Example of German Ingenuity

The house I live in....was built by my German father-in-law (having passed on 15 years ago).  The guys craft or skill?  Roofer.  In the mid-1960s....he built the entire house over a three-year period, with bits and pieces of help by associates he knew.  Most everything about the house was simple in nature and the only thing that you could say thirty years later in a negative fashion was the electrical wiring situation was haphazard.  No garage, no bar-b-q pit, no landscaping beyond a tree or two over the decade after construction.

Across the way, about 300 feet is the house of the father-in-law's brother.  He was a carpenter (of sorts).

This house is entirely opposite of this house.

You walk up and here is a great two-car garage with a oil pit.  A stairway by the side of the garage leads to a patio area (covered and enclosed) where you could set up a picnic table for a dozen people.  Two storage rooms  under the garage store just about everything you'd desire.  And all of this leads to a 40 ft by 40 ft back yard....nicely landscaped with a big bar-b-q pit.

Back up by the house?  Here is a workman's room that every guy would dream of....big enough but small enough.

Then you come to the house.  A full-basement.  A house with three floors but each floor fairly small.  There's enough room for kitchen....living room-dining room combo....and one bedroom.  Then you have two baths (yes, two full baths).

The second floor....same thing....one bedroom....two baths.

The top?  It's a mini-bedroom area, with one bath.  The basement, with one bath.

So you have a house with six baths?  And just three total bedrooms?  Yes.  The guy had three kids over the years and simply kept adding an extra bathroom here and there.  Oh, and there's even a WC out in this workman's room by the house.....so seven total bathrooms.

The ability to sell the house?  Well.....yeah, this is a future problem.  Because of the structure of the house, it's almost unsellable.  The garage, workman's room, and backyard?  Everything you'd ever desire.

It's a workman's house....with nothing really designed or fitted to some long-term plan.  In some ways, the German ingenuity got carried away, and made something of a 'Frankenstein' house.