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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Common in the US west (including Rocky Mtn. region) is the great room. Basically this is a very large room (mine takes up about half of the main floor of the house, with a vaulted or cathedral ceiling, that's a combination living room-dining room-kitchen. In my house I have reversed the dining room living room parts, so my dining table is in front of the fireplace of what would be in other people's houses the living room. Just personal preference. I hope someday to move up to a larger house without a great room.
TEd
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428
addict
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addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428 |
A New England variation on this might be the "mud room." Generally the informal entrance to a house with a large closet(!) and a bench or seating area of some sort. When a bunch of kids come home and shed boots, shoes, jackets and mittens after a day of playing outside the reason for the name is quite apparent. It differs from a sun room or a Florida room (which I have heard occasionally) in that you don't spend time in there, it's where you put on/take off/store your outdoor apparel.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
I have a foyer-- which serves as an air-lock. I can close the door between the living room and foyer- and then open the front door- and i don't get a draft of cold air all through the house.
I have a living room and closed in porch-- this room is seven feet (2.2 meters or so) by the width of the house. It has lots of windows (5) so its bright even though it faces north and never gets full sun.
I have a dining room, and an eat in kitchen.
I have closets in bedrooms and foyer, cabinets in kitchen, and Welsh dresser and sideboard in dining room.
Enclosed porch houses electronic equipement and computer. (there is a second computer area in dining room --from when there were 3 computer users in house hold.)
Upstairs-- three bedrooms-- a hall, a bathroom and a linen closet.
Basement has front room (semi finished- it has ceiling, and carpet on the floor) and a back room the back room has a work table (with table vice and other tools, and a laundry area. just beyond the laundry area is a half bath- this room has toilet, lav (sink) and shower.-- but no bath (hense half bath) my laundry area has a slop sink-- a deep cast iron enamaled sink and is used for yucky stuff-- like when i drain boiler and all the iron and sediment come out--.
Out side in the front-- a concrete set of steps with a platform--my stoop. out side in the back-- a deck --an raised open area with a railing made of wood.
In the back yard i also have a gazebo-- a free standing octagonal structure with a concrete pad, and wooden rails and roof.
when my kids where young, i wished i had a mud room-- a back foyer with a bench and some coat pegs, for removing snowy boots. (or in the spring/ summer removing muddy garden shoes.)
My house is free standing and sort of looks like a five year old picture of a a house. peaked roof, chimney in center, door to side, triple window on first floor, a pair of double windows on second-- and is called a "colonial"
Jo-- you used term "Terraces" --what is meant-- free standing houses, semi attached, attached?
House on my block are terraced-- it is a steep hill and each property has a retaining wall -- so that we each have more or less level yards. but each house is free standing. (zoning requires 2 feet between property line and any structure-- so even garage is not on property line.)
Some of us have gardens too-- but most just have front yard with a patch of lawn. (back yards are some times lawn too, or have decks, or sometime have above ground pools -- almost no inground pools in the area-- taxes on them are too steep! and insurance rates!
I have a old vegetable garden that now just has berry bushes-- raspberry, blackberry and blue berry.-- and two apple trees. I also have some flower beds-- at edge of lawn in back-- and bordering gazebo.
other common style houses on my neighborhood include ranch-- (one story structure) Hi ranch (car garage at ground level, living space one level up) Cape cods, tudors, central hall colonials (more expensive than my side hall style) split levels, row homes (attached on both sides to an other house) and semi attached. there are also garden apartments-- semi attached, two story structures that might have 4 to 5 apartments in one structure. several such structures are grouped together around a common green.
the newest home are called Mc Mansions--(after McDonalds) they are oversized houses on small lots-- and have a cookie cutter look-- all are stucco -- in a pale cream color-- with fake quoins at the corners. they all have palladian windows and large two story foyers. many have fake (not structural) columns out front. most have little decks (about 1 meter by 2 meters) off the master bedroom--(on second floor) with ornate white marble newel posts and ornate balistrades.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Most people will make a distinction between a living room and a family room. The living room is nearly always on the ground floor, is fairly large, and was originally intended as the place where the family sat to read, listen to the radio (in the dear old days of yore), watch TV (later) and entertain visitors if there was no parlor (see other thread). The family room is a less formal room, now nearly always containing the TV, and has, for the most part, replaced the den, which was where the TV usually was between the era of the living room and the family room. The family room may be anywhere in the house, including upstairs or in the basement; it is generally furnished in informal fashion whereas the living room has more formal furniture, rugs and carpet. Most new houses being built today, unless they are large and commodious, have family rooms and no living room or dining room (modern families don't dine in formal fashion; meals are eaten in a section of the kitchen, if not out of hand or lap in the family room). A rec room, or recreation room, is also somewhat different from a family room, as it generally contains some kind of recreational equipment, such as a pool table or pingpong table. (I almost wrote "billiards table", but realize that you would have to go far and wide to find a real billiards table, as hardly anyone plays billiards any more, as distict from pool.)
Also, to add to the list of rooms, there is the powder room, which is a small room with a toilet and washstand, or vanity, but no bathing facilities, usually downstairs so as to obviate a trip upstairs to use the bathroom.
Also, there is, mostly in older houses, the vestibule, which is not really a room, just an enclosed area behind the front door before you get to the hall, which serves to keep out drafts and provide someplace to shake off your umbrella or raincoat and wipe your feet before you mess up the hall.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
A rec room, or recreation room, is also somewhat different from a family room, as it generally contains some kind of recreational equipment, such as a pool table or pingpong table.
I guess I must I have some sort of weird definition of rec room. Where I'm from, it's just come to mean the large, comfortable catch-all room in the finished basement. It should have a couch in it. Most have a TV, some have a bar, I have seen pool tables (awfully hard to get down the stairs - we had one for a while - my dad had to knock out part of the wall in the stairwell!). Many have 70's style wood panelling on the walls still, since that's when those basements were first finished, and no one puts a high priority on "remodelling" the rec room.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 130
member
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member
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 130 |
I'm curious to know if any of our UK posters call their home lavatories WCs, or is that name reserved for public conveniences?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 137
member
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member
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 137 |
We have a family, where we try to contain the family and their current stuff. The living room we try to keep presentable for company. It's off the front entry and I'd be tempted to call it a parlor if it had a door. But it's connected to everything else in that modern open style.
We do have a dining room and use it but it's also connected in the open space with the kitchen and living room. I will clarify that they are definately rooms not a vast open space defined only by what we put in it which is rapidly becoming popular here.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
any of our UK posters call their home lavatories WCs, or is that name reserved for public conveniences?Doug, In my experience no-one ever talks about WCs, even regarding public toilets. Jo mentioned earlier that her generation would call home lavatories loos. Well, I must be her generation, and not the mere stripling I thought myself  . But for public toilets you'd ask a stranger: "Excuse me, are there any toilets near here?" (usually accompanied by a pained look and unusual gait) Whereas you'd ask an acquaintance: "Are there any loos nearby?" or very familiarly: "I'm dying for the bog, mate"  Yet most of the signs say WC. The Brits are nothing if not consistent.  Fisk
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96 |
A great article, Sparteye. May I add to your wonderful list of room names-----Great Room and Media Room. A Great room where entertaining, formal and informal, relaxing, eating and etc goes on----- And also the Media Room where music equipment and computers etc are placed. And in some house the Great Room, Media Room and Kitchen/Dining all flow into each other as one big room---- without walls, more support structure is needed elsewhere---but I think this is terrific when you have kids or entertain alot!! jrj enthusiast
enthusiast
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 96 |
Terrace------Some people call them patios or balconies, (ground level or raised respectively. Usually made of stone, brick or tile, enclosed or open or sometimes with just a roof and open walls!!! Sometimes with no roof. Yes, and when you live on a hillside or mountainside, all the growing fields, and yards of houses are terraced to make gardening and plowing or walking easier. jrj enthusiast
enthusiast
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