Types of houses

English Houses

What kind of home are you staying at in England? Do you know how to describe it?

A single detached dwelling contains only one dwelling unit and is completely separated by open space on all sides from any other structure, except its own garage or shed.

 A semidetached house. When new, the design of each side would have been identical. The embellishments on the right side of the building are more recent. The photograph offers a clear illustration of the separate title enjoyed by each property.

 Working-class terraced houses in Pakenham Street, Shaftesbury Square, South Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1981. The windows and doors of the unoccupied houses are bricked-up to deter vandals. The houses have since been fully restored. 

 A boarding house, is a house (often a family home) in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed and board", that is, at least some meals as well as accommodation. A "lodging house", also known in the United States as a "rooming house", may or may not offer meals. Lodgers legally only obtain a license to use their rooms, and not exclusive possession, so the landlord retains the right of access.

 A bedsit, also known as a bed-sitting room, is a form of rented accommodation common in Great Britain and Ireland consisting of a single room and shared bathroom; they are part of a legal category of dwellings referred to as Houses in multiple occupation. Bedsits are often occupied by young single people, students, those unable to purchase their own properties, or those whose occupancy, for one reason or another, is of a transitory nature; the cost is typically lower than that of private property. Someone living and working in different areas may rent a bedsit at low cost to reduce daily travel.

 

Apartments can be classified into several types. In North America the typical terms are a studio, efficiency or bachelor apartment (bedsit in the UK). These all tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents in a given area. This kind of apartment usually consists mainly of a large room which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is a separate, smaller room. Moving up from the bachelors/efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments, in which one bedroom is separate from the rest of the apartment. Then there are two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc.  apartments (Apartments with more than three bedrooms are rare). Small apartments often have only one entrance. Large apartments often have two entrances, perhaps a door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the entrance doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside, such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be available for rent furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in with their own furniture.

 

In popular modern culture the term cottage is used in a more general and romantic context and can date from any era but the term is usually applied to pre-modern dwellings. Older, pre-Victorian cottages tend to have restricted height, and often have construction timber exposed, sometimes intruding into the living space. Modern renovations of such dwellings often seek to re-expose timber purlins, rafters, posts etc. which have been covered, in an attempt to establish perceived historical authenticity. Older cottages are typically modest, often semi-detached or terraced, with only four basic rooms ("two up, two down"), although subsequent modifications can create more spacious accommodation. A labourer's or fisherman's one-roomed house, often attached to a larger property, is a particular type of cottage and is called a penty. The term cottage has also been used for a largish house that is practical rather than pretentious.

  Bungalows became popular in the United Kingdom between the Wars, and very large numbers were built, particularly in coastal resorts, giving rise to the pejorative adjective, "bungaloid", first found in the Daily Express from 1927: "Hideous allotments and bungaloid growth make the approaches to any city repulsive". Many villages and seaside resorts have large estates of 1960s bungalows, usually occupied by retired people. The typical 1930s bungalow is square in plan, with 1960s ones more likely to be oblong. It is rare for just "bungalow" to be used in British English to denote a house having other than a single story, in which case "chalet bungalow" (see below) is used.

 

Villa, a term originating from Roman times, when it was used to refer to a large house which one might retreat to in the country. In the late 19th and early 20th century villa suggested a freestanding comfortable sized house, on a large block, generally found in the suburbs. 

 Mansion, a very large house, usually of more than one story, on a very large block of land or estate.