Dull Men's Club
An unofficial chapter of the popular Dull Men's Club.
1. Relevant commentary on your own dull life. Posts should be about your own dull, lived experience. This is our most important rule. Direct questions, random thoughts, comment baiting, advice seeking, many uses of "discuss" rarely comply with this rule.
2. Original, Fresh, Meaningful Content.
3. Avoid repetitive topics.
4. This is not a search engine
Use a search engine, a tradesperson, Reddit, friends, a specialist Facebook group, apps, Wikipedia, an AI chat, a reverse image search etc. to answer simple questions or identify objects. Also see rule 1, “comment baiting”.
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5. Keep it dull. If it puts us to sleep, it’s on the right track. Examples of likely not dull: jokes, gross stuff (including toes), politics, religion, royalty, illness or injury, killing things for fun, or promotional content. Feel free to post these elsewhere.
6. No hate speech, sexism, or bullying No sexism, hate speech, degrading or excessively foul language, or other harmful language. No othering or dehumanizing of anyone or negativity towards any gender identity.
7. Proofread before posting. Use good grammar and punctuation. Avoid useless phrases. Some examples: - starting a post with "So" - starting a post with pointless phrases, like "I hope this is allowed" or “this is my first post” Only share good quality, cropped images. Do not share screenshots of images; share the original image.
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Oolrait, nice mökki, nice oven, nice lake.
I'm kinda glad I was able to recognize it. I'd feel less sure about myself had these elements been more generic than I thought.
Thanks!
Well, the mökki is from the 60s - and it was freshened up in the 80s 🙂 So I'd be surprised if it had anything generic in it. It's probably as desperately Finnish as they come.
My neighbor on the other hand has a brand new house built in 2020: if you saw a picture of the interior, it's as sterile as an Ikea show floor. Fake warmth everywhere, totally bland and characterless. You wouldn't know whether it's in Germany or New Zealand. Old constructions are not like that.
Is it that disturbingly close house you can see from the other window? I think I know exactly what you mean. When I was living in Espoo there was a newly built house like that on my bicycle commute, a white concrete block built into a beautiful old garden with a mummonmökki still behind it. Pure status signaling without any sense of aesthetics, landscaping, distancing etc. One wall was too close to the street and devoid of windows; many times I phantasized I'd spray "Ugliest house in Espoo" on it.
And there's many abominations like that along the south coast of Espoo.
No, that's my house! It's period too and I'm keeping it that way. I don't like modern architecture.
This area used to be a swamp where people with no money could buy themselves a bunch of land and build a summer cottage on the cheap. No permits required - or they just brought a bottle of hooch to the local official and got the permit for anything and everything
Then the area became attractive for main residences because it's not too far from the city, and the land was still affordable for a big house. So a lot of people built their houses next to their existing summer cottages. Again, not too much trouble to get a permit for anything you wanted.
That's what the previous owners of this place did: they built the big cottage right next to the lake (which is a big no-no today) for the summer, then the house next to it 20 years later when they moved here permanently - with zero restrictions on the building permit, which is still in force today.
Then the area started gentrifying. Most of the old houses have been destroyed and replaced by all-white-all-grey, soulless mansions. But most kept the old cottage, because it would be forbidden to rebuild this close to the water's edge if the old one disappeared.
That's what my neighbor did. To each his own I guess. Me, I'm keeping the place as-is. Just renovating, insulating, improving... It's a nice 80s wooden house with a nice big 60s wooden mökki, both in perfect condition and with zero problems, and they'll stay that way until I snuff it.
Oh. My apologies; I can't really see much of the house other than it's very close, but this explains it.
Again, going back to my time in Espoo, I have seen places where people got their building permits before the beaches-are-for-everyone-rule, often the cycling/walking path has to go around them.
It's not so much that beaches are for everyone here. All the land is occupied by private owners all around this lake, and it's been that way for many decades. There are only 4 public access points around the entire lake. It's quite sad actually.
The reason they won't let new constructions take place close to the water's edge has something to do with nature conservation, pollution and whatnot. I'm not sure I understand. All I know is, when this cottage is gone, it ain't never coming back. So it's worth keeping in good condition.