Here are some housing terms that were quite different than the U.S., at least suburban U.S.
Flat – I think most people know this is what we would call an apartment. You have a common entrance with the other residents of the building.
Maisonette – This is also a flat but my understanding is that you have your own door.
Terraced housing – For the life of me I could not remember what this was everytime someone mentioned it. When I hear terrace I think of patio or balcony or something like that. It’s a house that shares walls with other houses like the one in the attached picture. End of terrace is quite popular since you are only sharing the walls with one neighbor instead of being sandwiched in between two.
Double glazed windows seem to be a big deal. I guess they cut down on the noise and also help with energy efficiency.
I was thinking that sharing a wall with a neighbor would be a new experience but then I remembered that we shared a wall and even had a connecting door with our neighbors when we were first married and lived on a military installation. It was just H and I at the time and we got to hear our neighbors fight and their two small children cry. One day the wife knocked on our common door and when I opened it, she asked me if I would watch the children while she took her husband to get a vasectomy. It sounded like the two small children were more than they could handle so I quickly agreed although I thought it was odd that she had never said more than “hey” to me in the short time that I had known her.
If all goes well with our rental paperwork we will be moving into a nice end of terrace home in the neighboring village. This process is taking longer than I expected.
Flat – I think most people know this is what we would call an apartment. You have a common entrance with the other residents of the building.
Maisonette – This is also a flat but my understanding is that you have your own door.
Terraced housing – For the life of me I could not remember what this was everytime someone mentioned it. When I hear terrace I think of patio or balcony or something like that. It’s a house that shares walls with other houses like the one in the attached picture. End of terrace is quite popular since you are only sharing the walls with one neighbor instead of being sandwiched in between two.
Double glazed windows seem to be a big deal. I guess they cut down on the noise and also help with energy efficiency.
I was thinking that sharing a wall with a neighbor would be a new experience but then I remembered that we shared a wall and even had a connecting door with our neighbors when we were first married and lived on a military installation. It was just H and I at the time and we got to hear our neighbors fight and their two small children cry. One day the wife knocked on our common door and when I opened it, she asked me if I would watch the children while she took her husband to get a vasectomy. It sounded like the two small children were more than they could handle so I quickly agreed although I thought it was odd that she had never said more than “hey” to me in the short time that I had known her.
If all goes well with our rental paperwork we will be moving into a nice end of terrace home in the neighboring village. This process is taking longer than I expected.
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