So for this #weirdsydneyhouses thread, I need to clarify a few things. This is not about beauty or ugliness. Those are so subjective. I am not the arbiter of beauty. I live in a pig ugly 70s townhouse that is actually very pleasant to live in.

The weirdness I’m talking about is just strange construction, crazy rooms with no light or ventilation or that are too low, too high, too big, too small etc. #weirdsydneyhouses

So here we go. A weird house that I saw last week is located on the edge of the bush overlooking a beautiful valley. It is double brick built in the 1950s. At one end it’s regular and at the other end has a weird 20degree kick making every room on the right end a rhombus.

Who thinks having 6 rhomboid shaped rooms is a good idea? They aren’t even a perfect rhombus because the opposite sides aren’t parallel. When you look at the plan it’s like this house had a stroke. It’s location saves it.

So another #weirdsydneyhouse that I saw last week was in the inner west on a regular block with a little bit of slope up to the rear. What should be a straightforward two storey house with a split level ground floor ends up.....

A house on 5 levels. It looks like a two storey house from the street. It has slate floors on both the ground floor and first floor (I like slate btw). It has an atrium in the middle with an enclosed fireplace but nowhere to sit by the fireplace...

The stair runs up one side of the atrium and is 550wide (I measured it) at the top. The main bedroom is up another few stairs and is oversized so that it is too big for one bedroom but too small to be two. It has an en-suite bathroom with a really low ceiling and no shower.

The two other bedrooms have really high ceilings and a weird loft type mezzanine level within the roof structure that you can only access with a ladder.

There are crazy little storage portals in the roof with skylights in them. The perfect size to hide a body.

The living room is really dark because it has a dark slate floor, dark timber joists as the ceiling, windows at one end. Said joists are so low that I can touch them. Living room is effectively a wide corridor. Not a room as such.

Room to the side of the large indoor outdoor entry foyer only has glass blocks for light. No ventilation whatsoever. Garage is long. Really long. Long enough for acres of junk.

Oh and the bedrooms upstairs have openings into the atrium with shutters on them. So no acoustic privacy between bedrooms.

Apparently this house was built by a builder who took all his great ideas and slammed them into one house. This house would not have been cheap to build. The slate alone would have cost a fortune. It is just so very weird. You wouldn’t know it from the street. #weirdsydneyhouses

Oh and the harbour bridge views you could get are only accessible from one far corner of the undersized balcony. #weirdsydneyhouses.

So I saw a rather nice house on the lower north shore last week as well. Nice level block, generous room sizes and ceilings, lovely old cornices and skirtings etc. the best light was in the pantry and the laundry though. Sigh. #weirdsydneyhouses.

Then there’s thousands of #weirdsydneyhouses that have had verandas enclosed so that what was once a pleasant semi public interface with the street is now a WIR or en-suite or storeroom for junk.

Then there’s the one I went to a few weeks ago again in the inner west. Probably built about 1880 or so. Once was a lovely old house that has been brutalised over the years. Possibly with completely illegal work. #weirdsydneyhouses

At some point in the distant past it had a garage tacked on to the side. This garage was then recently turned into an ensuite with a laundry tacked on the back. The laundry is accessed through what once would have been a nice living room....

but now that the laundry is there it is completely dark with a poxy little skylight stopping it from being pitch black. The living room now has an aluminium framed glass sliding door between it and the laundry. Who in their right mind would think this is a good idea?

This work is obviously not approved. No one would ever approve this. #weirdsydneyhouses.

Then there's the houses that I have seen as a potential tenant. One with a room in the roof that was so low that I could only stand in the very centre. I'm not that tall only 5'8". While the room in plan was about 12-16sqm the useable area was less than 6.

I’ll add to this thread over time. As these weird houses come back to me. Feel free to add your own. I know that I haven’t seen anywhere near half of them. #weirdsydneyhouses.

Oh but I haven’t told you about the one I saw yesterday that tipped me over the edge. #weirdsydneyhouses.

It was in the Northern Beaches. A former fibro shack built in the 1940s I’d imagine. On what would have been a quiet country road. Quite a slopey block sloping away from the road.

The block was later subdivided and another house built at the back. This isn’t necessarily bad. I’ve seen quite cute little houses built in the backyards of others. #weirdsydneyhouses.

So the old house at the front has no backyard now but has a yard at the front. The once quiet country road is now an 8 lane highway. So the front yard is hardly a quiet serene garden. #weirdsydneyhouses

The fibro shack has been clad with rough unpainted weatherboards. The floor inside has a 60mm step. Just enough to trip on. I doubt there is an ounce of insulation in the place. #weirdsydneyhouses.