot, and it's mine, mine, mine!!

posted by redvixen 11 April | 19:34

Roof access, and an awesome roof.

posted by piratebowling 11 April | 19:51

dg I love hearing about your house. :)

posted by dabitch 12 April | 09:52

- front door
- laundry room
- fireplace
- "secret garden" backyard
- living room picture window that looks into backyard
- lots of storage space

posted by deborah 12 April | 23:40

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