One of the many unique things about living in The Netherlands is the housing. Houses there are quite different than what we have in Canada or the U.S. Several people have asked, so I thought it was worthy of a couple of posts.
First off, like most European cities, land is at a premium, so houses go up, not out. A row or semi-detached house is the norm, with detached houses being quite rare near the town/city center. Most houses we looked at were three or four stories.
Here are a couple of things that confounded me:
Bathrooms – ensuite bathrooms are not common. In fact, in some houses there is not even a bathroom on each floor. Many of the places we looked at did not have a bathroom on the first floor (their call it floor 0 or ground floor). So in these situations your guests would have to go upstairs to use the restroom.
My husband couldn’t get over the fact that some rooms that contained toilets did not contain sinks. But then, you see random sinks in bedrooms. I am not sure about the logic behind this, but we saw it several times.
When you do see the bathroom sinks, you will notice that they are small. In many cases they are standalone sinks without a cabinet or storage. I guess this is going to mean a slimming down our toiletries.
Laundry – very few places have what would be considered a laundry room. So instead, you will find the washer and/or dryer in a variety of interesting locations. Kitchen. Bathroom. Hall. Our laundry is in a small room off the hall on the top (3rd) floor.
Red, White and Tulips 