Houses

There are some interesting differences between houses in America versus houses in Norway.  Some were easier to get used to than others. 

In Norway, every room has a door threshold that sticks up from the floor anywhere from half an inch to several inches.  It’s hard to get used to stepping over it and I discovered it’s a great way to stub a toe.  Some people call the thresholds, “Troll Traps” because certainly, if a troll were in a house, he wouldn’t be smart enough to step over it, so when he stubs his toe, he’d yell, thus altering the occupant to his presence.  It was obvious when I was home, too.

Bathrooms in Norway don’t often come with towel racks or toilet paper holders. Those are stand-alone items that move with the occupant. 

No windows in a Norwegian house have screens, and all windows pivot open so the top half of the window is inside the house and the bottom half is sticking out.  There are too many lawsuits to make that feature practical in America, as walking around a house in Norway actually requires a person to pay attention so as not to bash in their head on an open window. 

Everyone in Norway hangs their bedding out the window on either very hot or super cold days to kill the dust mites.  It’s strange to see windows wide open when it’s minus ten degrees outside, but they do it. 

It’s safe to say that no house in Norway has wall-to-wall carpeting – most everyone has tile or wood floors but some newer homes now have linoleum.   Everyone takes their shoes off when entering a house.  Norwegians care deeply about the condition of their floors, no matter what they are made of.  Even at my son’s school, visiting parents must either take off their shoes as they enter the building, or put on little surgical looking footies to cover over their outdoor shoes. Norwegians all have “innesko” - inside shoes - that would never have stepped a foot outside.

Some of the most expensive differences we encountered while living in Norway were that all light fixtures, heating elements, appliances and closets also move with the occupant.  It’s hard enough to move into a house that is stripped of an oven, refrigerator, all lights and heaters, but ya gotta wonder why they made closets a portable item. 

Norwegians figured out how to cross the Atlantic 500 years before Columbus, so why don’t they just build closets into the bedrooms since everyone needs one anyway?  Go figure.