Why are most semi-detached living room adjoining?

lincroft1710

pinkteapot wrote: »

Look for 1930s houses - most 30's semis are halls-adjoining

Definitely not! I've seen thousands of 1930s semis and probably less than 1% are halls adjoining.

My first house was a 1960s end terrace and the living room of 1st house adjoined stairs of 2nd house and so on.

societys_child

Yup, carefully chose my present house with halls and stairs adjoining, was fed up of listening to neighbours arguments in the house I'd just sold, even tho' they were entertaining at times

lincroft1710

Trevor Yorke in "The 1930s House Explained" (pub. 2006) says that whereas Victorian and Edwardian semis had the front doors side by side, the 1920s saw most front doors on the far end of the house and by the 1930s this position was almost universal. He suggests that privacy may have been the main reason for moving the front door position.

HB58

We have both hall and lounges adjoining (plus one bedroom and the bathroom), doesn't seem to cause us any problems.

RunbeforeIcanwalk

Im in a new build and we are hallway stairs adjoining.

jamja

Viewed a nice 30s semi the other week that was stairs ajoining. Its the 'bedroom noise' I dislike sharing with neighbours!

phoebe1989seb

My parents' semi-detached house (late 1920s/early 1930s) on the South Coast has the hall adjoining next door. The living room (front room) is across the hall, adjoining the drive with the kitchen behind that and the dining room (rear reception) is adjoining next door. Upstairs it is jst the bathroom and middle bedroom that are joined.

We once lived in a Victorian terrace with our hall adjoining an elderly couples' house - one day I heard a terrible 'bump bump bumping' sound coming from next door's (adjoining) hallway......it was our neighbour falling down the stairs Luckily the fact that I heard this occuring enabled me to call an ambulance and possibly save her life as she had suffered a very nasty fall......

PasturesNew

I'd always prefer halls adjoining, however I've recently been living in a house that has halls adjoining and the neighbours had wooden floorboards/stairs.... and the clomp, clomp, clomp of everybody up/down stairs was really irritating.

Matt1977

I think I would prefer a semi detached house with hall ajoining walls and live with the potential heat loss.

I wouldn't want to inflict my 70s prog rock music on the ajoining neighbour

michelle2008

The bit I find odd is our headboard and next doors headboard are practically back to back!!! We all sleep inches from each other!!

Noise isn't too bad in my house thankfully. But it took my ages to figure out I was waking at 5am because of next doors alarm clock going off!!