More price increases

[Jonm]

What does a " toilet for 2 people" look like?

You have jogged my memory. I recall seeing one in an outhouse. I did not use it and cannot remember the circumstances. It was almost certainly in 1961/2 when I was in Australia. It was something like the attached photograph.

 

[sploo]

...so next step must be rubber pants with extraction hose so you do not even have to get out of bed.

Nah, the next step was already shown in the excellent film "Idiocracy"

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Given that prices are increasing across the board, better get one of these asap:

https://www.toto.com/en/neorestcollections/concept/neorest_nx/index.htm

https://ourcommunitynow.com/home-an...et-might-be-the-fanciest-bathroom-gadget-ever
Nothing like a bit of conspicuous consumption to show you are flush with success.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... but the kitchen was a closset, good for making tea and sandwiches but not enough room to swing a dog and it's small size was just so silly in comparison to the rest of the property. Well turns out the person who built it was a property developer, and would travel to eat out or get a restaurant to deliver and did not want a big kitchen.

A property developer who didn't have the foresight to realise he might need to sell the place.

 

[NormanB]

30k kitchen

Quite.
The funny thing is as the price of the kitchen goes up to that sort of level it’s actual usage probably goes down. If you look at the average U.K. kitchen in the 1950s (which was largely before processed and convenience foods) and was actually used for cooking on devices that did not go ‘ping’ compared to these ‘£30K ‘ kitchens - which at the peak of their usage - tend to go ping.

 

[Rorschach]

Quite.
The funny thing is as the price of the kitchen goes up to that sort of level it’s actual usage probably goes down. If you look at the average U.K. kitchen in the 1950s (which was largely before processed and convenience foods) and was actually used for cooking on devices that did not go ‘ping’ compared to these ‘£30K ‘ kitchens - which at the peak of their usage - tend to go ping.

Haha, I wonder how true that is today? My kitchen, vey cheap but gets used a lot. I wonder how much more or less a 5 or 6 figure kitchen gets used?

 

[Spectric]

A property developer who didn't have the foresight to realise he might need to sell the place.

I think that once you have too much money and in a position where building a house is like us buying a tablesaw then you do what you want and don't care about resale, probably not a good place to be although everyone wishes it was for them, in reality it can be a bad thing.

@NormanB "The funny thing is as the price of the kitchen goes up to that sort of level it’s actual usage probably goes down. " Yes this is probably very true in some circumstances, it can become just a decorative object to admire but not use much, just some sort of status symbol to show off to your circle of colleagues. For us mere mortals the kitchen is more essential and is a functional part of the house, it may be small but it earns it's keep.

 

[doctor Bob]

Quite.
The funny thing is as the price of the kitchen goes up to that sort of level it’s actual usage probably goes down. If you look at the average U.K. kitchen in the 1950s (which was largely before processed and convenience foods) and was actually used for cooking on devices that did not go ‘ping’ compared to these ‘£30K ‘ kitchens - which at the peak of their usage - tend to go ping.

Pure speculation and wrong. The wealthier the client the better they eat. Read it in the papers every day.
The wealthy do not buy micro meals.
As a general rule wealthy clients tend to be very fit and healthy and love cooking good food. Who do you think buys microwaveable ready burgers in buns?

 

[akirk]

Pure speculation and wrong. The wealthier the client the better they eat. Read it in the papers every day.
The wealthy do not buy micro meals.
As a general rule wealthy clients tend to be very fit and healthy and love cooking good food. Who do you think buys microwaveable ready burgers in buns?

I think the implication is that wealthier folks are more likely to eat out / go to parties or events / etc. thus using their kitchens less than the poor who have no choice but to cook at home... of course the flip side is that when they are entertaining at home the kitchen is intensively used... I do know a number of families with very expensive kitchens who wouldn't dream of cooking in them - they eat out the whole time, and if they entertain they bring in caterers - definitely a London pattern though...

but while we don't fit the profile you are suggesting - I do remember those microwaveable burgers from Uni 30+ years ago - mmmm yummy

 

[Blackswanwood]

I had never really considered toilets as a measure of wealth ...

russia-police-gold-toilet-investigation-b1888537.html

 

[D_W]

but while we don't fit the profile you are suggesting - I do remember those microwaveable burgers from Uni 30+ years ago - mmmm yummy

That's my recollection -that kind of stuff is for college kids and young professionals. I don't eat ramen at this point, but I remember it tasting good! When I was in college, it was about $8 for a dollar at the grocery store (this was mid 1990s) and when the meal card dollars got thin (for the college dining hall), it was a good way to stretch the card to the end of the semester.

As far as wealthy kitchens go, I'm not sure which is a better measure of wealth - number of kitchens, or number of toilets. Probably the latter as you can get a whole lot of toilets in a pretty mundane house. I've got three in a fairly small house (which is nice when two people want to line up the Norden sight at the same time).

Most of our friends have two kitchens (We have one - we are poor compared to them - we use it - it's a thing of mine that if you spend money on something, you must use it or you're a poser. Not my rule for other people, it's just a personal thing). Some have three and an outdoor (three fully functional with water, fridge, cooking facilities, etc). How do you easily get four total? Well, if you build one outside, you have one main kitchen in the house, one in the basement near the theater room for food prep and one usually in a section of the house that's potentially the inlaw area down the road - a living room, bathroom, kitchen and small dining room area with separate access to the walk/drive with no steps, but most of these are pretty shrewdly designed now so that they don't look like a separate walled off area unless you close them off - they just look like connected rooms).

I don't know anyone with an inlaw suite that has its own theater room and separate basement kitchen, though - that'd be flexing.

here's my chuckle - most of these friends have mortgages (we're in our mid 40s). We would refer to this as posing, also. Not to have a mortgage, but to be able to not have one and not be able to control yourself ("i'd rather have a mortgage than have a house only with two kitchens"). The high dollar kitchens here generally have all kinds of accessories to make sure you don't actually prep food on counters, etc (you have to pull out a hidden prep board, etc, to prevent there being any dirt at all). I find this humorous. Often seen in combination with a spouse who is too busy to take care of her own kids, but doesn't work, and too busy to clean the house (so someone else does it).

 

[doctor Bob]

Most of our friends have two kitchens

you're pulling my plonker now, trying to tell me some people only have one kitchen.................. not falling for that one.

 

[D_W]

If i can count the wash tub and hot plate in the basement, then I've got two!

 

[akirk]

Most of our friends have two kitchens (We have one - we are poor compared to them - we use it - it's a thing of mine that if you spend money on something, you must use it or you're a poser. Not my rule for other people, it's just a personal thing). Some have three and an outdoor (three fully functional with water, fridge, cooking facilities, etc). How do you easily get four total? Well, if you build one outside, you have one main kitchen in the house, one in the basement near the theater room for food prep and one usually in a section of the house that's potentially the inlaw area down the road - a living room, bathroom, kitchen and small dining room area with separate access to the walk/drive with no steps, but most of these are pretty shrewdly designed now so that they don't look like a separate walled off area unless you close them off - they just look like connected rooms).

I would say that is quite American - not very British... our over-crowded island means that houses tend to be smaller, and so most people slum it with just one kitchen - the wealthy go to Doctor Bob the poor to Ikea... There are some exceptions - outdoor kitchens are becoming more common, and we have just plumbed in an outdoor sink with hot and cold - to use by the BBQ / for gardening etc. - but it is not an outdoor kitchen per se... I do also have friends with an estate in Scotland where the house was designed in the 1920s to run as a 5 bed house with a standard kitchen - or open up the basement / attics to give a 22 bedroom house with a full catering kitchen in the basement (on a hill, so not under-ground). However that is unusual, and while a few have prep kitchens, the majority of people would I think have just one kitchen.

 

[D_W]

Actually, I could make fun of our friends (which they could turn around and roundly beat me for making less money than them and being relatively cheaper with it on top of that...not a good way to fit in).

But what do i mean? I grew up in a house that only had one kitchen, but it was set up with swinging doors and slide-through built in doors (chest height) so that the help could pass your food to you without you having to come in full contact with them. I guess swinging doors would've been used instead of pocket type to make sure that they were always closed (we took them out).

It wasn't exceptionally large (just under 4k square feet) by wealthy person's standards, but it was a stone house built as a summer house for wealthy folks (picture a giant rocky hill and you can build your summer house with 16 inch thick stone walls on the south side of the hill so that it doesn't get too much sun in the summer, and when it does, the rocks moderate how fast the interior warms (it doesn't much)

Point of that setup, whoever built the house had no intention of having more than one kitchen, because if you're separating the help from the household, why in the world would they need more than one kitchen to make food for you?

My parents weren't wealthy - more like comfortable. A summer house for wealthy people becomes a permanent house for people who are only "comfortable".

 

[akirk]

It wasn't exceptionally large (just under 4k square feet) by wealthy person's standards...

That is a large house - in the UK the average house size is c. 1,000sqft - and for houses built in the last c. 10 years the average size is only 80% of that at c. 800sqft
might manage two microwaves!

 

[D_W]

That is a large house - in the UK the average house size is c. 1,000sqft - and for houses built in the last c. 10 years the average size is only 80% of that at c. 800sqft
might manage two microwaves!

I also consider it large. google monster claims the median house size in the US built new and sold last year was 2,333 square feet. The average means (in my opinion) don't match that unless someone considers having a mortgage their entire working life desirable.

Because of the distorted housing situation here, something like 3k square feet is considered nothing unusual, and often has the basement mostly finished to add more space (this makes no sense to me - that's valuable real estate for a woodworker - too valuable to be made to carpeted rooms that have nothing more than a couch and television).

I don't know when largesse became the norm here, but it wasn't that long ago (my house was built in the 1950s and would've been more typical for median - about 1400SF before we added a little to it (the last owner had the basement made dry and semi finished).

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

Probably 90% Covid, 5% backlog from Suez canal blockage, 5% Brexit. I could point out that two of the three will eventually go away, but that's risks getting people grumpy

At the risk of making people 'grumpy', I think you've under-estimated the last percentage...

 

[RobinBHM]

At the risk of making people 'grumpy', I think you've under-estimated the last percentage...

we are all grumpy on here anyway

 

[Spectric]

The wealthier the client the better they eat.

Not sure that is correct in the correct sense of eating better. They will certainly eat at better restuarants, be more willing to travel to find a decent restuarant and probably do not set foot in places that sell crap where the packaging contains more nutrition than what has been classed as edible but when you look at how they cook al carte it may taste great but it is not healty, just watch the chefs prepare these dishes and it is large quantities of butter and lots of seasoning, read salt so maybe smaller portions that cost a lot more but not always healthy. I suppose in comparison to the very poor then yes the more money you have the more you can spend on food but maybe not always home prepared but not microwaved dishes either.