Comment by MilesTeg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MilesTeg | Hacker News Reader

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I just bought an old house(1920s) and so have been doing a lot of thinking about how much better the layout of surviving old houses are.

1. Natural lighting. I generally do not need artificial lights in the daytime in any room and it is amazing.

2. Ceiling height. Modern constructions have insanely high ceilings. Why? In my old apartment I had cabinetr y I couldn't reach even with my step ladder.

3. Old neighborhoods are much more pleasant to live in and are more much walk-able than post-war cul-de-sac filled developments.

4. House sizes were smaller back then. Since family sizes have been getting smaller I think this would be a good thing to return to. I am quite happy that I don't have to spend a lot extra on furniture just to fill the space. Or pay more to climate control the extra volume.

5. A matter of personal preference but I think the older houses are just prettier.

I think it would be great if developers took a look at the older house designs and tweaked them for the modern world.

Re. Ceiling height. Lumber, insulation and boards are supplied with 3m max height typically. (Some lumber, metal structural beams and sheet metal are readily available at 6m max length above this). Therefore, the generally expressed internal heights for cost efficient construction are 3m less inter-floor allowances for ceiling/utilities/floor/inter-floor insulation. You can of course do anything you like, but to your builder it means more work and materials.

In apartment buildings, it is common to squash non-ground floors vertically to obtain more houses within the available building height envelope in order to maximize returns. Local regulations in decent jurisdictions typically specify a limit to this type of viciously commercial construction outlook.

Can't ceiling height have a climate control aspect to it? Summertime in the south gets hot, air rises, have vents at the top of the room?

I don't need 20ft ceilings, but aesthetically, I think 9-10ft feels a lot less claustrophobic.

>Old neighborhoods are much more pleasant to live in and are more much walk-able than post-war cul-de-sac filled developments.

I'll say this for my post-war-but-still-old development, it's nice having trees and birds. Looking at new construction, you realize that there's very little shade or natural life because it all gets clear cut for construction. Any trees that get added back in have a long way to go before they actually provide shade (and a barrier to hide the ugly front facades that modern construction requires).

>House sizes were smaller back then. Since family sizes have been getting smaller I think this would be a good thing to return to.

I agree, and I like the size of my smaller house. That said, there are some ways that I think the space could be better utilized... for example, we have 4 bedrooms and 1.5 baths, all of which are smaller than you'd see in a modern home. It was definitely designed with a large, baby booming family in mind.

>I agree, and I like the size of my smaller house. That said, there are some ways that I think the space could be better utilized... for example, we have 4 bedrooms and 1.5 baths, all of which are smaller than you'd see in a modern home. It was definitely designed with a large, baby booming family in mind.

4 bed 1.5 bath does not sound great. I don't think I have ever seen that one but I know it is a staple for comedy where everyone is trying to use the same bathroom at the same time. That might be less bad now than in the baby boom days. I would not want to share a bathroom with a bunch of kids. But, for a DINK family, a master bedroom, his office, her office, and a guest bedroom with 1.5 baths sounds reasonable.

A study a while back showed that ceiling height can affect the way we think. It's an interesting read, but I doubt any house developers are familiar with it.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070424155539.h...

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