New house plans...

[CADjockey]

So I'm in a quandary over why I'm not excited about the design we currently have. Not gone to planning yet,

Could do with some external comment as cannot now be objective. 

 

Here are the floor plans from the designer, and some SketchUP views by me.

 

Any help appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterW]

Right ...

 

- too many “stores” upstairs

- move bathroom to be accessed by landing and make bed 3/4 share a jack and Jill ensuite

- master shower has a window in it .... in the tray area ..?

- no direct access from kitchen to dining, you’ll never use it ...

- snug isn’t snug, it’s an alcove off the kitchen 

- plant isn’t big enough, laundry and boot are too big so combine 

- study and playroom..? How old are they..? Consider finding somewhere for an office space

- what’s the square above the patio for upstairs ..???

- master balcony - will you ever use it..?

 

I’ll have another look in a bit .. 

 

 

[pdf27]

You've also got quite a lot of what appears to be detail for the sake of detail - it's quite a complicated shape for what appears to be no real reason inside, presumably purely to add external interest - you should be able to break the building up into smaller sections in other ways that are cheaper and give a better airtightness & insulation result. Having upper level floors & roof offset from the ground level floor is going to give you structural headaches - if you can line them up it will save a load of cash. Likewise unless you really need one deleting the basement will save you a lot more money - delete it and you can just use an insulated slab which is a hell of a lot cheaper unless you're on a major slope. In some ways the current design reminds me a bit of something found on http://mcmansionhell.com/ , at least externally.

On the insides I agree with @PeterW that it looks like it has an awful lot of house for not all that much space: the hall for instance is taking up a huge amount of internal volume, and unless you already have plans for the space the gym, most of the storage and possibly even the cinema would be much better off in the garage roof space than where they currently are in the basement.

[Tennentslager]

I think you should build a model...put way the mouse and get out the foam board and glue.

Next some Sharpies and a strong torch to mimic the sun... everyone will love it because not everyone can see in 3D?

For a project this big it's worth a weekend with the craft knife

[MikeSharp01]

What general feel are you trying to achieve, do you want to stand out on the street but be broadly in keeping with the vernacular or are you trying for very much more 'out there' look to the outside? Was the downstairs layout done by the erstwhile architect, it seems to me to have too many routes and not enough synergy, you have loads of 'spaces' which would be great if you have about 20 people living there all of whom need a separate space to do their thing. If you have young children in that layout you will be well out of touch with them in the playroom while you are cooking, if not then why have a playroom, I would swap the snug / playroom - study over and make a connection with the dining room direct from the kitchen, you could use a Narnia door, great fun. 

[Russell griffiths]

I try to never comment on these… do you like my house questions, as I think everybody is different and all our lives are different 

i have never put my plans on here for comments, although I did put up a pic of the model we used for planning, because I don’t really want other people’s opinions 

 

but I can’t help commenting on your internal layout, it looks very hard work. Too many doors and walls

 

take the boot room and laundry are they not the same thing, if the wife is in the laundry fighting with a big duvet cover, won’t she want as much room as poss. 

 

Something we did when designing our 2nd new build after 3major renovations was to each have a pad of paper and draw each individual room how we wanted them including sizes, we where not allowed to look at each other’s. 

We based this on what we already had. 

Did I actually need 60square metres of garage

the wife had to have a walk in wardrobe, as we had one in the last place but now seem to live out of the airing cupboard. 

 

Getting back to you (sorry) I would combine the boot and laundry, move the dining to the snug,

 

something else i would add, is nobody knows your financial or family position 

that looks like a big house, have you done a rough costing

 

after we had finished with our design I worked out very roughly that by shaving a couple of bits down I think I will save £40,000 on the build cost. 

Just have a think what you want to achieve and for how much. 

 

[newhome]

• Downstairs seems to have too many separate rooms and not much flow.
• Dining room needs to flow from the kitchen - who wants to carry stuff into the hall from the kitchen and then into another room? 
• The downstairs loo sandwiched between the cloakroom and a store seems a bit odd. Would a downstairs shower room serve you better? Walking through a wall of coats to use the loo seems strange.  
• The 'snug' (I'm going to call it a family room cos that's what it will be) is small compared to the boot room and laundry. I bet you will use that space a huge amount so look at making it larger to suit. 
• A study / office can be on its own at the front of the house, but a playroom cannot. So ditch the idea that a playroom can be located there. 
• Will you really use patio doors off the hall? That seems an odd idea to me TBH. I like the bifolds from the kitchen however, those should work well. 
• Can't get my head around all the stores upstairs. 
• Is there a bath in the upstairs bathroom? Can't see a bath anywhere else. And 2 sinks? Having 2 sinks is more usual in the master bathroom, and I think the master bathroom is quite small in relation to the size of the house. 
• Externally - there is something about the grey bits on either side of the rear elevation that look a bit tacked on to me, like they've been added as an afterthought or after an extension has been added. 

Sorry if we've all been a bit frank and none of us are 'right', as it's your house, but throwing some comments out there for you to reject or consider as you choose. 

 

 

[dpmiller]

In some ways the upstairs layout reminds me of ours; I'd have to ask tho, why does the bedroom with the dressing room get a "store" but the one next to it doesn't?

[ProDave]

It's all too disjointed.

 

Make the current kitchen, dining and snug all one big "familly room" (kitchen dining and living on one)  Then make the Lounge your snug to get away somewhere quiet.

 

Laundty and boot to become the playroom, near everyone else. Playroom to become boot, laundry, planr etc out of the way.

 

Upstairs, 2 right hand bedrooms to share jack & jill bathroom but you need a familly bathroom so make that one or both of the stores?

 

Big gallary landing is a wow feature, but boy what a waste of space.

 

Can't comment further until I know which way is North.

[AliG]

Welcome to the forum.

 

As you already mentioned that you are thinking getting rid of your architect, this reinforces that I probably would.

 

I do like the look of the outside, but this is one of the strangest interior layouts I have seen on here and I would echo most of the comments above.

 

I think the best advice is to make a list of rooms that you need and how you plan to use them and then decide how big you want them to be as a starting point before getting onto details.

 

1. Combine boot room/ laundry room and use the space freed up to make the snug bigger.

 

2. You walk through double doors into the kitchen and right into the island. As a general rule I think there should be a lot of space around the entrance to a room to make it feel spacious when you enter. The island is also in front of the bifolds. The whole kitchen layout needs rethought. You might want to move the kitchen area to where the snug is, if you made it bigger via point 1. A lot depends on whether you want a sofa in there or a table (which I prefer to an island). It really depends how you want to live in the space. Also square islands don't work well as you can't reach the middle.

 

3. I have a large double height entrance hall, and what you have there is very grand, but it uses a large percentage of the space. I see that the entrance to downstairs is under the stair and then you have patio doors that are unlikely to get used. Moving the stair to one side might actually make the hall feel bigger and allow a larger more open double height space if that is what you are going for.

 

4. I would hate having to walk through a cloak cupboard to get to the WC. I'd try and have a cupboard off the hall and a WC. I would also try to have a window in the WC if possible,

 

5. Not sure why the master bedroom has a store and a dressing room. I would probably make the store a wardrobe for the bedroom next door. I would not have an ensuite bedroom that did not have a fitted wardrobe.

 

6. I would make the master en suite larger and swap it around so the window is next to the sink/WC.

 

7. I  also am not a big fan of balconies. Do you think you would actually use it?

 

8. Making upstairs just slightly smaller than downstairs at these side will be very awkward to build. It would probably cost more and give you less space than if the area where the master ensuite and dressing room are just went right to the side of the house. You could use this to make them larger also. Actually looking at it, it is a really bad piece of design. There is an upstairs corner with nothing to support it for the sake of bringing it in roughly 2 feet. I think the house e has enough shape and interest to it that this would not make it too boxy.

 

9. I would concur that I would make the master en suite larger than the main bathroom. That's the room you'll use every day.

 

10. As drawn, it appears that the downstairs ceiling height is 2.4m. A house of this size would normally be 2.6-2.7m on the ground floor nowadays.

 

11. The garage is almost connected to the house, but not quite. It looks like the garage is designed to have usable space above it. If so, I would connect the garage properly to the house so you don't have to go outside.

 

12. You could consider putting the cinema and gym in the roof space rather than a basement, or rejigging the rooms to put a playroom up there and the cinema downstairs. It will probably be cheaper. We have put a games room up in the roof and it is a lovely light space.

 

I hope this doesn't sound too harsh. Some designs on here have been excellent and I wish I asked for advice on my own design. I also really like the outside look of the house. The layout though, seems to do some quite strange things and make some basic errors. 

 

Edited June 12, 2018 by AliG

[Bitpipe]

Lots of feedback here that is valid.

 

A basement is good value and adds valuable space that planners tend not to look at too closely, but they're only really economical if they follow the footprint of the house and act as the foundations.  Great for cinema room, gym etc and as teenager space when the kids get older. You will need a means of escape that is independent to the internal stairwell or a sprinkler system to meet regs though. If you put these rooms in loft then consider the noise transmission to bedrooms below (It's very expensive and difficult to minimise impact noise from floor to floor).

 

Think also as to which bedrooms are above which reception rooms and how they will be used in the evening - when you have teens and want an early night, will their watching TV disturb you?

 

Orientation to sun is also key - we put the kids rooms on east so bright in morning and darker at night.

 

I think theres a lot to be said for designing the house from inside out vs the other way round...

 

Other than that I agree on the comments on flow.

 

Our previous house was new build but lots of individual rooms which never really worked (after we sold it, the new owners made it open plan). Current self built house is effectively a cube with an open plan U downstairs from kitchen to dining to living and a separate study. Rooms are defined by furniture and there is more flexibility in use and layout - works well.

 

Before you redesign, read the Mark Brinkley Home Builders bible -  lots of important principals there on designing out cost  - a cube always has the maximum practical usable area to wall ratio, rectangles less so and corners cost money. Gable ends vs hipped roof reduce complexity and offer more room in roof space.

 

Obviously you don't want a plain facade but too much detail will just end up costing you money (I have pretty bedroom balconies that I will rarely use and they gobbled up lots of budget) balustrade glass is quite expensive and needs careful structural thought on what it sits on or attaches to.

 

Also, assuming you build to a relatively decent standard of airtightness and insulation, overheating will be your main concern, especially with large expanses of glass.

 

Have you given thought to your heating / ventilation strategy? location of DHW generation / MVHR wrt use (i.e. as central as possible) Where will your DHW storage be?

 

Why do you have a chimney? If its for a log burner etc, consider whether it is needed for heat generation (big risk of overheating that small lounge) and the environmental issues of wood burning and possible restrictions on that.

 

Regarding storage, you always need more than you think but my experience is that long shallow cupboards are more useful than narrow deep ones. We gave each bedroom a run of ikea wardrobes that were framed in once assembled and that's more than enough for each room. A large cupboard downstairs for coats, shoes, and cleaning/ironing equipment and one on the first floor for laundry, towels bedding etc.

 

 

[PeterW]

7 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

...theres a lot to be said for designing the house from inside out vs the other way round...

 

Agree 100%..!! I’ve had to redesign the interior of an agreed external layout and design, and it was challenging to say the least ..!! Small changes are easy, larger ones you end up needing changes to PP. 

 

You need to also consider if you plan to keep the property long term and how your needs will change and also how it can be reconfigured in the future. 

[Bitpipe]

6 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

Agree 100%..!! I’ve had to redesign the interior of an agreed external layout and design, and it was challenging to say the least ..!! Small changes are easy, larger ones you end up needing changes to PP. 

 

You need to also consider if you plan to keep the property long term and how your needs will change and also how it can be reconfigured in the future. 

 

In planning we had to respond to the Lifetime for Homes standard - while not binding (like part M) there was good food for thought on how the house could be adapted to enable ground floor sleeping and washing facilities, chairlifts to upper floors, support of hoists etc incase disability or illness changed the needs of the occupants.  

 

[jack]

This is a brave move, especially when you're probably already feeling uncomfortable with how things have gone with your designer, so well done mate. Hopefully the feedback will help crystallise your thoughts. As others have said, only you know what you want and how you live in a house. However, where lots of people are saying the same thing, that might be a clue that something's important.

 

I'm assuming from the lighting on the Sketchup model that south is roughly towards the bottom of the floorplans.

 

A few things that jumped out to me (some of which others have already mentioned):

• Too many stores. I don't know whether some of these are intended to be used for clothing storage, but personally I'd want to see generous built-in wardrobes in all bedrooms of a new build, especially of this size. The wardrobe in any spare/guest bedroom can double up as a general store (we keep Christmas and Halloween decorations in our spare bedroom wardrobe, for example).
• The bedrooms seem huge, but in at least a couple of them (eg, top left) you can't make much use of all the extra space. Personally, I think a longer, narrower room with the bed at one end gives you more options for furniture, musical instruments, and general playing area. 
• The top right bedroom has an awfully long walk to the bathroom (especially in the middle of the night). 
• I'm not sure about the laundry/boot room feedback. It's certainly nice to have a lot of space, but I'm less sure about having these functions combined. If you do combine them, you could consider a separate room for things like less-used shoes, coats and sports gear so that it's out of sight. Also, it's a minor thing, but having the laundry so far from the foot of the stairs could be an annoyance for whoever is schlepping up and down the stairs with clean and dirty laundry. A laundry chute might help at least for the bedrooms above.
• Some people will consider it wasteful, but I love the big entrance hall. That said, you'd retain most of the wow by moving the stairs to one side (or around two sides), keeping the centre open and making the space smaller. You could reduce the reception area by probably 20-30% without much impact on the feeling of space. The current stairs also seem a little narrow for the space, but that might just be because of how big the space looks on a floorplan.
• The kitchen island is massive - I don't know what work surfaces you have in mind, but I doubt you'll get a single piece of stone that size (fine if you're happy with a join through the middle). I also think it's potentially too big to look right - no-one can realistically reach the centre, so will it become a dumping ground for "stuff"? I know we have real trouble keeping our large island clear. I also think it feels like it's very close to the bifold doors. No-one's going to want to sit along that edge with a large window at their back.
• I like the snug position relative to the kitchen, at least in terms of having comfortable seating in that general location, although for me a proper snug works better away from the kitchen. In our case, we have a snug that's basically used as a TV room, and it's down the hall from the kitchen. The kids can go in there and watch a movie or read while we're cooking in the kitchen with the radio on. For the functions we wanted from a snug (eg, family movies after a long day out), it was important to be able to close everything up and make it dark and cosy - that's not really an option when it's beside the kitchen. If this is what you want from a snug, I'd consider having it elsewhere, but I think it's important to have comfortable seating (as you have in your snug) in the same open plan space as the kitchen. We don't have that in our place, and it's one of my biggest regrets.
• The dining room -  does anyone still use a formal dining room? I have some friends who have a really nice one (1930s house). We had dinner in it once, but every other time we've eaten in the open plan dining area adjacent the kitchen. The location of the current snug would actually be an ideal dining area. Perhaps consider swapping dining room and snug positions (and adjust room sizes accordingly)?
• Master balcony: balconies are expensive and a challenge to build without thermal bridges. Get a costing for the one on your master bedroom - you may be surprised at how much it'll add to the cost. I love the idea of balconies (we have a couple ourselves), but realistically, when will you use it? My wife likes the idea of having a coffee up there, but frankly by the time you've got some clothes on, gone downstairs, made the coffee and come back up, you'd have done just as well having it on the patio downstairs. The fact that it's uncovered and (it appears) south facing means you can't use it when it's raining and you can't use it when it's hot and sunny. Basically, you can only use it when it's warm and cloudy or cool and sunny. How many days a year is that? And if you have kids, how often do you think they're going to let you laze around up there when it's nice? 
• The different size of upstairs and downstairs will add disproportionately to the cost, while complicating detailing including airtightness and thermal bridging. 
• Re: the basement, if you have the funds and want those functions, go for it. Make sure you consider how you're going to sound-insulate the cinema room from the house above.
• Someone mentioned ceiling heights, and I agree. 2.4m for a large house will feel mean (a friend of ours has a large open plan refurb with 2.4m ceilings and the space feels awkward due to the ceiling height). We have 2.85m downstairs and I wouldn't go much lower for a large house. Upstairs we were more confined, so we have 2.55m and that's fine.  

More generally, have you worked out your budget and what all of this is likely to cost? At this stage, a rough guide would be the floor area multiplied by the likely cost per m². That cost is obviously quite variable and depends on your choice of build route (eg, main contractor or frame supply followed by individual contractors, whether you're project managing or having someone else doing it, and whether you'll be doing any of the building yourself). At this early stage I wouldn't budget for less than £2000 per m². You can certainly bring it in at less than that, but it's a good rough starting point (unless you're in London or surrounds, in which case I'd add a few hundred per m²).

 

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

[caliwag]

I agree with Peter W about changes over time...especially family change. and Bitpipe re designing from the inside, and especially from the front door in, towards the kitchen. I reference in my book 'Self build home...the last thing you need is an architect', architects who have written books about design...they generally recommend inside/out and the day by day , week by week, season by season acitivities, especially around the entrance (short term storage, rituals, visitors glimpse view to activities and so on) all too much to summarise here (the analysis/reviews, ferdinand, are all in the later edition, the 200+ pager, not the freebie). Design is difficult, yet it's all in one, and I don't just mean fashion!

 

Consider a big bay window to the snug...what a welcoming difference that would make. Perhaps an oriel work window to first floor landing...you need my book (as do all self designers) full of hints and tips for personalising your home...adding value, character and wow factor...internal windows, borrowed light, promise of activity, double use of space and so on. As I say too much to summarise. No waffle and packing. lofthousestudio@hotmail.com...Jamie (caliwag) cheers.

[epsilonGreedy]

A kitchen sink facing a long wall = no. Sometimes a necessity with an existing house or small kitchen but should be designed out given a cleansheet. 

[CADjockey]

Thanks, I think...

 

I probably should have added some additional detail before opening the flood gates, but all comments interesting.

So, a few things, by no means all...

 

I for example might have said that layouts of bathroom, kitchen content are just plonked in by the designer and are not

reperesentative of final condition. As are the naming of all the 'Stores'. The Study/Playroom is a reflection of how we use 

our current one off our existing lounge, whereas in this plan it's more Study, no intent to watch over little ones now they are 7 & 10.

 

I take your points about the scale of the hall/landing space, yes it's big, you should have seen his first draft! My only real intent

for that was that I want to access all the main rooms of the hall/landing without passing through other rooms. This is not

an issue for the en-suites or dressing room or boot room and laundry which are functionally different.

 

The stores on the first floor are wardrobes, except the landing accessed one which is linen, airing cupboard if you will. But can 

be repurposed to accommodate  stairs if ever we wanted to expand into the loft. 

 

The family bathroom was accessed from the landing but ended up being too small and there was an intent to try and make the 

kids rooms as similar in size as possible. I can't be doing with Jack'n'Jill, I just not going to happen, but I do see the point.

 

We use our separate dining room every meal time unless we are outside. I get the distance from kitchen comments, and my wife

has some reservations in that area, I just think an additional door between kitchen and dining is a waste of storage space, and a 70s

hatch seems out of time. Still undecided. We are not fans of the current trend for endless open plan living, and personally I think it's

really a just side effect of rooms being too small in modern houses. I do have a minor concern that if we put in an island that drops down 

into a table on the patio side we end up never using the dining room, but only because we have an additional table that is... yes... closer.

Thinking still required.

 

Balcony wasn't our idea, but came from the designer, I've skinned it down from the 5m square landing pad that he originally drew, I

could literally have relaunched the Falklands conflict from it, and am leaning towards a Juliet as shown on the RH bedrooms.

 

The cellar... yes, I know it's pouring money into a hole, quite literally, but for one thing I can't see where to put the additional rooms, connected 

to the house in some kind of flow with the other main rooms and have them on the GF where they belong. Yes I will have a 9m space above 

the garage, but I don't plan on going out to the garage to watch a movie. And for another thing, we want a cellar. Additionally it's kind of

free planning space.

 

Interesting comments on the differential footprint GF to FF and additional cost implications and the GF ceiling heights is not something I'd considered.

 

I can go on, but that's probably enough for now.

Further comment still appreciated, I still think :-)

 

Added site plan for interest, the garage is in the wrong place  and so are the steps to the first floor and the huge patio is all wrong,

so not much right then...

 

 

 

 

[PeterW]

17 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

A kitchen sink facing a long wall = no. Sometimes a necessity with an existing house or small kitchen but should be designed out given a cleansheet. 

 

Why ...??

[jack]

15 minutes ago, CADjockey said:

My only real intent for that was that I want to access all the main rooms of the hall/landing without passing through other rooms.

 

Any particular reason for this requirement downstairs? For less-used rooms (eg, lounge if you generally use the snug), why does it matter if you need to go via another room? Saves wasted circulation space (not that all circulation space is wasted, of course) and can help link everything together. Picture the scene as you walk through the front door at the moment: a cavernous reception room dominated by a central staircase, and then... some doorways around the perimeter. The only one of these that gives you any glimpse of what's to come is the slight view you get through the lounge to the garden. The view from the front door through all the other doors is onto a wall adjacent each of those doors.   

 

17 minutes ago, CADjockey said:

We use our separate dining room every meal time unless we are outside. I get the distance from kitchen comments, and my wife has some reservations in that area, I just think an additional door between kitchen and dining is a waste of storage space, and a 70s hatch seems out of time. Still undecided. 

 

Is your current separate dining room a several minute walk from the kitchen?  Believe me, you'll get sick of that traipse after a while. "Oh, forgot the ketchup", "Bugger, I forgot to get a drink", "Can you refill my drink while you're there", "Sure, I'd love some more if there're leftovers", "Right, what's for pudding", etc. I think the distance of the dining room from the kitchen is the biggest problem with this design. If I fixed nothing else, I'd fix this.

 

28 minutes ago, CADjockey said:

We are not fans of the current trend for endless open plan living, and personally I think it's really a just side effect of rooms being too small in modern houses.

 

Have you ever lived in a house with a properly designed and scaled open plan area? You worry that you won't use the dining room, but that's surely a feature rather than a bug? If you make it pleasant to eat adjacent the kitchen, then a separate dining room, and all the extra cost it entails, becomes redundant. If you really must have it separate, you could put your dining room where the current snug is, and maybe pinch in the doorway a little. You'd be a lot closer to the kitchen, while still have the dining area feel separate.

 

You also seem to be conflating open plan per se with "endless open plan living". There's a balance, surely?  And as for house sizes leading this, we intentionally chose open plan kitchen and dining, despite our house being nearly 300m², because I've lived with both and vastly prefer it this way.

 

That said, it's your house, and it has to reflect the way you live. However, I found it telling that the way we live changed in ways I hadn't thought about once we moved into our new house. For example, we've always lived in our lounge, but once we got a snug, we found ourselves living in that instead, and hardly use the lounge at all unless we have people over. 

 

 

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

3 hours ago, CADjockey said:

We are not fans of the current trend for endless open plan living, and personally I think it's

really a just side effect of rooms being too small in modern houses.

 

 

Or maybe due to the fact that butlers and footmen became too expensive to employ. ?

 

The isolated formal dining room is a legacy of the times when domestic staff brought food to the dining table.

[CADjockey]

3 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Or maybe due to the fact that butlers and footmen became too expensive to employ. ?

 

The isolated formal dining room is a legacy of the times when domestic staff brought food to the dining table.

 

When did they become too expensive? And on that note, where's the chauffeur going to sleep if I put the media room over the garage?

 

Seriously though, my dad has lived in NZ for 20 odd years and NewZealanders seem to love the kitchen/dining/lounge space.

Two things that we didn't like about it from experience was the simple fact that we don't want to sit in the same room as the 

pots and pans whilst eating and also have the smell of food lingering about the combined space after.  Or maybe we are just grumpy 

and unsociable, or maybe that's just me :-)

 

[epsilonGreedy]

45 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Why ...??

 

 

No window to allow focus on something beyond 3 feet and nothing to view 90 degrees left or right.

Natural light obscured by the body of the galley slave.

50% of the kitchen worktop in a linear 12ft run.

 

The OP's house must be 2500 sq ft, at this size most modern Britons want a convivial family space connected to the kitchen.

[PeterW]

Most modern Britons don’t wash up ..... it goes in a dishwasher. 

 

I’ve seen some really nice designs that have the sink between high cabinets which don’t have windows - challenging convention isn’t a bad thing ..! 

[epsilonGreedy]

6 minutes ago, CADjockey said:

When did they become too expensive? And on that note, where's the chauffeur going to sleep if I put the media room over the garage?

 

 

Post world war one in the 1920's. The TV series Downton Abbey portrays the sunset days of that life style and even Lord Grantham could no longer afford his traditional complement of footmen.

 

However we are a nation of class conscious snobs which meant the aspiration for a formal dining room was expressed in residential architecture for another 50 years post the Wall Street crash and great depression. 

[epsilonGreedy]

9 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Most modern Britons don’t wash up ..... it goes in a dishwasher.

 

 

This modern Briton is frequently ordered by Swmbo to peel spuds in the kitchen sink or I have to deal with the consequences of her hopelessly optimistic expectations that a dish washer can expunge all known baked on food residue.