House and garden vocabulary is one essential area of language learning. Everyone lives in some kind of home, whether it is a house, flat, apartment or other type of building or living quarters. So we need vocabulary to describe it!

In order to describe our home we need certain words to explain the layout of our house, flat, apartment or building, the rooms inside, the furniture they contain and any structural elements we want to comment on.

Describing a garden also means we need new words and phrases to comment on outside areas of a home. These include items gardening tools and equipment and other items you might find in a garden, patio, driveway or outdoor space.

 

House and Garden Vocabulary

There are many useful words related to house and home, such as upstairs and downstairs, various rooms of the house and furniture, along with structural elements, from walls and drainpipes to staircases.

Outside is equally rich in vocabulary with garden vocabulary including plants, patios, greenhouses, sheds and allotments.

Read on to explore more house and garden vocabulary.

Rooms in the house

Bedroom, Guest bedroom, Master bedroom, Spare bedroom

Kitchen, Kitchen/diner

Dining room (separate room intended for eating in, containing a dining table)

Living room, sitting room, lounge

Study

 

Hall, Hallway (space immediately on entering the front door, often long and narrow)

Landing (upstairs hallway, area at the top of the stairs or between two flights of stairs)

Bathroom, En suite bathroom (an ‘en suite bathroom’ is a bathroom leading directly off a bedroom)

Shower room

Toilet, WC, Lavatory

Utility room (room for ‘white goods’ – kitchen appliances – and sometimes performing dirty jobs, such as cleaning shoes)

Pantry (used to store food items)

Loft, attic (the highest room in the house, found in the roof space)

Cellar (an underground room, often used for storage)

Conservatory (extension to a house with glass roof and walls)

Structural features of a house

Door

Front door (usually the door to the street)

Back door (usually the door to the back of the house going out into the yard or garden)

Porch (covered area at the entrance to a house)

Chimney (a vertical channel that takes smoke from the fire up to the roof and out of the building)

Ceiling (the roof of an internal room)

Doorbell

Fireplace

Floor

Roof (outside, the top of the building)

Walls

Windows

Guttering, drainpipe (a narrow trough is used around the upper part of house to collect rain water from the roof and take it down to the drain)

Inside features of a house

Downstairs

Upstairs

Stairs, staircase

Bannister (hand rail by the staircase)

Radiator

Double glazing (two or three window panes added to the single pane to retain heat and protect against noise)

Letterbox (usually a hole in the door covered by a metal flap, used for deliveries of letters – ‘post’ in British English or ‘mail’ in American English)

Fireplace (place where the fire is situation, usually at the base of the chimney)

Companion set (items for cleaning a fireplace – poker, trowel and brush)

Mantelpiece / Fireplace mantel (decorative structure above a fireplace including a shelf, often used to place cards, ornaments and pictures. The mantel was traditionally used to protect the room from smoke from the fire)

Skirting board (a moulding fixed to the wall at the meeting point between wall and floor. This rails runs around the perimeter of the room, traditionally used to cover joining and protect the wall/wallpaper from kicks and furniture)

Dado rail (a moulding fixed to the wall around 24 inches up. This rails runs around the perimeter of the room and is also called a ‘chair rail’, traditionally used to protect the wall/wallpaper from furniture scraping against it)

Picture rail (a moulding fixed to the wall near the ceiling, going around the perimeter of the room, traditionally used to hang pictures from)

General Furniture

Chair

Table

Carpet, Rug

Curtains, Blinds

Light, Ceiling light

Table lamp, Floor lamp

Shelves, Bookshelf

Wallpaper

Living room furniture

Sofa, settee

Armchair, Easy chair

Mantel piece, Fire guard

Coffee table

Television stand

Side board – furniture usually positioned against a wall, used for storing items

 

Bedroom Furniture

Bed

Chest of drawers

Wardrobe

Bedside table

Bedside lamp

Study Furniture

Desk

Desk lamp

Monitor

Computer, mouse, laptop

Notice board

Calendar

Desk chair

Kitchen furniture and utensils

Kitchen table

Working surface

Dining table

Cutlery (fork, knife, spoon, other eating utensils)

Knife / knives

Fork

Spoon (table spoon, tea spoon, dessert spoon, serving spoon, wooden spoon)

Cheese grater

Whisk (manual/hand whisk or an electric whisk)

Rolling pin (wooden cylindrical item used for rolling out pastry)

Crockery (items made from porcelain, such as plates and cups)

Plate

Napkin – piece of cloth used to wipe the mouth or draped over the knee to protect clothes

Serviette – paper napkin

Glass, cup, tea cup, coffee cup, mug

Egg cup

Bowl, mixing bowl, serving bowl, soup bowl, cereal bowl

Pots and pans

Sauce pan

Wok

Gravy boat

Serving tray 

Kitchen appliances

Cooker

Oven

Hob

Extractor fan (fan within a hood above the hob, used to remove steam, smells and smoke from cooking)

Food mixer

Blender

Juicer (used to squeeze the juice out of fruit and vegetables to make smoothies)

Slow cooker

Microwave

Deep fat fryer

Kettle (for boiling water)

Coffee machine

Fridge, Refrigerator

Freezer

Fridge Freezer (both appliances combined into one unit)

Utility Room Appliances

Washing machine (for washing clothes)

Tumble dryer (for drying clothes)

Dishwasher (for washing and drying pots, pans and cutlery)

Running a home

Central heating (controllable heating for the whole home using radiators)

Utility bill  (a ‘bill’ is a request for payment – gas, electricity and water are ‘utilities’)

Gas bill

Electricity bill

Telephone bill

Water bill

Reading the electricity meter (checking how much electricity your home has used)

Housework

to do the housework

to make the beds

to cook the dinner

to lay the table (to put the cutlery and other items on the table in position ready for the meal)

to vacuum the carpets (sometimes called ‘to hoover’ or ‘hoovering’, which is to use the brand name Hoover – a famous brand of vacuum cleaner – as a verb)

to clean the windows

to dust, to mop, to wipe, to polish, to brush

to wash up (the pots)

the washing up (items that need to be washed)

to dry (the pots)

to do the ironing, to iron the clothes (usually using an ironing board)

 

The garden

Garden, Back garden, Front garden

Patio

Terrace

Rockery (heaped arrangement of rough stones with plants, often found in a front garden)

Drive (wide path leading up to the home, often used to park a car)

Dustbin (or trashcan – American) – where you put the rubbish

Fence

Flower bed, Flowerpot, Flowers

Hanging basket (for hanging flowers)

Clothes line (used to hang clothes out to dry)

Plants

Shrubs (low-growing plants, usually thick and bushy)

Weeds (undesirable, troublesome plants)

Greenhouse

Garage (place to put the car)

Garden furniture

Pond

Shed

Gate

Gravel (small stones, often used to cover the drive)

Hedge (fence/boundary made from shrubs)

Lawn (short grass used to cover the garden)

Path

Vegetable patch

Allotment (a plot of land, usually rented, used to grow vegetables or flowers)

to mow the lawn

to cut the hedge

to plant the flowers

to plant the bulbs (flowers grow from the bulbs)

to sew the seeds

Garden tools

Lawn mower (used for cutting the lawn – can be motorised or a manual hand mower)

Spade (a manual digging tool, rectangular front with a long handle)

Fork (a manual digging and raking tool, like a huge version of a kitchen fork)

Rake (raking tool for spreading soil evenly, like a long-handled brush with spikes instead of the brush fibres)

Hoe (tool for clearing soil, removing weeds and digging shallow trenches)

Shovel (for digging, similar to a spade but with a rounded front)

Hose or hosepipe (a long rubber pipe for directing water from the tap)

Watering can (vessel to fill with water for watering the plants and flowers)

Wheelbarrow (small cart with a wheel at the front and two handles, used for transporting items around the garden or building site)

Trowel (for digging small holes to plant flowers and bulbs)

Shears (large cutting tool for hedges)

Secateurs (small cutting tools for plants)

Share your thoughts

Can you think of any more useful house and garden vocabulary?

Do you find any of these words confusing?

Which are the most important phrases related to the home, housework or gardening?