This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From You Know That Thing Where:
Grev: In reading The Couch, I remember the trope about the layout of the average Dom Com house: Always at least two stories, with the living room and the kitchen on the first floor, and nearly everything else on the second floor (the bedrooms) or in the basement (the laundry). There's never any hint of a bathroom on the first floor, and almost never is there a separate dining room. Also, one time out of three, the living room and the kitchen aren't separate (no divider wall).
Gus:Standard House Hit it.
I'm not sure I Love Lucy should be an example: the Ricardos lived in a New York apartment with clearly visible walls separating the three rooms.
Ununnilium: Agreed.
Nlpnt: The LAST season (which may have gone by a different title) had them move to the suburbs in Connecticut; the house sets in Whos The Boss were identical (apart from changes in decoration a real house could have easily underwent between 1960 and 1983).
Ununnilium: Is it just me? I've seen far more stage-right doors than stage-left in sitcoms.
Tanto: Maybe it's just a quirk, but in the sitcoms I've watched the door tends to be stage-left in houses and stage-right in apartments.
This is probably the biggest coincidence ever.
Mister Six: I'm with Ununn there, although I'm mostly feeding off childhood memories since most of the US sitcoms I watch these days are one-camera shows. Still, shows with stage-right doors that I recall included Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld (in pretty much every apartment save Elaine's), Boy Meets World, Third Rock From the Sun (well, the stairs were to the right). I don't think it's a common enough element to be notable - surely the only thing you have to mention is that the doors are usually situated to the side of the stage because of the stairs up/down at the back?
Andrew Leprich: I can think of a several stage-right doors and several stage-left doors. I really don't think there's any sort of significant trend that favors either.
MRL: I'm thinking the "door to living room" oddity mentioned in the description must be a regional thing, as the number of houses this troper has encountered (in Springfield/Eugene, OR) that fit that description is far from "none". In point of fact, only a few around here don't have a front door that opens directly into the living room, and most back doors open directly to the dining room.
Shale: I changed that to "not many," and even that's disregarding the fact that my house, and the houses of both sets of my grandparents, all have front doors opening into the living room. A few of my friends' homes would count for sitcom purposes, too, since there's no wall between their entryway area and the living room (and hence would fit into stage left if viewed from the side).
Truec: I actually don't believe I've ever lived in a house where either the front or back door wasn't in the living room. Maybe it's a regional architecture thing?
J.Bourne: I think its also worth noting that many houses in sitcoms also have two staircases, one in the kitchen area, and one in the Living area near the front door. Off the top of my head I know that Roseanne, Full House, Boy Meets World, and Family Matters.
Spark: Roseanne only had one staircase to the second story, located in the living room next to the door. The other staircase led to the basement. The Roseanne set had a number of other quirks to it as well, including the master bedroom being on the first floor and the laundry area set on the back porch instead of in the basement.
