Entry #662633, added on 08-07-09 @ 3:23 pm EDT
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| Designing houses for living | Entry #662633 |
Usually men design houses. I really haven't seen that many female architects or lead contractors. And it shows. Yet, women outnumber men as the managers of those houses.
First, there are never enough electrical outlets. Or if there are almost enough, they are not in convenient locations. In a bedroom, the outlet may in the middle of the only wall with no windows or doors. Where is the bed going to go? Right against the middle of that wall, making that outlet difficult to reach, if at all. Or heavy dressers or bookcases will cover the outlet. And these days, there are TV's, radios, clocks, and computers in bedrooms, as well as lamps. And with today's small appliances and electronics, kitchens and family rooms need outlets at several spots on each wall and at several heights. In my computer corner, I have one outlet with two plugs for a computer, a lamp, a printer, and a phone! So where do I plug the vacuum? You can never have too many shoes or electrical outlets. Of course, the circuitry has to handle all those extra things, too.
Next, closets. They're never big enough, even when every room has one. Closets aren't just for clothes. They hold all our "stuff". We have to have a place for luggage, sports things, Christmas things, linens, supplies for overnight guests, vacuums, floor polishers, carpet cleaners, crafts, nostalgia, toys and games, visitors' coats,and our hobbies. Some households need a place to keep medical or invalid supplies. And we can't forget a place to hide birthday or Christmas gifts. Now our bedroom closets don't have to be gigantic, as long as there is a second closet somewhere else, you know, for seasonal things. We can trade out summer and winter wardrobes, the active closet being the one in the bedroom. Anything that doesn't get transferred back and forth with the season changes goes in the box for donations to the V.A. charity yard sale. Even big houses just don't seem to come with small pantries or broom closets,
So many shortcuts are taken when building houses. You'll find a house where the outlets are far from the doors, so that when you enter a room at night, you have to rub your arm up and down the wall until you locate the switch. I had a house where one outlet on a blank wall in the dining area was almost too high for me to reach. And I've seen houses where the washer and dryer and water heater were in the closet. So where does that family member hang clothes or get privacy? And in my A-frame, floor vents for heating and cooling were right up against the double set of sliding doors, so that the air went up between the drapes and the glass, and not into the room where we needed warm air.
And that brings me to another gripe. Baseboard heat. These men in a hurry don;t care when they're building that for the next 40 years or more, furniture is going to be right up against those heat units, blocking air flow, and drying out and cracking from the heat. I just know that if women were on the job, things would turn out differently.
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