There is a peephole in my front door. More accurately, there are two charming little “speakeasy” windows, designed specifically so I can discreetly peek through them to see who’s knocking before answering the door. Sadly, for me at least, there is one small design flaw: I can’t reach them. Now, lest you think I could wear stilettos and stand on my tiptoes and then I could see through them, you would be wrong. I would need a ladder. Not a stool — a ladder.

On a good day, I stand approximately 5-foot-1, and only in the mornings. By evening, I likely stand closer to 5-foot even. Although the NBA has surprisingly passed on my amazing vertical leap and commanding presence in the paint skills, I am still a fully grown adult woman living in a house presumably designed for all fully grown adult humans. And yet someone, somewhere decided the appropriate height for my stealth speakeasy windows was somewhere in the vicinity of an NBA player’s scalp. Thus, if someone knocks on my door, if I decide to use this convenient little security feature as intended, I have to run to the garage, grab a ladder, drag it inside to the front door, set it up so it is secure and locked in, climb several rungs and peek outside. You can imagine how successful this has been in welcoming visitors or ignoring thugs.

In my experience I have seen houses that are full of features that make you wonder whether anyone stopped during the design process and questioned if real humans could use such a feature. Perhaps it is just for esthetic purposes only, kind of like my entire kitchen.

Honestly, I truly do love to walk into an elegant two-story home where I am immediately met with 18-feet of impressive, yet unusable air above the front door. It is nothing but impressive. My first thought, as is most people’s, is Wow. Look at those ceilings. Which is the thought that remains until a light bulb burns out. And then comes the scaffolding purchase. And who wants to store that?

I also love a good Romeo and Juliet balcony off the primary bedroom. They look so picturesque and romantic from the street. Of course, they seem to only exist in the front of west-facing houses, where the sun makes it intolerable to enjoy. It is possible that up to seven or so people have actually sat out on said balcony to enjoy the view of the neighborhood (and silently judge). For everyone else, the balcony becomes an architectural decoration occasionally visited by a spider.

Then, there is the giant bathtub. This is something that I personally do not love. Sure, it fills a space. In fact, it majestically sits in the corner of the primary bathroom, surrounded by tile, perhaps beneath a lovely window that offers a view of the side of your neighbor’s home. It is generally large enough to host a small pool party and requires twice the content of two 70-gallon water heaters to fill.

It is easy to imagine candles, bubbles and endless warm water that both smell and looks clean despite the barefooted walk you just took on the disease-filled pavement around the neighborhood. The reality? Five years after moving in, the tub has held approximately three baths, a consistent laundry basket and an occasional grandchild, none of whom prefer to swim in their own shwill more than once.

Builders have also spent years putting microwaves above ranges at a height that makes perfect sense if everyone in the family is 6-foot-2 (refer to the esthetic speakeasy windows above). For the rest of us, removing a bowl of boiling soup becomes a minor workplace-safety incident.

And while we’re in the kitchen, can we talk about cabinets that go all the way to a 10-foot ceiling? Both form and function? I think not. Sure, they look fabulous, but I have no idea what’s in the top ones. I guess the garage-stored ladder would be useful in this case as well. I’m sure there are probably recipe books and cookie sheets left by the previous owner up there. After all, they likely couldn’t access them either.

Of course, houses have always reflected the trends of the time they were built. At one point, we apparently couldn’t get enough formal living rooms, the pristine room near the front door where nobody was actually allowed to live.

Then came enormous entertainment centers built specifically around televisions roughly the size of a Volkswagen van. Flat-screen TVs arrived shortly afterward and left thousands of homes with giant built-in holes nobody quite knows what to do with. (I have a giant picture of horses covering mine).

We’ve had wet bars, conversation pits, sunken living rooms (and who hasn’t twisted an ankle falling down one of these?) and those little built-in desks in kitchens that were supposedly going to become household command centers but mostly became places to pile junk mail and misplaced keys.

And let’s not forget the pot filler. I have one of these as well. I didn’t know what it was until last year when I was carrying a filled pot of water two feet from the sink over to the stove. My daughter asked me why I didn’t use the pot filler to fill the pan. I informed her that I thought it was one of those flame torches that you use when making the fancy Crème Brulle, which I would never attempt to do. To think that I could have saved two steps that day. And what about a drain? They didn’t think to install one of those on the stove.

The funny thing about houses is that the features we think we desperately want aren’t always the things that make a house great to live in. I’ve shown enough homes over the years to know that buyers can be dazzled by soaring ceilings, elaborate bathrooms and dramatic architectural features. But after you’ve lived somewhere for a while, it’s often the boring things you appreciate most: enough outlets, a pantry that holds groceries, light switches next to the corresponding door and perhaps a peephole that is eye level. Because good design shouldn’t just make a house look impressive. It should occasionally acknowledge that people are going to live there.

Jen Fischer is an associate broker and Realtor. She can be reached at 801-645-2134 or jen@jen-fischer.com.