Steps in unexpected places are a deal-breaker.

Architecturally interesting but not very welcoming.

Looks like one of those ’circle the potential accident hazards’ exercises we give to kids. Not just those hidden stairs. The kettle is all set to efficiently scald a passing child from the unguarded stove top right beside the doorway. Taps impeding entry to the tub. Not to mention the cleaning nightmare that is the awkward gap behind the bath designed to be freestanding but pushed against the walls ... neither of which is splash proof. How they lived there with kids is beyond me. Style over substance in every department.

Austere even by Scandinavian measures. Definitely don’t enter the bedroom in the dark. The under counter edge lightling is interesting.

I am surprised that kick board lighting in bathrooms isn‘t more popular; it is a practical and attractive detail.

Too much weirdness for me. The front door looks like you're walking into a wall which isn't welcoming for me. The DW is not near the sink, the cooktop is not near the oven, and the lack of upper cabinets isn't good. Then it's clear the porch has issues and the house must be cold because one bedroom has a space heater. Not my cup of tea. Though I think with some $$$ it could be fixed.

I don’t particularly want to sign in to see the previous listing. I imagine the house looked pretty much like its neighbors, and similar to its back yard. Why didn’t they do the back of the house?

The cooktop is cool-looking, but next to the door, in a corner, no other counterspace adjacent, just no.

The toilet jutting out in the bathroom is a no-go from me. Too exposed! I don’t need a toilet closet, but at least tuck it in a corner somewhere.

Is the kid bunkbed blocking a window?

Is the living room also a bedroom and a den? There is no door to the kitchen down the half-flight. I’m very confused. It has an added baseboard heater because it is above the garage, I’m sure it gets chilly.

Is this more of a holiday home?

And what is that sign next to the front door? It definitely makes me think it’s a holiday home/rental.

Good news, they didn’t waste the peninsula corner on a blind cabinet, but opened it to the open room. The bad news, IF there are any drawers, say for utensils, they are behind doors. My kitchen came with that and while it looks nice,, it’s a pain in the butt.

Hard pass for me. I don't see any redeeming qualities.

I find it very unattractive. The front right side looks like a mobile home sitting on a raised platform. I echo the comments others have mentioned regarding odd/poor features and decisions. The architect had a few good chuckles working out the plans for that design, took a check, and walked away leaving the inconveniences and eccentric features for future owners to deal with.

What do these mean?

Installed Pipes In The Backyard For Drying Sys. Huh? Drying what? For sump pump? downspouts? summer laundry drying/suits from the hot tub? (do people swim in the bay?)

New Eavesdropping. Is that downspouts from the gutters I mean eavestroughs?.

Not being able to find the front door is one way to keep uninvited people away.

" I am surprised that kick board lighting in bathrooms isn‘t more popular; it is a practical and attractive detail. "

It is! I love the idea; I saw it in a place I was vacationing, and it was the perfect "night light" to turn on when using the bathroom at night. It provides enough light to see by, without blinding me when I'm only half awake and intend to go directly back to bed. I thought I'd definitely install that if/when I redesign a bathroom.

" I don’t particularly want to sign in to see the previous listing. I imagine the house looked pretty much like its neighbors, "

No, actually - the previous listing must have been when it was first rebuilt, because it's the same house and style, in the summer (no snow) and empty.

" And what is that sign next to the front door? It definitely makes me think it’s a holiday home/rental. "

What sign next to the front door?

Inside the front door next to the coat rack

" Inside the front door next to the coat rack "

Ahhhh....thanks. I was looking at the outside and didn't see a sign. Sorry.

Looks like the OBC (Ontario Building Code) doesn't apply in Waubaushene, at least those pesky parts regarding stair and opening protection. As a regular reader of Dezeen, that definitely says architect to me. (As per the previous listing, Distinctly Ontario: "Local Amenities (LCBO & Tim Hortons)"

I like it for a vacation bungalow.

Am I right in thinking it is actually a one bedroom house? There is no apparent door at the bottom of the half stair and you cant access either the front balcony or back glassed room or the back deck of the house except through that lethal looking "bedroom". I can see I think an access door from the garage but dont you have to go outside to get into the garage? Well thought out. Is there some other door besides the one next to the table? Is that the bedroom or the bath. I couldn't find a floor plan. What was with the obsession with pictures of the front entry door? I am confused. Not my style at all. As a vacation place easy to clean I suppose except that weird bathroom.

Has about as much charm as a white piece of printer paper.

I wonder if the front room could be arranged to accommodate a sitting are And a table and chairs? Then the room up the half-flight is a bedroom, although a large one.

Is the bathroom off the front room??

I had in-laws living north of Oshawa, and their house had a garage attached but not connected, and no coat closet.Built probably in 1980ish, And I could never figure that out. It’s Ontario, for goodness sake.

house had a garage attached but not connected

Codes forbade it for decades for safety reasons. Finally, they changed it in the late 1980s I recall, as long as you used a self-closing fire-rated door. So (choice of expletive) inconvenient! Every time I need a tool in our current 1970s home, it's coat and boots on and a trek around the outside.

I like things neat and clean, but this is taking it to the extreme.

One bedroom has the unguarded steps and a second one has bunk beds.

The hidden door is more effective than "go away" printed on a floor mat. This house is very unfriendly.

I rather like the hidden door. In my opinion it's not really hidden. There are stairs and an awning of sorts above it.

The rest of the house is kind of interesting. It's not my personal taste, but I don't have to live in it or buy it.

The kitchen is awful. No upper cabinet storage. Unprotected cooktop. Dishwasher placement next to oven, not next to sink.

The bathroom looks like it is larger than the kitchen. Upside down logic. The tub filler is in a stupid, unsafe location. And what is with the big white patch on the tile floor? And that gray rubber dam? Hard water deposits? And the dam is there to sorta' corral water flowing out of the zero entry shower instead of down the drain?

Zero pictures of closets. Canada & no coat closet? And the silly little ugly awning that doesn't look like it is adequately flashed in snow country! Within 2-3 years, the siding next to the awning is going to be discolored & starting to deteriorate.

Is there a door to close off the master bedroom?

And then there is the big screen TV in the laundry room! Who watches TV in a laundry room?

The house looks light and bright but that's because it was professionally photographed with lots of lighting. Look carefully and you'll see a huge lack of windows to naturally light the interiors. No thanks! Especially in Canada in winter.

Overall the house looks like some amateur designed it without much thought as to how people actually live.

I wouldn’t have that place as a gift, let alone spend the best part of $600K on it. It’s a nightmare of tininess without clever design to maximise the small space, dangerous design and just poor design IMO.

All of the photos seem to have been taken using some weird kind of lens which makes the rooms looks huge (and the lack of furnishings helps) but if you look at the doors and compare different parts of the rooms you have to conclude that they’re not as big as they look at first glance.

The stove is an accident waiting to happen, since there is access to the cooktop from both sides, one side next to a natural access way from the door into different areas in the one large room. The work triangle in the kitchen is really a diamond and as @bpath mentioned, drawers behind doors are a PITA- we’ve just come home from staying in a holiday home which had these and it was tedious. The doors in that rooms seem almost deliberately placed to make the space at the end where the table is too small to really be of much use.

In fact, all of the doors are poorly placed IMO. Many of them would whack someone using the furniture as intended if someone else suddenly opened them without knocking.

As has been noted, the bathtub tap is poorly located. I can’t imagine how tough it’s going to be to get in and out of that bathtub. There is almost no storage in the bathroom or the laundry- where do spare linens etc live? I loathe those trendy fixed flat shower heads bcause you can’t adjust them to suit you. DH is tall and I am not and we prefer to adjust the direction of the water flow. What’s just right for DH tends to drench my face and head while I’m trying to adjust the temperature of the water.

The second bedroom with the bunkbed- another small room masquerading as something bigger. Again no apparent storage and the bed is awkwardly located bhind the door in about the only place it will fit.

The master bedroom- sleep here if you want to collect on your spouse’s insurance policy. I can see some poor person getting up in the night to use the bathroom and falling straight down those stairs in the dark as there’s not much room for a person coming around from the wall side of the bed. The living room/ home office seems to be an extension of the master bedroom (seriously???) and is odd because there’s no TV or anywhere to put one. (I think that’s a mirror in the laundry, not a TV- but if it was a TV, why would you go stand in the laundry to watch it?)

As for the camouflaged front door-why? It might be claimed that the stairs give a big clue as to where the front door is, but I’ve seen pictures of building failures that had similar features that led nowhere.

I really wouldn’t live in this house on a bet.

Yes, it is tiny. Only 800 sq ft. And the lot is tiny, too. 5000 sq ft of land which is less than 1/8th of an acre. The ceiling in the sunroom is unfinished with exposed foam board, a huge no-no. Foam board must be covered with fire-resistant material.

I can imagine someone slipping in the bathtub, falling into the tub filler, broken tub filler flooding the house and getting a bonus trip to the hospital.

And all of that black on the exterior with the garage showing signs of needing to be repainted. Cedar orange + black = Tony the Tiger house.

I don't know where this house is located but as for the lot size, 5000-6000 square feet is a common range for lot sizes in some urban/suburban residential neighborhoods I'm familiar with.

The laundry must be in the garage level, but in the last picture the lower level door is ajar and it sure doesn’t look like that’s the laundry room. So maybe it is in the front, so the garage is non-functioning? Does that door in the laundry lead to the garage? I can’t see stairs going down, so there must not be access to that level as worthy pointed out code would not have allowed.

Is the main part of the house flat-roofed? The photos show slopes and flat, function of the lens, but the satellite photes make it look flat. For a few scary minutes I thought it was a V-shaped roof.

That bumper in the bath is where the shower door opens, so yes, keeps the water from flowing out. But while you scrounge around for your towel which is goodness-knows-where, you drip anyway. And what is with the slatted wall? It’s in 3 pieces?

The listing calls it two-bedroom, but no mention of living room, just sunroom.

Now, a couple of things I do like:

The contemporary front. But it’s a just a façade, the rest is classic cottage-country.

The way the not-wood paneling in the front room wraps the floor, one wall, and ceiling, and the toekick as well..

The undercounter lighting in the kitchen. I could use that. My lower cabinets are recessed a bit and they are dark. (better, though, would be cabinets designed for use, not charm)

The cooktop placement keeps the guys from hanging out there with their Labatt’s. Go sit at the table, like civilized hosers, that’s why we ran out to Dollarama this morning for the plastic cover, you can still see the creases.

Ci_lantro: My BIL has a wide screen in and watches TV in his laundry room. He likes to take care of the clothes and does the laundry for the two of them. Years ago when his wife left for a few weeks to complete her masters, he began doing laundry and found he likes it. He irons to relax, finds it calming. When they had a waterfront home built in a trendy community, he insisted on many custom cabinets, deep sink, his choice of the appliances, built in ironing board and a wide screen in the laundry room. He watches sports and irons, even lightly starches the collars of his many dress shirts.

Another SIL had a large Western themed party a while back and bought 60 inexpensive (imagine not particularly good cotton) bandanas to use as dinner napkins. She prewashed them, he ironed every napkin for us.

ETA: I'd meant to add, the ironing board had to be mounted for his specific height and comfort. He's 6'8" :)

morz, that is a great set-up! When I was a child, my mother would set up her ironing in the porch-turned-family-room, right next to the laundry room, and iron to Julia Child and Mike Douglas, and she could see us if we were playing in th backyard. I’m trying to remember if the mangle stayed in the laundry room or if it was kept in the family room. Sheets still had to be pressed back then.

Having a proper, pleasant, convenient space to do any work in makes that work better. I could iron all day to Netflix!

Easy pass for me. Would not even go inside to look after seeing the outside. The outside entry looks more of a business than it does a residence. That deep step down inside is just an accident waiting to happen. I wouldn't waste my time with this one.

Huge begetter of frustration for door-to-door salespersons!

o j

Horrible mess …. hate everything , both inside & outside ! I love modern , minimal design ( I live in one ) but this has been done so poorly it’s laughable.

You look great

No railing around the bedroom stairway, No handrail? Is that up to code?

Hate. Unsafe. I can't imagine this is in the USA, is it?

I don't hate it, but I don't like it either. And I've never seen that much snow on the ground in my life, except above 8,000 feet in winter, and then only once. The snow bothers me more than anything else - it creates such an alien (to me) landscape. Normally, when I see that much white, it is sand.

AJCN, the house is in Ontario, Canada - not USA.