Some posts on the thread about "whilst" have raised the question for me regarding architectural and related terms. I wonder, what are the regional differences in describing the parts of buildings?

Depending on the speaker and the exact use of the room, I have heard a room used for common gatherings and activities described as a living room, family room, parlor, sitting room or front room. A room used for entertainment can be called the family room, den, rec room or entertainment center (the latter used when the room is specifically built to house gargantuan electronic entertainment systems). The room used for ablutions is the bathroom, even when it doesn't contain a bathtub. The room housing the cooking is the kitchen. A room used for formal dining is the dining room, while (/whilst ) a room used for everyday eating is the eating area or breakfast nook. The area adjacent to the front entry, used to receive guests, is the entry, entry hall, hall, front hall or foyer.

Other rooms include sun rooms, sewing rooms, and laundry rooms. We have a garden room, so called only because it is adjacent to a walled-in garden area.

Outdoor areas include porches, porticos, stoops, verandahs, piazzas and decks.

And then there are all the style designations, and commercial terms ...

for some inexplicable reason you have left out the bedroom, which leads me to add that I am currently sitting in a converted bedroom (converted to an office), now (more topically) referred to as the "computer room".

>a living room, family room, parlor, sitting room or front room

All of these, except parlour (although some Georgian/Victorian/Edwardian houses may use the name). Others: Lounge is used a lot, drawing room (up-market).

The bigger Victorian Edinburgh houses tend to have a drawing room/lounge with a large bay window on the first floor and another room, usually used as a family room (with TV and old(er)/less grand sofas etc) on the ground floor.

I don't see many dens or entertainment rooms but some people use a room which should be a bedroom as a den. Studies, on the other hand, are common and may double as a spare bedroom.

I might be too old to know anyone with a garganuan entertainment system. One of my neighbours had a room with a home cinema but I don't know what he calls it (he's never invited anyone in!)

>The room housing the cooking is the kitchen. A room used for formal dining is the dining room

Same

>The room used for ablutions is the bathroom, even when it doesn't contain a bathtub.

Not usually. A bathroom has a bath. (A public toilet is never called a bathroom, as previously discussed)
A shower room has a shower (although some people still call it a bathroom).
A "downstairs loo" or "cloakroom" is a separate toilet (loo to many of my generation) with a wash-hand baisin and maybe a place to hang coats.

>while a room used for everyday eating is the eating area or breakfast nook
Never a nook. Possibly a breakast room (older houses have them) more likely a family room or just part of a large kitchen.

>The area adjacent to the front entry, used to receive guests, is the entry, entry hall, hall, front hall or foyer.

Never front entry. Older terrace houses with yards (concrete flat area at back of house), have an "entry" but I think that is the path that runs along the back of the houses (Rubarb Commando will know). I heard Paul Daniels (TV Magician) say that he had a "vestibule" which is another name heard little, these days. A theatre would have a foyer but I don't think a house would have one.

>Other rooms include sun rooms, sewing rooms, and laundry rooms. We have a garden room, so called only because it is adjacent to a walled-in garden area.

A laundry room tends to be called a "untility room". SOme of the others are used.

Conservatories are often built onto the backs of houses.

>Outdoor areas include porches, porticos, stoops, verandahs, piazzas and decks.

I'd never heard of a "stoop" until it was discussed in a previous posts. We'd only see a piazza in a public place, a solid paved area would be a patio. Decks are not native but are finding their way into gardens. Pergolas, are wooden posts with a bit of cross bracing, built for plants to grow up.

>for some inexplicable reason you have left out the bedroom, which leads me to add that I am currently sitting in a converted bedroom (converted to an office), now (more topically) referred to as the "computer room"

Funnily enough, your experience mirrors mine, according to the Estate Agent's specification, I am in "bedroom 4/study".

I was reading a newspaper article whilst I was in the USA which said that the living room, beloved of sit-coms was virtually redundant. The first question asked by people looking at a house was "Where will the computer go!"

Hey, I'm sitting a converted bedroom, too!

Jo, what the heck's a conservatory? Though my old Clue game has one, it's hard for me to tell what it is.

Sparteye, does anybody up your way have a Florida room?

Conservatory

Probably a sun room, Victorian ones are popular on old houses:

http://www.conservatoriesonline.com/style.htm

Porches tend to be small affairs, built around a front door.

Pergolas, are wooden posts with a bit of cross bracing, built for plants to grow up.

I think I might call this a "trellis". This is the only word I can think of to describe such a thing.

...whereas in the UK a trellis would be a framework fixed flat against the wall, on which to train a climbing plant.

There is one exception: the noble Mrs Trellis from North Wales (but that's another story entirely!)

I had a friend who had both a family room and a living room. Most newer houses in Winnipeg have this sort of distinction. Living room has the nice furniture, used when people come over. Family room has the TV, video games, and all the mess. Our house was old enough not to need such a distinction. A rec room to me is necessarily in the basement. (Not sure why.)

The area adjacent to the front door is "by the front door" for me, usually. A bit unsophisticated, I guess.

As I was growing up, and we switched around the contents of two ground-floor bedrooms, there were rooms which were sometimes the "piano room" (so as not to annoy the rest of the people in the house when playing) and the "computer room" (obvious). The piano and computer were, for a time, together in a room. Much later both were removed but the name stayed with the room. In my new place we have a "study" with a computer, no piano, two bass guitars, a guitar, a violin, and a trombone, but for some reason I still call it the "piano room". Luckily my husband was familiar with my old house - otherwise it would be very confusing!

Rarely have I come across someone in this area calling a room a Florida room, but I think I know what is meant. Up here, what I believe to be a Florida room is as often called a three-seasons room, which is still a misnomer, since an unheated, uninsulated room can be used only four months of the year. The heated, insulated version is a sun room.

BTW, my home computer is in a built-in computer area, consisting of floor-to-ceiling shelves and such, stretched wall-to-wall behind bi-fold doors, in the family room. I got the idea from a parade-of-homes tour. Open the doors, and instant office. Close the doors, and the mess disappears! It is, as I described it to the builder, a glorified closet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm curious to know if any of our UK posters call their home lavatories WCs, or is that name reserved for public conveniences?

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.

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

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

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

The difference between a pergola and trellis: Trellis is lattice that is often leaned up against a wall so plants can climb up. A pergola is often built with trellis but is a free standing structure. People often make vines grow on it so that the leaves create shade but do not stop the breeze from wafting through. You’ll see several on this page… http://www.lifestylepine.com.au/pergolas.htm

Now I would never ask my guests to step into the foyer as that is our word for fireplace (and I usually like the people that pop by )

Does no-one have a guest room anymore?

In my new home I will have a book repository [extremely excited emoticon here]. I can call it a library in English but not in French because a librarie is a place where books are sold. A bibliotheque is both a shelving unit to store books and a building where you go to borrow books.

ground floor is rarely used when speaking of residential houses. Laws require that all houses have at least a six-foot crawl space/basement to get below freezing line in ground. Homes are never at the ground level. When I go down to U.S. hotter states it always seems so odd to see houses sitting on the ground with people just walking in without going up some steps.

When we buy or rent a house we speak in terms of apartments, as in “the house has seven apartments” to mean it has seven rooms for assorted purposes. The bathrooms/toilets are spoken of in terms of half, if there is only one “house has seven and a half apartments” or specific quantities if it has several “the house has seven apartments and two bathrooms.” I know that in most of the rest of Canada they speak of houses and apartments in terms of square footage (yes even though we use metric system).

>Terrace------Some people call them patios or balconies

>Terraced Houses?

Yes, a terrace is sometimes a paved area, like a patio. It also a way of terracing a slope to make level areas, like the rice terraces of South East Asia.

Terraced houses, especially in the North of England, are joined up houses, built in rows. If you see "Billy Elliot" or "Coronation Street" you will see them. I can't see a good photo of one on the internet. More modern examples tend to be called town houses.

A Georgian terrace, found somewhere like Bath or Leamigton Spa would be rather elegant: http://www.leamingtonspa-index.co.uk/tour/tour09.html

>Well, I must be her generation, and not the mere stripling I thought myself

If you ever danced to "My Generation", then you are!

Oh my gosh, you guys! So many cool postings! Where do I begin?

Flatlander: we have mud rooms in Michigan, too, and plenty of mud to go with it. On a related note, my last house had a boot drop in the entry area. Do you have boot drops? (A boot drop is a built-in bench, enclosed on the bottom, adjacent to an entry. One sits on it to take off one's boots, and then opens the hinged seat and drops the boots in the bench.) What a terrific convenience; I wish there had been a good space for one in this house.

of troy: I like the term, "hi ranch." We call them raised ranches here.

McMansions is hilarious. There are also subdivisions here which have large houses perched precariously on tiny lots. (I don't know why -- plenty of land available. Some people have a strong swarming instinct, I guess.)

Bobyoungbalt: we have a rec room, too. Also in the basement, and it has the usual contents: TV/stero/sitting area, game table and storage, pool table, bar. But, because of the boys, we usually call it the "wreck room."

Similarly, our family room has changed in the months since we got our Newfoundland puppy, and is now known as the dog's chew toy.

bel: what terrific info! I have learned that we have a foyer in our book repository. You will love having that book repository; I can finally find a book when I need it!

And yes, we have a guestroom. As twusm noted earlier, I just forgot to mention bedrooms. Also, we have a master bedroom and master bathroom. And, the boys have a jack and jill bath -- a bathroom sandwiched between the two bedrooms and accessible from both bedrooms.

Apartments here only refer to rented dwelling units in multi-unit buildings. Apartments are never purchased, and are never in single-unit buildings. A purchase of a unit in a multi-unit dwelling is a condo.

We had "cubby-holes" in the fininshed attic (I'm refinishing it right now). On the top "floor" of many early 20th century homes (mine was built in 1909) the walls are the insides of a 45 degree angled roof. Since one can't walk closer than 4 feet (or so) from the vertical exterior wall, there was a triangular storage space about 4' x 4' x 5.6568'...(Pythagoras to the rescue) built in with little doors for access. Talk about play time!

Just as an aside, my retired Navy pal calls the shower "the rain room."
Does anyone recall or even use the word REFECTORY any more? In my boarding school the refectory was the large room with multiple tables where we gathered for meals.
In New England the phrase "Great Room" is coming to mean that the house has a huge living room ... sometimes it is a live/dine room. The phrase is becoming an Up-Market catch phrase and real estate agents and Realtors are becoming very fond of it, even when it's not particularly applicable.
Now, about "yards" and "gardens" and the differences in definition by US and UK users.
Around here when someone says we are in the yard they mean somewhere on the land around the house that is owned by the home-owner. The garden is the part with flowers or blossoming trees or any area set aside for repose and not just a swath of grass.
Patio -- cement pad or flagstoned area, uncovered, near the back door generally with chairs for sitting.
Porch - integral part of house construction and attatched thereto ... sometimes ornate ... can be large sweep across front or back of house. It can be modest in size but to qualify as a porch it must have room for a few chairs and table for sitting and watching the world go by on warm summer evenings.
I have gone on long enough.
wow

This is extremely interesting----thanks Austrailia. In the USA a 'gazebo' is what you call a free standing pergoda and A 'covered patio' either open or enclosed is what we call the attached pergoda. It can either have a rafter/latice top or roofing material for the top, no railing for the sides or with a railing. Some are enclosed with glass and some with lattice/trellis or vines. It is usually 3 seasons as it is not heated for winter use----but in warmer states heat is not required.

A "guest room" --well most people either do not have the extra room if the kids are home and sometimes the "guest room" is all a multipurpose room with a day bed/sofa/couch/davenport or pullout sofa/futon so that the room can be used for other purposes in between guests.

A "foyer" well that is the area just inside the door of a house----and the "hearth" is what we call the floor of a fireplace and also the tile or bricked area in front. It is either floor level or can be a "raised hearth".

Apartment----well in Germany they call it a "Flat", which is what we call a housing unit that has several attached areas for individual families to live. Such has a unit with 6 apartments has attached or joining areas for 6 families to live(this including bedrooms, living area, kitchen, bathrooms dining room, depending on the price range.)Each single family house or multi-family house is listed by rooms, and usually only bedrooms and bath(such as a 4 bedroom house or apartment with 1 full bath and 1 half bath) FULL BATH meaning complete sink, toliet, bathtub and/or shower and HALF BATH meaning only a sink and toliet)
Except the high priced houses have huge bath areas almost many little "rooms" Sink area, bathtub or whirlpool area, private toliet area and powder room or dressing room all included in the term Complete or full bath.
Ground Floor is the term for first floor or main floor, basement is below ground. For example a 4 story building has a basement level, ground level/first floor/main level and 3 floors above that. I think in some area this would be a 3 story building.

Well Thanks so much for all this interesting info. By the way, we live a house which has a walkin basement and we have remodeled it for a family room w/fireplace. But it is still the basement and we only have a 1 and a half story house--the first floor living area with 2 bedrooms and a remodeled attic (which is now an open two bedroom or one large bedroom with a half bath) And we have a huge covered "deck" attached to the side of the house---it is a "deck" not a patio, as it is 14 inches off the ground--the patio is the cemented area next to the deck.
Thanks again for the interesting info.
jrj

enthusiast

>boot drop is a built-in bench, enclosed on the bottom, adjacent to an entry.

We have something similar but it is called a deacon's bench in English and a beggar's bench in French. It has a back, and is not attached to anything so it can be moved around. People sit on it to take off their boots in wintertime.

I haven't seen anyone use the word "wardrobe" in this thread. Does anyone else still use this term apart from us godforsaken tangata Aotearoa?

In reply to:

---

Does no-one have a guest room anymore?

---

Guest room is another of those expressions that causes misunderstandings if you translate it literally into Indonesian. Ruang tamu is the literal translation. By the way,tamu can mean guest or visitor. How would AWADers like to explain the difference between a guest and a vistor?

The ruang tamu is an area at the front of the house where one receives visitors or guests; you may have to go through a door to the main house, or the wall may only come three quarters of the way across the house. Sleeping arrangements are somewhat more haphazard. Guests or visitors stopping over tend to just either share someone else's bed (fully clothed I hasten to add before we descend to the gutter) or sleep on the floor. Space is at a premium in most Indonesian houses and so the idea of having a special room kept for guests to sleep in is totally impracticable.

Bingley

In reply to:

---

And we have a huge covered "deck" attached to the side of the house---it is a "deck" not a patio.

---

I've never been quite sure what an architectural deck (as opposed to a nautical one) is. I've always visualised some sort of ground floor balcony where the house is much higher than the back garden (or yard). Would that be right?

Bingley

I've never been quite sure what an architectural deck (as opposed to a nautical one) is.

Well, Bingley, decks come in all shapes and sizes. The one constant is they are made of wood (a nautical deck connection?)
One couple I know have a house which is ground level in front and up one floor in back -- so across the back of the house, they built a 14 foot wide, railed deck with built-in benches and container areas for plantings, at the kitchen-living room level (entry thru door at end of kitchen)with a staircase to the ground. The stairs are quite wide with several landings, easy to negotiate, pleasant to sit. The deck stretches across the back of the house and around one corner. At that corner is a "ramp" entry to deck and house, easy for those in wheelchairs to use. They spent about $15,000 on the deck in 1987! It is redwood which is a hard treated wood that can withstand our New England extremes of heat and cold. Their deck is a great party place!
On the other side of the scale, I am advised by my carpenter that he can build me a small (9 x 12 foot) deck outside my back door in my pleasant, fenced, dog containing yard for about $600. The deck would not be a "raised deck" (the type described above) but would sit directly on ground with just a slight rise caused by supports under it. It will provide a a pleasant spot.
These are two examples at opposite ends of spectrum ... the choice is how much do you, can you, spend.
On re-sale, a deck does add to value of house.
They can also be built with pergola-niche type areas, fitted with hot tubs, have built-in barbeque areas, have built in bars --- it's all a matter of taste and $$$$$$$$$
That help?
Oh, wait! check out www.decksusa.com! They've got pictures!
wow

When I was in England many years ago I was warned to avoid the public "facilities." Most Americans don;t know this, but many such facilities in England and on the Continent have attendants, usually women a bit long in the tooth. In London, one of these little old ladies was quietly cutting the throats of patrons and stealing their wallets. She was the little old lady who shivved in a loo.

>I haven't seen anyone use the word "wardrobe" in this thread. Does anyone else still use this term apart from us godforsaken tangata Aotearoa?

Yes we do (never closet). I think I mentioned it in an easlier thread. Try putting wardrobe in the search thingy.

Funny how we still use the term "out of the closet" though!

>We have something similar but it is called a deacon's bench in English and a beggar's bench in French. It has a back, and is not attached to anything so it can be moved around. People sit on it to take off their boots in wintertime.

I've seen a similar thing, called a boot bench. I was trying to look it up in the IKEA catlogue as I wasn't sure what they called it.

They must save alot of money by using Scandinavian(ish) names and then just translating them in the catlogue (which I assume has the same photographs in every country blessed with an IKEA). I would think that a relatively easy way to find out about another country's culture would be to compare two current catalogues.

The "Bra" (strange name!) is described as a Wardrobe on p334 of the 2000 Catalogue, presumably in other countries a "Bra" is described as a closet. TEORI is descibed as a cutley set on p158, presumably it is described as "silverware" in the US edition.

Funny how the Ikea names don't become generic, I've never heard anyone saying that they were thinking of buying an IVAR or a KRITTER !

>Apartments here only refer to rented dwelling units in multi-unit buildings. Apartments are never purchased, and are never in single-unit buildings. A purchase of a unit in a multi-unit dwelling is a condo.

We call everything a flat, whether it is a conversion of a house or purpose built. The estate agents like to use other terms, apartment maybe (which sounds "posher") but never Condominium.

Edinburgh and Glasgow have tenement flats that were purpose built in the late nineteenth century and are now considered to be rather desirable. There are also houses divided into two - an upper and a lower.

Examples can be found at the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre - look at city centre properties:
http://www.espc.com/BuyingAndRenting/buymain.asp

flats, not apartments
wardrobes, not closets
hall, not front entry
loo or toilet, never bathroom - that's where the bath is!
spare room, not guest room
as for a 'terrace', definitely a row of houses - I live in one (of the Georgian variety)!
yard - coming from a rural background, this is where all the farm machinery, cars etc are kept. The garden is what is around the house.
Can't think of any others at the moment, though I'm sure more will come to me at a later stage!

In NY Apartments (as in apartment buildings) can be tenement-- or Pre-war (luxury!) or modern. They can, and in Manhattan are almost always are, owned-- either outright --condo(minium) or co-op(portive).
In Condo, you own your own apartment, and share ownership in common space (roof, stairwells, elevators) and pay maintenance for upkeep of common space.
Co-op you own shares in corporation that owns the building-- and your cost are based on your shares (for maintenance). Most apartment building in desirable areas are condo or co-ops. in less desirable areas, you can still rent an apartment.
By law-in NY it's not a room unless it has a window--(bath room exempt-- but must have ventilation)

Byb, used the word vestibule in NY this is what an apartment building has-- a front door, a vestibule: with an area for mailboxes and door bells (or if luxury a door man)- and a second locked door to get into main part of the building. In your apartment or house you have a foyer-- Vestibule is used for a more public space--
A luxury building might have a Lobby-- a friend lives in an condo with a huge lobby-- it has several sofa, and tables--you can wait in the area while partner goes to garage and gets car, and pulls into semi-circular driveway.

gazebo my gazebo is free standing, open sides with roof-- octagonal out door room-- its about 8 foot across (2.5--2.7 meters) I have a small round table and several chairs in it.

What i like is being out of doors, but having shade, and not sitting on grass--(fewer bugs) and not sitting close to house (its about 15 feet from house (over 4 meters). since its covered, chairs don't get (as) wet. My kids like to use it when they where teens-- even in winter-- they would light a few lanterns, (and pretend they gave some warm) and hang out-- close enough to house to come in an use "facilities*" and to get some hot cocoa-- but far enough away from parents so they thought they had privacy.
*Facilities is a NY euphemism for bathroom/toilet. So restaurants will have a notice "facilities are only for Patrons" --the idea being of the street riff raff can't come in and use toilet with out ordering from restaurant.

Did I miss these?
Ant mention yet of the difference/similarites between basement and cellar?
How about attic and garrett?

in my family's usage, cellar has always meant a cool, below ground area, without windows, undecorated and unglamorous, designed for storing wine and possibly coal.

A house with a basement (like mine) would struggle to have a cellar as the basement is already below ground level and contains rooms (in my case a self-contained flat). Originally, this would have been the servants quarters and would have contained the kitchen, scullery, butlers pantry etc.

For me, too, a basement is a partial below ground space-- since my house is on a hill--on one side the basement has windows about 10 inches high-- and on the other side-- 24 inches high 5 little windows in all. but a cellar would not have windows, and might not even have a a paved floor. it might be modified too-- root cellar or coal cellar-- or wine cellar-- the last one might be quite elegant-- one neighbor made one-- with beautiful stone walls--(not concrete blocks walls like my basement).

Most house in this area have some sub structrure-- but a few are slab houses-- built on a slab of concrete- with no basement, cellar or even a crawl space-- my enclosed porch has a foundtion wall-- but it only goes 18inches into the ground-- I have a little door high up on the basement wall-- i can climb a ladder, and "crawl" (on hands and knees) into space under the porch--(i personal have never done it-- but ex has-- when adding wiring) since porch is electronics (computer and stereo stuff) room, and wires from equipement run in basement ceiling to various other rooms--

and an Attic is a the space just under the roof (on a house with peaked or hip, or mansard roof) a garret is the rooms- (if any) I have an attic-- but since it only has a ladder for access, and it not high enough to make into rooms, its just an attic. In my first house, the attic had 2 rooms with slanted walls/ceilings these were garret rooms--(knee walls came up to about 4 foot high-- and the attic had Cubby rooms-- as spoken of earlier in this thread.)

Ground floor

Bikermom has info on ground floor, which does not include the fact that while we use "first floor" as a synonym for ground floor, in UK and the continent, the first floor is what we call the second; i.e., the first above the ground floor.

The ground floor does not have to be directly on the ground. Baltimore, where I live, is famous for its row houses, many of which have white marble steps, which every housewife who didn't want to become known as the neighborhood slut faithfully scrubbed every Saturday so they would always be white and gleaming, a custom now practiced mostly by the elderly. The steps are necessary because the ground floor is actually 3 or 4 feet off the street level, to allow small windows in the front and back to provide light in the basement (all such houses have a basement). The basement, in 19th century houses, always contained the kitchen. In most small row houses, the part of the basement not including the laundry tubs, washer, dryer, and furnace has been panelled (knotty pine is the classic treatment), with tile or linoleum floor and drop ceiling to make a family room. The reason for the kitchen in old houses and the family room in later ones being in the basement is the Baltimore climate, which is positively tropical in summer. Those row houses are unbearably hot from mid-June to mid-Sept., so in the days before air conditioning was common, they fixed up the basement since it was much cooler.

I have a Canadian version of the IKEA catalogue at home and I promise I will check it out tonight. However, I suspect that it would be "wardrobe", because a closet isn't free-standing (it's built-in), and "cutlery", because it isn't silver so "silverware" would be false advertising, technically.

However, in everyday usage, I interchange "silverware" and "cutlery", even knowing that they are not quite synonyms. And I just plain never use "wardrobe" since we don't have any of the free-standing things in our house!

I think the "Scandinavian" names refer to "lines" of furniture - we have Bialitt bedside tables, but there are also desks and dressers by the same name.

Such a fecund thread!

In Michigan, "cellar" isn't heard often, although I recall my grandmother using it when I was young. Any below-ground-level floor in a residence is liable to be called the "basement," but highfalutin folk with a walk-out finished basement might insist that it is a "lower level." And, the dirt-floor-and-stone-wall cellar you all are describing is called (TA-DA!): a Michigan basement.

Silverware: almost any eating utensil is called silverware by the hoi polloi, regardless of its composition, including the disposable plastic stuff. Those who own actual silverware might distinguish between it and flatware (stainless steel, usually). "Cutlery" I always took to refer to knives.

"Cutlery" I always took to refer to knives.

I'm not sure why I never thought of that before. Everyone here would understand it to mean forks, knives, and spoons, even though it they may prefer to use another word instead (I like "silverware" myself). I'm not sure I could ever say "flatware" without feeling like I was writing in a bridal magazine! (This may be because most of the bridal magazines here come from the US!)

"Cutlery" I always took to refer to knives

Yes, the original meaning was just this, deriving I think from Latin via French (another pure stream, Bob ). The traditional English Guild of Cutlers were specifically makers of cutting implements, and left the making of mere spoons and forks to another guild entirely (the name of which escapes my leaking brain right now!) Someone else will surely fill in... But nowadays cutlery certainly in the UK is taken to refer to all metal table settings. BTW, the most expensive set ever made? Not gold, but aluminum! (or aluminium as it later became known)

some king/queen's coranation gift-- which one? it was back in the days before electricity was common-- since smelting aluminum was difficult-- (but is easy with electricity-- why?)

ancient times, rock crystal (pure quartz) was valuable as Glass-- both of which where valued as precious as diamonds--which as the hardest material could be split along crystal lines, but they didn't know how to polish-- so ancient diamonds are not nearly as sparkley as modern stones. -- correction-- where not cut to sparkle.

and yes-- a cutlery store sells knives-- all sort of kitchen knives, (bread, paring, boning), specialty knives (hunting, fish, wood carving), razors, and scissors. Everything from 3 inch fruit knive to something the size of machete.

I use flatware (stainless steel) but often call it "silverware" (i wish it was)

and while we at it-- what kind of dishes? or is it china? or melmaine? (is that spelled right?--in NY is called melmack--pronouncation nothing like the spelling)

i use generic dishes--but have plates, (various sizes) and bowls, mugs, tea cups, and saucers.
but my friend sets her table with pottery.. (plates, bowls, mugs...)

OK, of troy, please spill: what is "melmaine?"

Some day I will have an athenaeum! as soon as I can kick my husband out of the house and take over his home office.

>OK, of troy, please spill: what is "melmaine?"

I think Helen is refering to melamine, a plastic made from resin, used for outdoor non-breakable plates, bowls etc.

PS I think that we are meant to be in miscellany by now but it is too late to move the whole thread.

In reply to:

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I think Helen is refering to melamine, a plastic made from resin, used for outdoor non-breakable plates, bowls etc.

PS I think that we are meant to be in miscellany by now but it is too late to move the whole thread.

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Miscellany indeed... and when I interpreted melamine, the next thought to cross my fevered brow was "Qiana". Since we've gotten into the no-man's-land of 50s and 60s composite substances, I figured I might as well bring that one up ~

What is melmaine? (looked it up its melemine) Very popular in the '50's and '60's. a hard plastic use for dishware... It was pretty much chip proof, hard to break, and a hard surface, so you could cut a steak or something on the plate..(dict. M-W 10th--a resin or plastic made from white crystalline orgain baseC3 H6 N6, with a high melting point)

I think it was a brand name--like tuperware-- but was copied frequently-- It something like "bake-lite" which is a brand name plastic use on pot handles-- it doesn't melt till heated to over 450 degrees (f) so you could start a an omelette in a frypan, and then put the pan in the oven and the handle wouldn't melt. But bake lite only comes in dark colors and melemine (still pronounced "mel Mack") was light in color and in heft. service for 8--45 pieces might weight only 7 or 8 pounds! you could "pop" melemine into a 200 degree oven to keep food warm (or to reheat)

I got some when kids where young--(28 years ago) and still have some left--(some got discarded) very hard to break!

Oh i don't know-- It never occurred to me that Jo wouldn't have closets to hang her clothes in, and if i understand her right, she live in what i call a row house-- or a town house (town house being an upscale row home)-- I know the word terrace-- but its not a way to define a house. and Spart didn't know about cellars-- and Byb has vestibules in his house-- i have a foyer. again, not that i don't know the word-- but never use it in the same sense.

and while McMansion is a local term--other's identified with the large, large ornate house on a small lot that has become all to common in US--

but i think Brownstone are unique to NY (original elegant town houses, with a facade of Brown sand stone. From 15 feet to 30 wide in front-- 4 to 5 floors-- the lowest being about 4 foot below grade) in some ways similar to the terraces that Jo defined--(i think of the "bellamy's" house in the series upstairs/downstairs only brown, not white)) but some have been cut up into 2, 3, 4 or 5 "flats"or apartments-- each one floor of what was original a 1 family house-- and "painted ladies" the elegant ornately painted houses of San Fran. are unique--

we all live in houses-- and many "look" the same-- but what we call them differs. I wonder if Avy would recognize what i call a "bungalow". she would, of course realize its a house, (not an office or a factory) but would she think it looked like what she calls a bungalow?

and I never use "cutlery"-- I use flatware.