America versus UK

[Bevziibubble]

American houses are so big! Do you all have swimming pools, or is that just in the films?

 

[AngelofTroy]

Love this thread!

What is a 'jungle gym"??

Is it just any climbing frame like in a park (playpark) or garden (yard)? lol!

Also is a slide still a slide in the US? I think I've also heard 'shute'? Or is a shute a waterslide?! Just to add to the confusion, in Bristol where I'm from (SW England) a slide is a 'slider'!

 

[chell5544]

The terraced housing and semi detached homes look like what we would call townhomes. They're more common in city type areas.

They look like this:
https://images.apartmentfinder.com/phototmp/photos_nt/27901/4E25D445-DF7E-4CE3-9E14-78227DD0BD87.jpg
https://www.ryvenco.com/images/community/e8b29466.jpg

Regular large (detached) homes are more common. My home is 2800 sq ft and 4 bedrooms/3 bathrooms which is pretty typical. This is what a common house looks like here (no idea who that is in the photo btw).

https://fromthebedside.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/img_1720.jpg

I hate you Americans for your 'normal' sized houses!!!

Lol so do I I would love to own a house like that but would literally cost millions lol and the council tax bill would be rather high lol

 

[lauraclili]

So true! Houses like that would cost a fortune in the UK. The US is huge in comparison to the UK though. Loads of the cost of our houses is in the land which is so expensive here because there isn't that much of it!

 

[Dragonfly]

The size of houses makes me jealous and their fridges! everything is bigger. Here those houses would be lottery winners houses. I get so jealous watching extreme make over home edition. All this massive coolness being normal while we have boxes lol

 

[chell5544]

Yes and their streets always look clean and smooth (or maybe that's just the movies lol). Our roads and paths are full of potholes, drain covers and bumpy where they keep digging them up lol

 

[beth_terri]

https://www.stansport.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/g/-/g-72.jpg

That's a cot in the US. And spiffy, I used to think the same exact thing about vests.

I would call this a camp bed, while my oh calls it a camp cot as that's what they call them in the army x

 

[Leids]

Roads for the most part here are smooth but it depends on where you live too. In Flint (Michigan) where I used to live had terrible roads with frequent potholes. Where I live now is really nice though.

Some houses have swimming pools. A pretty good chunk of the people I know have above ground swimming pools. In ground pools aren't as common where I live but there are a few people on my street with them. I think in ground pools are more common in southern US. My cousin has a huge heated in ground pool surrounded by palm trees in the south. Super jealous.

Houses can cost up to millions here but it's very dependent on the area. For example the house I posted would cost around $350,000 where I live but could run anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 (and possibly more) depending on location.

A jungle gym is a play set with swings, slides, monkey bars etc. I generally hear jungle gym when people refer to larger play sets in their back yard. Large scale play areas at parks and schools are just called play grounds. For me a schute would be a fully enclosed (tube like) slide whereas a traditional slide is just open.

On my phone so hopefully I answered everything alright.

 

[greats]

Yes and their streets always look clean and smooth (or maybe that's just the movies lol). Our roads and paths are full of potholes, drain covers and bumpy where they keep digging them up lol

The streets where I live are covered in potholes, drain covers, & most definitely bumpy! Also that big house would cost about $300,000-$400,000 by me but most houses near me are quite smaller more around $190,000.

And most people by me don't have swimming pools, we just go to the local pool during the summer.

I consider a jungle gym something you can climb on/around at a park. Slides here as well lol we have slides at parks or waterslides at a pool.

Loving this thread, I'm learning so much!!!

 

[Bellatrix14]

On the school front it is different again in Scotland
We have
Nursery
Primary school- 4-11 (p1,p2,p3 so on)
High school -11-17ish you an leave at 16 (1st year, 2ndyear so on)
College/university

 

[Leids]

Yeah things vary a lot from area to area in the US.

 

[urchin]

The house size thing always got me too - I'll watch American films where they are showing run-down neighbourhoods and I look at the massive detached houses with huge gardens and think they look really posh!

We really do live so much closer together over here: terraced streets are normal and probably our most common type of housing. I live in an end terrace of 4, with a garden 100'x30' - and this is considered quite big for a city property in the 'affordable' price range. In city areas it isn't uncommon for houses to have a back yard 12'x12' ... I can't imagine these in America!

While we are on housing - what are condominiums? and The Projects? I hear both in films and I have no idea what they mean

 

[babyjan]

American houses are soo nice! Another thing my cousins from canada were amused by were the roads here in the uk, they found them so small and literally thought my dad was going to crash everytime a car came close Lool! Cause we have these roads were cars kinda have to squeeze by one another lol and your roads are huge!

 

[Leids]

I can't imagine a 12x12 yard! No idea how big according to google the area surrounding my house is 12,261 sq ft. Condominiums where I'm from is just a fancier word for townhouse.

The projects are public housing (owned by the government). They're made cheap/affordable so commonly attract bad crowds. Again depends on area though I'm sure. Where I live I wouldn't go near the projects!

 

[babybrums]

Not all houses are that big in the US. Our home is only 700 square feet. A house that big would be over $250k by us - even more if it were nicely upgraded with hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, etc. We're happy in our little home. It's has all those nice upgrades all wrapped up in a smaller package for a whole lot less. Less for me to clean Plus we live in Wisconsin. It gets cold here. I can't imagine how much it would be to heat a house that size, especially if it were an older home with poor insulation and windows. Our heating bill is only $50/Mo. We rented a similar sized home years ago and it cost $300/Mo to heat that because it was so old and poorly insulated. And don't even get me started on property taxes. Ours were $3000 this year - almost 3%! If we bought a big house we'd pay more in property taxes than we do for our mortgage each year!

 

[babybrums]

American houses are soo nice! Another thing my cousins from canada were amused by were the roads here in the uk, they found them so small and literally thought my dad was going to crash everytime a car came close Lool! Cause we have these roads were cars kinda have to squeeze by one another lol and your roads are huge!

We live in a small town. Only a couple of roads lead into it, and none run directly through it. Other than a few bars,there's no businesses. We have little roads too. They're all nicely paved but that's because they put in a sewer system a few years back. Prior to that they were terrible.

 

[Leids]

Our mortgage is $1800/month and about $6000 in property tax, electric is about $200-400 a month depending. My parents in Michigan live in a much smaller home though. Not sure how small exactly but it's about 1/4 of the size of my current house. Definitely easier to clean.

 

[chell5544]

I think it's the money difference aswell to me $250k is about £150k which I very cheap for a house over here where I live.
So in US money a average size house over here in my area would cost roughly £250k which would be about $450k lol

 

[Leids]

I think it's the money difference aswell to me $250k is about £150k which I very cheap for a house over here where I live.
So in US money a average size house over here in my area would cost roughly £250k which would be about $450k lol

In my area $250k is average and $450k would buy something pretty impressive, fully upgraded or brand new etc.

 

[babyrough]

I wanna live in America! The big houses on films at always look amazing! Especially at Xmas time with the massive halls and 12ft Xmas trees haha I'm so jealous.