I have a list of at least 26 different kinds of rooms that can be found in homes. Before reading any further, grab a cup of whatever your drink of choice may be at this time of day, then make a list of the names of as many kinds of different rooms that can be found in homes.
Some homes have only one room. Our 1995 VW Eurovan is our ‘home-on-the-road’. It also has but one room, a multi-purpose one. In contrast, the homes of the wealthy, the so-called ‘one-per cent’, may have far more than a dozen completely different rooms.
Think of the refugee camps: the entire family shares one small room. In your home there are several basic rooms enclosed within the four walls. In order of priority: living room, kitchen and bedroom. What about the ‘bathroom’? Before the twentieth century, it was outside the four walls.
That ‘it’ has many polite and sometimes crude names, including: facilities, privy, outhouse, john, powder room, gents’ room, loo, bog, convenience and lav’.
Then there are the more specialized rooms that the better off folks have. Those who value books and learning have a library. Some gentlemen have a den, a room of their very own. The ladies of bygone days had a drawing room, a room where they could withdraw. Back in those same days the parlour was a room with all the furniture covered in protective drop sheets. Only when the priest or teacher visited was the furniture uncovered.
The elementary classrooms I attended for eight years, and the ones I taught in for many years had ‘cloakrooms’. However, the students never wore cloaks! What a long-lived anachronism.
With the sixties came the basement TV room. Sports fans gathered to watch Hockey Night in Canada. As leisure time, financial well-being and technology increased, the games room or rec’ room evolved: pool, billiards, snooker, ping pong and darts were added. With hi-fi, big screens and on-demand movies having arrived, those rooms became media centres.
What’ll be the new room of the future?
