7 Features That Can Help You Spot a Typical British Home

If you ask any person what they know about British people’s everyday lives, you’ll likely hear that people in Great Britain like to drink tea. And this is a totally correct answer — about 165 million cups of tea are consumed here every day and almost all of them are drunk with milk. But this “tea culture” is not the only thing that makes this country so special.

Bright Side peeked into the apartments of average residents of Great Britain and found out what makes up a typical British home.

1. There are no sockets in the bathrooms.

According to the law, UK bathrooms can only be fitted with outlets if the distance from the bath and shower to the socket is at least 10 feet. And since bathrooms in British homes and apartments are quite small, there are no sockets in them. That’s the reason why washing machines are usually installed in the kitchen.

2. Air conditioners are a rare thing in British houses.

Since the climate isn’t that warm in Great Britain, there’s no special need for air conditioners. If they need to air out the room, the British simply open windows. If that’s not enough, they use a normal fan.

3. Bay windows are extremely popular in Great Britain.

A bay window is a window consisting of several rectangular sash windows (3, as a rule) protruding from the main part of the house. Such windows are considered traditional, and one of their advantages is that they give much more light than ordinary ones.

4. Carpets are everywhere.

Most homes in Great Britain are covered with carpeting (excluding the kitchen). Even the bathrooms have it. If there is a staircase in the house, it will have some carpet on it too. This carpeting is used so that people’s feet don’t slip, which means the risk of falling off a staircase is very low.

However, there are many issues that these carpets cause — they get dirty and can absorb moisture in bathrooms, which causes even more problems. Nonetheless, most British people are used to walking indoors in their street shoes. And it’s incredibly annoying because cleaning carpets can quickly become an uphill task. But it’s tradition after all.

5. Garages in houses aren’t used for storing cars.

Traditionally, garages in Great Britain are small (because cars used to be miniature in the past), which is why modern cars simply don’t fit in them. As a result, many people use garages as a storage room where they keep a lot of different stuff.

6. Mail to British homes is delivered just like in the movies — through a special slot in the front door.

Of course, there are many different types of mailboxes in Great Britain: they can be a separate standing box, a group of boxes on the ground floor inside the entrance to an apartment building, or a privately rented “mailbox address.” But these same things can be found in other countries, while a slot for letters in doors is exclusive to Great Britain.

Owners of such boxes note that they aren’t that convenient at all. For example, if you have a dog, it will allow the dog to eat the newspaper 3 times over before you see that it has been delivered.

7. Doors open inward, leading into the rooms, not outward.

Though opening an interior door outward would be more space-saving, in most older homes, doors open inward. Among other reasons, this is to keep traditional confidentiality: when a person is walking along the corridor past your room, they won’t see you, even if the door is half-open.

As a rule, front doors also open inward. There are several reasons for this: safety (in outward-opening doors, the hinges on which the door rests are located outside the house, which increases the risk of break-ins), protection from bad weather (imagine if you open the door outward and snow and rain blow into the house), and practicality (it’s easier to pull things in after a shopping trip if the door opens inward).

Would you like to have any of these features in your home?