A friend did some painting in a new 25,000 sq ft house in a wealthy area. He said there were 27 electric panels required to keep it running.
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One impractical design feature missing from these is a sunken living room. Those were a popular design element in the late 60s and in the 70s. I believe that their popularity was an imitation of living rooms in multi-camera TV shows*, where they were based on stage design, so the people at the back of the stage weren’t blocked by the people in the front.
*think of the living room in The Mary Tyler Moore Show
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I’m slated to inherit no less than 3 sets of china and flatware. Already have one set of each stored in boxes. What the hell am I supposed to do with this stuff other than sell it?
@simonize: Sunken living rooms had a resurgence of popularity in the mid-90’s. I have no idea why.
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Yup. People seem to ignore the difference between a feature check list and an actual design.
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I thought all the rooms were for living in.
There’s one for lounging in though
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Selling it (or finding someone to take it for free) is a whole other adventure. My cousin tried to unload a silver tea service on Craigslist with no takers and ended up going to a pawnbroker to sell it for the metal.
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French doors rather than sliding was exactly my thought of how to do a ‘porchless porch’ well. The floor to ceiling openings will let a breeze in better than a window, but French doors are much prettier than sliding.
Apartments around here often have a 1 foot wide balcony with a sliding door, because of some zoning code going a bit haywire, and it always makes me think ‘that’s pretty lame, but would be ok if it was glass doors that swung in’ (or if they both slid open).
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Eat off the china, use it everyday for everything including as drip catchers under potted plants. Use it until you use it up!
Consider solid silver items (or any other precious metal items, really) to be an investment in case of collapse of the banking system; just stuff them into the corner of the basement or bury them under the shed for a couple of generations.
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Same with high heels, shoulder pads and Trump hair.
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My first thought is that the enclosed kitchen isn’t new, wealthy people just used to have the kitchen in with the servants’ quarters out of view, and if you’re in that strata of wealth you still aren’t cooking all your own meals.
My second thought is that this may be countersignalling - if you’re rich enough that no one will mistake you for being poor enough to cook all your own meals, you put in a show kitchen to highlight that maybe sometimes you choose to, but don’t have to.
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A more sensible approach would be to keep one open-plan kitchen and set up an enclosed version of a scullery/dish room/butler’s pantry for prep, storage, and washing-up (butler and scullery maid optional). That would require common sense, though, something in short supply with those who develop and buy McMansions.
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Also, remember that before the age of supermarkets kitchens were often built large enough to butcher animals. They still are in some places! One of my cousins has a meat-cutting bandsaw in the kitchen, all glittering sterile chrome.
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A friends parents had one of these in the late 1970’s. The house was built in the early to mid 1960’s. Unfortunately, the house slab was laid on a soil pad only 12" above grade, meaning the sunken portion of the living room was actually in the virgin soil. In Florida. Where the water table is about 4’ below ground.
Needless to say every time there was a severe rain there was about an inch of water in the bottom as it perc’ed through the concrete. They ended up filling it in in 1985 or so.
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If the china is fancy enough you can’t put it in the dishwasher. Although if your goal is to use it up, I suppose you could. (We just moved my mother out of her house, and you can’t even sell that stuff. It went to Goodwill.)
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Or give it to me and I’ll use it as everyday stuff.
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I pretty much take this approach with everything; all dishes and containers (and some electronics, for instance keyboards) goes in the dishwasher, and all non-leather clothing goes in the clotheswasher, and if that ruins something then I didn’t want it anyway. 
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Don’t forget what fashion was like back then - yards and yards of wool. Your underwear wasn’t dainty little cotton tighty-whities, it was woolen waffle-weave long underwear - EVERYDAY! And wool socks! And leather boots that came up over your ankles! And that was just what the men were wearing - the women were basically a pile of fabric teetering around with just the nose and fingertips sticking out. Also, the idea of heating a house above about 55 or 60 degrees in the winter was a ridiculous fantasy. Such decadence wouldn’t become normal until after World War 1, with the trend toward much smaller houses and more efficient furnaces.
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It is worth noting that “Breakfast nooks” were a reasonably common feature of craftsman bungalows. Whether that was an alternative to a formal dining room or in addition to it probably depended on the price point of the house.
Edited to add: eg. http://bibserver.org/craftsman-bungalow-home-plans/craftsman-bungalow-home-plans-bungalow-house-plans-lovely-bedroom-floor-plan-in-nigeria-home/
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Par-tay!
Enthusiastic guests who drop plates while gesturing wildly isn’t a tragedy, it’s the sign of a great party!
Seriously, though, don’t you know someone getting married? If you like them, give them the nice set of dishes. If you don’t, they get the hideous ones that require an expensive replacement service to fill in broken pieces.
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The dishwasher isn’t what ruins the china (and Silver flatware), it’s the detergent. You can seek out a less corrosive dish detergent to use on your gentle cycle, and keep running ‘the good stuff’ through your dishwasher. But don’t put the silver holloware (teapots, punch bowls) through the dishwasher because the solder is very low-temp.
Edit: Here’s a link to the official Waterford website with a list of international brands of approved dish detergents, including ones for the dishwasher:
Dishwashing detergents for fine china and crystal
Secong edit: Here’s a super-green eco-friendly commercial brand (in a commercial size) of dish detergent for industrial dishwashers approved for fine china, crystal, and silver. I haven’t used this detergent, but I do rave about their laundry detergent, which I’ve found is the only thing that can get transmission fluid out of jeans.
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