An English Home

The English are obsessed with privacy. That is why a detached house, preferably surrounded by a large garden, is considered to be the most desirable type of accommodation. If it is a country house, it is also a status symbol. Terraced houses are very common in the suburbs; although they are frequently cramped with tiny rooms, they seem to give an illusion of privacy and are therefore more popular than flats. Blocks of flats in housing estates are commonly associated with low-rent housing for the poorest; infested with crime and vandalism, they are often dangerous places to live.

Another feature of home which English people value very much is cosiness. They try to make their houses cosy by furnishing them with old items of furniture and by having an open fire. If they cannot have a real fire, they will at least have some gas flames on artificial coals in the fireplace; still the hearth is considered to be the symbol of family warmth and security.

Cosiness and privacy are also important in the design of an English home. The areas where strangers are entertained, like the living room and the dining room, are carefully separated from the private area of the family, e.g. the bedrooms. The living room, sometimes called the lounge or the sitting room, is taken for granted, so that a two-bedroom flat actually consists of three rooms.