House design in England

[SeaSpray]

Hi there!

We live in Boston, MA, USA. We’ve been watching a home-decorating show called “ The House Doctor” on Netflix.

It’s filmed in England. So many beautiful, amazing homes that just need a little change in decor to be more appealing to home buyers.

My question is this: In every episode, the house has rooms such as the dining room and the lounge (which I think is similar to what we call the living room) that has actual doors leading in/out of the room. Is this the norm? Is it an older home design, or are new homes still built like this??

Again, the homes are gorgeous (the architecture), we just are surprised to see doors instead of open walk-through in the dining rooms and the living rooms.

Thanks for any replies!

 

[BadPinkTink]

yes this is the norm in UK and Ireland. Open plan would be a more modern style ie from 1980's onwards.

The area I grew up was a "new" town, with the majority of the houses built in the 1970's. Suburban and urban houses are usually either semi detached or terrace.

This would be a typical semi detached house built in UK and Ireland suburban and urban areas from 1950's onwards. These houses have a living room in the front, a dining room and kitchen in the back, 3 bedrooms and a bathroom.


Depending on peoples taste and finances, some people make the ground floor open plan.

These type of houses are built en masse by building contractors and are usually all the same layout. The only variations would be room dimensions. Houses in affluent areas have bigger room specs and may have 4 bedrooms. They may also have larger front and back gardens. Houses in less affluent areas have smaller room specs and have smaller front and back areas. Depending on the area, there may or may not be car parking space out the front of the house.

Its only in rural areas that people buy a plot of land, and design and built their own house.

 

[SeaSpray]

Thank you so much for your reply!! You’ve answered my questions perfectly. I’m glad that you knew what I was talking about.
The houses are all very beautiful; I especially like the high ceilings.
Oh one more question, please!
When you’re in the dining room or the lounge, do you close the door or leave it open? I guess I’m just fascinated with the idea that each room has a door, except for the kitchen!

 

[BadPinkTink]

Thank you so much for your reply!! You’ve answered my questions perfectly. I’m glad that you knew what I was talking about.
The houses are all very beautiful; I especially like the high ceilings.
Oh one more question, please!
When you’re in the dining room or the lounge, do you close the door or leave it open? I guess I’m just fascinated with the idea that each room has a door, except for the kitchen!

You are welcome. I grew up in a house identical to the example above

The kitchen has a door into the hallway. The kitchen door usually stays open, except if we are cooking, to keep the cooking smells and odours from the rest of the house. In the winter we keep the kitchen door to the hall closed in the evening to contain the heat.

Usually the dining room door is open. However when we were kids, and doing homework in the dining room, we would close the door to stay warm. There is no heating in the kitchen, so in the evenings in the winter if we were using the dining room, we would close the door between the dining room and kitchen.

For the living room,during the day time the door is open but usually in the evening time when we would be watching TV the door would be closed, again to keep the heat in during the winter.

At night time, when we went to bed, we would close the kitchen door to the hallway and the living room door, for fire safety reasons. This is recommended by the Fire Department, as closed doors contain smoke and fire and give time for people to escape.

 

[BadPinkTink]

the dining room is used for meals, kids homework, parents doing admin work eg taxes, etc etc. Its kinda the more private , personal family functional room.

If a neighbour called you would most likely bring them to the living room, the "good" or more formal room.

If family called they would most likely be brought to the dining room, the more less formal room.

 

[SeaSpray]

Thank you so much @BadPinkTink

 

[Woodview]

All the above is correct But then there are also individual stand alone homes ......... and terrace homes .

Most home will have a wall around them & will have a water storage tank in the attic fed direct from water mains

NOW , in Ireland , ALL new Homes MUST have Solar Panels installed on the outside roofs

We have Free to Air TV via Satellite ONe gives us BBC UK Channels & Continental Channels

And The 2nd one Gives us CNBC ( Nightly News with Lester Holt ) & Other countries + Irish TV

Look up Douglas ( Cork ) on Google Earth and see for yourself

 

[Tiki_Sara]

I remember house hunting in the US a few years ago and being amazed that in all the houses we looked at, there wasn’t a single one with a door on the kitchen. As a Brit, this was weird.

 

[florida sun]

Hi there!

We live in Boston, MA, USA. We’ve been watching a home-decorating show called “ The House Doctor” on Netflix.

It’s filmed in England. So many beautiful, amazing homes that just need a little change in decor to be more appealing to home buyers.

My question is this: In every episode, the house has rooms such as the dining room and the lounge (which I think is similar to what we call the living room) that has actual doors leading in/out of the room. Is this the norm? Is it an older home design, or are new homes still built like this??

Again, the homes are gorgeous (the architecture), we just are surprised to see doors instead of open walk-through in the dining rooms and the living rooms.

Thanks for any replies!

Hi Terry

I dont have anything to add, just wanted to say hello, and welcome over to the UK Community board. Hope you are well

 

[Kate_45]

I love this thread! Had no idea that doors to different rooms wasn't a universal thing. Will be watching American tv and films a lot closer now (coz that's reality right?).

Has also made me think about when we open and close doors. I currently have the door to my living room shut, to stop the draught from the hall, other reasons to close it are generally related to trying to contain small children or their noise. Otherwise we just tend to leave all doors open after going through them. I like sleeping with the bedroom door closed at night, but my niece and nephew *have* to have theirs open.

 

[ramee]

I just finished the first 2 episodes after reading this thread. (And needing something new after watching most of The Great British Bake Off).

The host is OK. Wish they did more than 2 rooms. Like the homes, themselves. The doors are also interesting to me as I’m use to open concept. Even if there have been walled off rooms, there haven’t been doors. I want doors now!

The main thing bothering me so far is; how are you going to complain that the bedroom in the first episode is princess pink and then put pink on the walls in the bedroom in the next episode?!

 

[LavishWig]

I have never thought about the fact we have doors and in America there aren't many internal doors in the living areas! When I was a kid the lounge would also be referred to as the living room and the front room. I tend to just call it the living room now.

American houses fascinate me too, they all seem so big!

 

[wifey]

Some terraced homes also have extensions on the back or front to give more space too. For example our home is over 100 years old and has an extension on the back for a galley kitchen and a bathroom. We have a dining room behind our lounge then the extension downstairs and just two bedrooms upstairs ones a double bed room the other is more of a single bedroom but at a squeeze and with no other furniture you could fit a double bed in there. Our home is nothing like the one my great grandparents had which was an old brick built farm house with a built in larder, cold room, mud room , sitting room, huge kitchen (complete with range) and a study and upstairs had four bedrooms with cast iron fireplaces and lovely long windows and a study/ office overlooking the orchard and chickens and the animal sheds and the fields. I miss that farm.