I lived there in 2014. All the houses I've been to had western toilets, although I suppose I haven't gone to proper old houses.

Public toilets have probably changed since you've been there. Don't think I've been to the bathroom in the airport, but my experience with train stations, convenience stores, malls and bars usually had the western style ones. Sometimes only the western style ones, like in my university. I think those might be a little more space efficient.

Just reminds me off, all of them with air-con!!!! (bold part)

And for bars, there were quite a few around with traditional ones only.

But similar could be said about France/Italy/Spain/Portugal (and quite a lot of the northern African countries)

Having the traditional toilets where you do your business while standing ;)

But if you visited in 14, you didn't had to struggle so much with the door height! I remember when I was there they only recently increased the standard door height! Man that was painful ;)

Nope, I was a 00s kid.
You talkin' about a condo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condominium

Damn kids these days. Stay off my lawn!

Maybe. Do you hold meetings to decide what to do in the building and elect a leader to deal with day-to-day affairs?

Also, I don't know about other places, but here pretty much every apartment building is like that. While I have the impression in the US you tend more towards leasing, and having a single landlord per building.

Yeah, that's about the size of it.
Interesting how the terms are the same yet the practice is different.

I can understand that the door opening inwards may limit what you can fit inside. In the home I grew up in, one of the bathrooms had a door that could not open fully.

I lived form a while in a mini-appartment / residence for students. It was clearly not a typical design from the southern area of Portugal. It looked too much like the Ikea catalogues. A lot of wood being used, and the layout of the place looked a bit odd. Only two rooms: a bathroom and a room/living room/kitchen. Actually, the kitchen was like a closet: I could close the doors and hide the messy plates and stuff. I had never seen anything like it. There was a mini-fridge under the sink.

The door to the bathroom opened towards the corridor. It could open 90 degrees, and in the position it would close the other division. It was supposed to work that way: two doorways, one door. So, if you wanted to see who was knocking outside, and wanted to hide your messy bedroom, you would open the bathroom door before answering. :-)

I also worked on a small computer store when I was younger. We had the tiniest bathroom on the back. If you wanted to sit on the toilet, you had to plan how you you enter it. It was that small. :-P So I came to dislike the small bathrooms.

One more thing: you mentioned you have a toilet and a bathroom in your house. Is the difference that you have a bathtub in one, and no infrastructure to taking a bath in the other one?

People on here when they hear my age:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/78/09/4a7809b231afb257b9f93a416ea3a73f.jpg

Gede, I take it then that bathrooms are usually rather large in Portugal, also in apartments? I am not talking about houses (which are a completely different discussion), but apartments in cities etc. Don't you ever feel that you'd rather have the extra square meters for e.g. another bedroom, rather than an extra-large toilet?

But as I mentioned, in newer apartments here the toilets (and bathrooms) tend to be large, so that you are supposed to easily get in even with a wheelchair. Many people don't like that because those square meters are away from other rooms.

Yes exactly that. One has a toilet + bathtub/shower in it (as well as our washing machine), while the smaller one is strictly a toilet (with a sink for washing hands, of course). I think there is probably some building control rule that in apartments which are over certain size there should have two toilets.

In own houses it is more common to have e.g. a separate room for laundry, in apartments people usually have the washing machine in the bathroom. If the bathroom is too small for a washing machine, then it might be sometimes also in the kitchen, but then you can't usually fit a dish washing machine there... :(

I wouldn't say so myself, but we may be using "large" to refer to different sizes. A nice apartment in Portugal may qualify as a "mansion" in Japan.

The apartments I have been living in recently have the washing machines in the kitchen, but have a bidet in there (very popular). If you remove the bidet, the place will look quite spacious. Or you could fit in a small washing machine in there, and make the place look cramped.
I also had bathtubs instead of the small showers.

I like to feel comfort in all places around the house, and I never felt that I wished some square meter was misused on the bathroom, or could be better used somewhere else. But I suppose that some places in Finland has larger houses than, say, in Helsinki, where the square meter could be more expensive.


Yes exactly that. One has a toilet + bathtub/shower in it (as well as our washing machine), while the smaller one is strictly a toilet (with a sink for washing hands, of course). I think there is probably some building control rule that in apartments which are over certain size there should have two toilets.

A room to do laundry? How neat! I only saw one of those once in Portugal!
Also, no room for two washing machines on your kitchen under the counter? Your kitchens also sound small. Where do you use your house space? A large living room with a fireplace? Extra-size bedrooms? A library? A games room with a snooker table? A fancy dining room with a table for 12 guests? A servant's room for the maid? Secret passageways? :-)

In Viana, in the North of Portugal, there is a traditional festival where women exhibit their gold ornaments.

I didn't know Mr. T had a girlfriend.

It does look like it, yes. ;-)

BTW, your skills of forum-fu are impressive! I was still trying to get the link to work, and your post was already in!

Fastest keyboard in the West.
*blows on fingers*

...it may also be that I spend way too much time in here and am so bored I just sit around refreshing waiting for the next new post I can comment on.
.........just maybe.




ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᵒ ᵃᶫᵒᶰᵉ

The Azores islands are the westmost point in Europe, and are of vulcanic origin.
You can bury a pan with food there, go for a walk, and come back to find your meal cooked.