I'm an American who spent 6 months renting homes in Europe. Some common design choices were brilliant, but others left me puzzled.
I spent six months living in Europe and noticed some differences from houses in the US.
In Europe, it's less common to see electric dryers and air-conditioning units.
However, heated towel racks are a staple in many European bathrooms.
When my husband and I traveled around Europe for six months, we looked at several accommodation options. Although we booked hotels or inns for some of our shorter stints, we chose to stay in three long-term Airbnbs for a total of four months.
We made a conscious choice to only rent from local Airbnb hosts and ended up meeting all of them during our stays.
This worked out well, as they were able to give us local recommendations and show us how to use some of the more finicky features in the homes — some of which were quite surprising to me as an American.
Here are five things that surprised me most about houses in Europe.
Washing machines seem to have long cycles.
Another thing I noticed was that the washing machines seemed much smaller than the ones we have at home. So, I could only wash what I'd consider a small load at a time.
However, this didn't usually equate to quicker washes.
The default setting for our washing machine in Prague was four hours, but our host reassured us that we could use the "speedier" option of 3 hours and 20 minutes and still get a good clean.
This was pretty shocking to me, as I'm used to my clothes being washed in about an hour.
Tilt-and-turn windows are a wonderful design concept.
The windows in most European houses I stayed in were drastically different from what I'm used to finding in the US.
Rather than sliding up to open, the common "tilt-and-turn" windows have a handle on them. When you turn the handle to the side, you can swing the window fully open toward you.
However, if you keep turning the handle until it's facing up, the window opens a crack from the top, allowing fresh air to come in, even in bad weather.
Many homes in Europe don't have air conditioning.
During my travels, I heard an Irish woman telling her friend that she couldn't imagine air conditioning being everywhere. She said it would be weird to be cold in the summer months.
I understand where she was coming from. It's not my favorite to go from a blistering 90-degree-Fahrenheit day to a freezing grocery store. However, it's also not fun to be lying in bed on a 90-degree night with only a small fan to cool you down.
For our two-month stay in Prague over the summer, we had to go out of our way to find an Airbnb with air conditioning. Although we found places with air conditioning available, we did end up paying a bit more for the luxury.
It wasn't the most powerful of air conditioners, but the small white box on the wall did a decent job of keeping us cool.
Heated towel racks seem to be a staple in European bathrooms — and they get way hotter than I expected.
When I first saw a ladder-like device in my bathroom in England, I figured it was just a towel rack. Then, the owner showed us how to use the knob at the bottom to control the temperature of the heated towel rail.
At first, I was intrigued by the idea of having a nice warm towel when I got out of the shower. It also seemed like a great way to quickly dry my towel afterwards.
However, once I tried it out for myself, I didn't find it very convenient to use. There only seemed to be two temperatures: barely warm or melt-your-skin-off hot.
Then, to use it, I had to wedge the towel in and awkwardly shimmy it down, all while avoiding the sizzling hot rails.
After a few months, I gave up the fight and just left the rack turned off.
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