Sparked by my reply to MM about the open coffin in the "schone plaats", "de beste kamer" (the clean room) (only for the special events)
as he told:
"On that occasion my parents-in-law did the full open-coffin, laying in state thing ..." 
 
I mentioned then the typical lay out of a "working-class house?" in a row.
I first wanted to use "row house" (as in Dutch "rijwoning"), but that seems to be US English and in the UK it have to be "terraced house"



I think to see here that the windows in the window frame go open to the inside as in Belgium and France and not outside as normal in the Protestant countries?



But back to the interwar (interbellum?) working-class house, as I mentioned:

the salon (schone plaats, beste kamer (best room)), the kitchen where one lived, the "bijkeuken" (the annexe), where one cooked, and that annexe had a back door to a small cour.
Normally the front door giving in a small hall, with doors to the salon and kitchen and then ending in the annexe, but many times the front door give directly entrance in the "salon" and no hall at all.

https://geschiedenisvanaalter.blogspot.com/2011/02/een-huis-voor-18000-frank.html



I wonder how it all was in the UK?


ADDENDUM! from 14 December:

Thanks to the message of MM I see now that I made a big mistake (and I know it that well) of course Belgium and France have to be "INSIDE" and all the other ones of the North and I guess also from the East, as Germany and I guess also Poland are "OUTSIDE"
I will immediately change it!
Sorry

In much of France where exterior hinged shutters are common, windows open inwards simply for practical reasons:  the wooden shutters open outwards and don't touch the inward opening windows (unless they are vertical rolling sash windows, or side-to-side sliding windows). This way you can then also have the window open but the shutter closed or maybe held slightly ajar with an 'espagnolette' device, for shade and security.


     

Excuses MM, as you see I made a big mistake in my former message while just changing the terms giving the opposite sens. :oops:I immediately changed it. Can you please change your message to fit a bit with my now edited one, so that the thread makes sense. Please...and again excuses...

We discussed already the issue, as LiR once told about the repair of the windows of her house...
And as I studied  it a bit deeper this afternoon, quite an intriguing question...even perhaps more difficult than searching as an historian?
PS: and even that "a" or "an" is already a question:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/qp4ji/a_historian_or_an_historian/
UK seems to be "an". I ask nordmann: and don't they aspirate the "h" then as the Dutch? And rather doing it a bit the French way "an istorian"?

Yes, MM, seeing the advantages of both systems is easy.
https://www.aluminiumtradesupply.co.uk/12264/inward-or-outward-opening-windows/
And seemingly the Irish windows go open also outwards as the English ones...

I always thought (as I am an insider in construction and building) that "outwards opening" windows were also with the frame in the opening of the front and not in the inner part of the wall.
We use: "de dag" and "de slag" I found some explanation in Dutch:
https://www.ecobouwers.be/forum/post/dagkant-raam
"de "dag" is de opening in de gevel , de dagmaat is de afmeting van de gevelopening .
"achter de dag" is de benaming die gebruikt wordt voor de grotere opening achter de gevel, waar het raamkader ingebouwd zal worden .Het verschil met de gevelopening noemt "de slag" .
en de raam-maten zijn dan weer de afmetingen van het raamkader zelf "
("de dag"is the opening in the facade, the "dag" measurement of the opening in the facade. "behind the "dag" is the word for the larger opening behind the facade, where the frame will be build in. The difference with the facade opening calls the "slag".
In my time was that "7 cm".
And windows where the frame is built inside the façade and not behind it (in fact in the "dag"), we call "blokramen" (block windows?) I found neverwhere a translation as I think it is also not: "casement windows"?



But this afernoon I have seen that you have "inwards" and "outwards" opening in both types: "blok" and "behind the facade with a "slag".

And MM, do you know such window to solve the problem:



We had such one in the back kitchen in our grandmother's house where my sister and I lived during childhood.

They can say as in this link:
https://www.aluminiumtradesupply.co.uk/12264/inward-or-outward-opening-windows/
"We must remember that in warmer countries there is a requirement for shutters and often flyscreens. Flyscreens in particular help prevent mosquitos from entering the room at night when you still want your windows open.In order for these to work effectively, it makes sense for the opening sashes to open inwards so that the shutters and flyscreens can work effectively from the outside.  It also makes sense to have these outside as you can still open your windows even with the shutters or flyscreens are shut."

But all by all my question is not solved why "inward" in Catholic countries and "outward" in Protestant ones?
As in "Sluis" only 30 KM from here. Protestant along the "line of control" of 1648.

But looking now to pictures of Sluis I am not sure anymore: this one outwards?



But I am nearly sure that I have seen such "blokramen" (windows with the frame in the facade) in Sluis also with windows "inwards". After covid that will be my first search in Sluis in any case  ...

But it is incredible how such "customs" of windows in the facade can be that different on this Belgian-Dutch border and change in only a few miles along the border. (Be it now "outwards" or "inwards", but certainly  normal   windows behind the facade to "blokramen" at the other side of the border. I have seen these "blokramen" a bit everywhere in Northern countries, in Germany too. I wonder if one has the same rapid change at the Belgian-German border too?

Kind regards, Paul.

And MM, searching further I come more and more to the conclusion that in the Netherlands the windows go outwards open.
Some three sites in which it is said:
Especially for Dirk Marinus:

https://www.joostdevree.nl/bouwkunde2/vensterluik.htm
"maar omdat bij ons meestal de ramen naar buiten opengaan"
"because here the windows go mostly outwards open"

http://leprebonnet.blogspot.com/2015/10/
"automatisch wilde ik ze naar binnen open trekken... dat gaat dus niet. In Nederland gaan de ramen naar buiten open, in Frankrijk naar binnen ;-)"
"automatically I wanted to throw the windows inside...that didn't work. In the Netherlands open the windows outwards, in France inwards   " (and after 21 weeks I was used ot the French reality)

And that's one for the next top of the UK-EU negociations
https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/europa-verbiedt-werken-vanaf-de-ladder~bbc42db0/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
A problem for those who have to work on ladders, where there will now a European rule of a maximum height (I know that we have already this regulation in Belgium)  (I think it is the height from the ground to the feet (the "stahoogte") and in Belgium maximum 7.5 meter...)
Now all these small firms will have to hire or buy a "cherry picker?"
"otherwise than in Belgium and France open most windows here outwards"

Thus still, MM, my question pending? In Bayern the windows inwards, in Preussen outwards?
No MM, serious now, I think it has a lot to do with local customs, grown for I don't know what reason in those regions, but seemingly it has a lot to do with the local mentality as for instance in Amsterdam, London or North Germany?
MM, for my research I used google images...you can guess when I put for my research "windows amsterdam"...

Kind regards, Paul.

But back to the terraced house of the interwar period (interbellum) and a "working class house" (we call it a "werkmanswoning" (worker's house))

My example is from Aalter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aalter
and it comes as mentioned in my previous message from
https://geschiedenisvanaalter.blogspot.com/
Begin the Thirties, Aalter was a rural municipality, but now it is a bit trendy amid richer Belgians and hence the land price has not followed the rate of the earnings and is relatively much higher in comparison with the wages of beginning the Thirties in that place in Belgium. Just to say that it is not easely to compare the price of that example of that time "18,000 Belgian Franc" (plus minus: 450 Euro ( some 409 £))

From my example:
https://geschiedenisvanaalter.blogspot.com/2011/02/een-huis-voor-18000-frank.html
A house of 18,000 Belgian frank.
 
I did nearly a whole evening research about what the worth was from 18,000 Francs in 1933 in comparison with the nowadays worth and especially what one could do then with that money and nowadays. And that has all to do with the earnings of that time in comparison with what one could do with the money of that time and that to compare with the nowadays ratio.
I found an interesting study about the purchasing power evolution in 100 years in Belgium "1914-2014" from a renowned researcher:
https://foliotijdschriften.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/honderd-jaar-koopkracht-in-belgic3ab.pdf
And interesting data: see page 17.
It was a surprize to me, as I thought it was much much more: the Belgian purchase power would only between 1914-2014 have increased, if I understand it well with roughly 125% and perhaps because it is cumulatif: 140%? And between 1960-1985 (my! main working period) roughly a 62.5 % and of course a bit more with the cumulatif effect?
Of course as I see now as you just look to the worth of the Belgian franc in for instance 1933 to 2013 that would make for that house, again as I understand it well, roughly X 30 that's roughly 600,000 BF
https://www.academia.edu/33114343/De_waarde_van_de_Belgische_frank
But that is nearly nothing with the real worth of 2013, even with the cheaper cost of some of the construction materials?

Sigh, I don't see were I made my mistakes ...MM?

Although it has'nt in se not so much to do with the construction of interwar terraced houses, as it is purely financial, but these taxes influence a lot the real estate market and I think that is, as in Belgium, the also so called "kadastraal inkomen/revenu cadastral" and I see now that it is in English surprisingly also "cadastral income".
As it influences the price of houses, the price of the rent and even the whole real estate market as the price for rent for the tenant and for the income of the owner and by that the lives of many people and their incomes...

I guess in Belgium that cadastral income is a custom and a practice  that is grown from the very start of Belgium. I wanted to compare it with the UK, France and the Netherlands. Perhaps LiR has an idea for what she has to pay for the fact that she is owner in the UK? MM with both feet and in the UK and in France...perhaps Dirk Marinus and for the UK and for the Netherlands...

I don't want to bother people in this Christmas time with my financial real estate taxes and it can easely wait till next year and if no  one is interested ...

I immediately had already trouble when I searched for "cadastral income" in the UK.
it seems on the first sight that there is no "cadastre" in England??? and then no "cadastral income" ???

https://www.fig.net/resources/proceedings/2008/verona_am_2008_comm7/papers/12_sept/7_2_grover.pdf

what a can of worms...even I who bought several houses and had to provide each time the "cadastral plan" to the  notary, sighing to start with it...

LiR don't you have to pay something to her majesty's government as tax being the owner of your house and to live in it? In Belgium you have not to pay taxes  on that cadastral income of your own house were you live in, in your general global taxes, but you have to pay nevertheless apart the indexed cadastral income/taxe of your house, where you live in. They call it here the "grondbelasting" (land tax?) and if there is a house built on it the tax on the estimated worth of that house is added.

Sigh, what have I started. although i know the Belgian system perfectly, being now for more than 35 years in the real estate business as landlord, I guess...

Meles meles wrote:

In much of France where exterior hinged shutters are common, windows open inwards simply for practical reasons:  the wooden shutters open outwards and don't touch the inward opening windows (unless they are vertical rolling sash windows, or side-to-side sliding windows). This way you can then also have the window open but the shutter closed or maybe held slightly ajar with an 'espagnolette' device, for shade and security.


     

 
Thank you so much MM to have changed your original message, so that my serious  error (that I also edited) in my former message don't contradict my now edited message anymore.
Kind regards, Paul.

Je vous en prie. But I agree, it's not always easy to remember small details about houses one lived in for many years; such as whether the windows went outwards or inwards. After much thinking I am now fairly sure that my parents' house - a 1950s semi-detached in southern England, and where I spent all my childhood - had all the windows opening outwards. But that's really only because I remember that my mother always had a couple of treasured (and hideous) Victorian china dogs perched on their bedroom window sill: which would have had to be moved and put somewhere else should the window opened inwards, and I'm sure I remember many days with all the windows open. Also remember that in the 1950s/60s one usually had net curtains made of nylon faux-lace (I'm sure you, Paul, know exactly what I mean), which generally hang from a single, usually flexible, even elastically-sprung, 'cord', suspended between the window to the outside and the heavy curtains (with an insulating backing) facing inwards. Of course if your window opens inwards you can always just have a single net curtain attached to each pane, rather than covering both - such as in my Belgian tantine's house in Wavre - but that practice was never, as far as I know, very common in Britain.

Note also that windows that open inwards are much easier and safer to clean (on both faces) than windows that open outwards, for which you need a long ladder and/or the services of a professional. The 'window cleaner' was one of the delivery/service people that came around regularly (but were always paid in cash never a cheque: cheques were for proper contracts such as with the coal-man and laundry-man). There was simply no other way to clean the outside surfaces of the windows of the suburban, semi-detatched, 1950s post-war house of my childhood. By contrast my current home in southern France, built circa 1900, with three floors, all with huge 4m tall windows ... but as they all open inwards it really is no problem cleaning both inside and out just perched on a chair.

Did/does the job of 'professional domestic window cleaner' actually exist in France? I've really only ever encountered it in England, firstly, as I've said, in relation to my parents' house in the 1960s and '70s, but also more recently when I had my own place, in the 1990s. But then I rather thought the guy was just trying it on when he knocked at the door with a cheery "clean yer wind'ars guv'?".  My flat was on the ground floor and all windows easily reached.

Thank you so much MM, for the memories of your childhood in England and about windows. It all brought back my childhood memories of the Fifties and indeed about windows in our old house, the new one of 1958 was already with plastic window frames and indeed windows going open inside.
And yes I recognize all that you were talking about. 
As for instance as you said:
"Also remember that in the 1950s/60s one usually had net curtains made of nylon faux-lace, which generally hang from a single, usually flexible, even elastically-sprung, 'cord', suspended between the window to the outside and the heavy curtains (with an insulating backing) facing inwards."

But I don't find the curtains (I think that it don't exist anymore), which were spanned at the inside on the window.
On the top there was a painted metal rod of a 6 mm diameter and the same in the bottom and the two were glidden in the sewn overlap upside and downside of the curtain. And on both sides of the rod there was a hole in. So the curtain was stretched by the two rods up and down, which were above and beneath the window hung on four "rechte schroefhaken" (English?)

screwed in the wood.

I am already seeking a quarter of an hour to have an image..."gosh" (I have learned from Temperance), how difficult it is to describe something that don't exist anymore and from what one don't find photos anymore.
The curtains were a little bit narrower in the middle of the window because of the stretch.

I think Dirk Marinus will remember them as I saw them also in Holland...

And these devices were also on a notary house (herenhuis (townhouse?) that I renovated and transformed. As such one:



I have all the curtains put in the "poubelle" and even the metal rods I mentioned. And not taken photos of the windows with the curtains. And yes my "mansion" were with roller-shutters, contrary to the photo shown.

PS: And now MM I am too late to start with my replies about the "constitutional oath" sigh...

Kind regards, Paul.