Since Peter and I got to Portland and hit the ground house hunting, we have seen 30-40 homes. They have been every different style but we have noticed a few features in Portland houses that we don’t have in St. Louis.

Creepy Crawlspaces
Lots of houses have unfinished basements. Portland interprets unfinished a lot more literally, and they neglect to wall off half the underside of a house. They call them crawlspaces but what they are are exposed dirt piles. Some of them are out in the open, others are visible behind an opening, all of them are creepy.

Creepy Crawlspace © Susan Lawson

Potbelly Furnaces/stoves/heaters
They’re chubby and cute and period-looking. I see the appeal. But I see a huge thing taking up space in every room, which removes walking space or furniture arrangements.

© steveyb

Garages not meant to hold cars
You could chalk it up to older garages built in a time when we didn’t have such massive vehicles on the road, but we’ve seen many that were built this decade. They’re houses with a one-car garage, according to the real estate listing. But in reality there is no way these things could house a car. They’re too small, and more shed-like.

Also we see a lot of garages that, if cleaned out, could fit a car.. but seems Portlanders like their storage space more. I think the lack of need for car shelter can be explained by the lack of snowfall here. These folks don’t know what it is to dig out your car every morning.