Another Way to Divide a House

In my last post I described how the Victorian house I live in has been divided into three units.  In terms of how my unit is laid out, I would say the conversion was pretty well done, with the only occasional problem being that you have to walk from room to room without the benefit of a hallway.  Not all divisions are as logical.  I actually bought a two-story investment property that had formerly been a single unit house, which was split into three units with a total of two bathrooms.  The one unit downstairs had its own bathroom, and the two upstairs units, a one bedroom and a studio, had to share a bathroom.   (See the floor plan.) 

Having tenants from different units share a bathroom apparently worked well; at least I never heard any complaints.  I can say that two of them did have emotional crises while they were there, but I’m sure the shared bathroom was the least of their concerns.

After a number of years when one of the upstairs units became vacant, the remaining tenant said that he’d like to take it over so he could work from home.  I was delighted since I didn’t have to advertise for  a new tenant.  The only downside for the remaining tenant was that now he had to lock three doors when he wanted to go out.

My Home

I’ve always admired Victorian houses, and there have been times I’ve thought that it would be nice to live in one.  Well, now I do, not the whole house, just half the ground floor.

The two story building was divided so that the top floor stayed intact as a single unit and my level, which may originally have been for carriages, was divided in half, from front to back so it’s long and narrow.  There is no hallway, so to get from room to room (other than the bathroom) you have to walk through an adjacent  room.  It’s fine living by myself, but when my daughter was visiting and sleeping in the back room, when she got up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom, whose bed room do you think she had to walk through?

Floor Plan - Not to Scale

There’s not too much that seems “Victorian” on the inside of my unit.  The ceiling at eight feet is a bit higher than normal, and the windows with their lace curtains go up to the ceiling.  But the bedroom, guest room and living room all have wall-to-wall carpet.  There’s no exposed wood and all walls and doors are painted off-white.  The kitchen has been modernized with an electric stove (powered through a rectangular duct that sticks out from the wall) and Formica counter tops.  The floor is linoleum.  The bathroom has a stall shower, which at my age I prefer to say a claw-foot tub, and a small sink set in a narrow vanity.

There’s no fireplace and no central heating, just a single wall heater in the living room.  That appliance, a space heater and briefly turning on stove burners worked fine for the one winter I was here when I left daily for work, but now that I’m retired and home more, I’ll see how well I stay warm and how much it will cost.