General Chat

Could that be the modern difference? Bedsits converted from a larger property and Studio Apartments, purpose built?

Studios are common in some places, often in converted buildings (mine was an old hotel right by the sea). It was totally self-contained, with own front door, but living area was one room with kitchen 'area'. I did have my own bathroom! So I guess studios are different to bedsits :-D

I know someone (Tim) who owns property, inherited from his dad.
Initially, the bedsits were as I described, but Tim 'up - marketed' the ones he inherited, and gave each 'bedsit' it's own en-suite, and truly separate kitchen ie curtain replaced with door.
These were then classed as 'studio flats' to estate agents (but not between Tim & me - I still insisted they were just about liveable bedsits)

But they were definitely an improvement.

Sheilaw .................

that would be classed as either a studio or a bachelor apartment here.

The difference is that a bachelor apartment may have an alcove for the bed or even a small bedroom ........... but that then runs very close to a 1 bedroom apartment.

But the key is that they are self-contained, with the kitchen area very clearly separated from the living dining area, sometimes by a counter, and with full cooker with oven and cook top, often a microwave and sink. There is always a full bathroom with a shower or shower / tub combo.

I was seeing a girl many years ago who lived in a masonette. It was like a house; but built on top of a shop. So there was shops on the ground floor, with a row of massionettes above. From the outside they looked like flats; but had two floors.

I worked in Glasgow for a while some years ago and flats were called either tenements or schemes.

If you were lucky to live in a detached house out in Bearsden orMilngavie then it was a villa.

IGP, schemes are what you would call an estate. Tenements are buildings divided into flats, and they are all numbered Flat 1A, Flat 1B etc. or Flat 1/1, 1/2 etc.

I live in the top half of a converted victorian villa and it is usually referred to as a conversion, (by Estate Agents) and a flat by everyone else.

With the exception of holiday accommodation I have not heard the word apartment used to describe a flat ..........yet! :-)

We also have semi-detached, where the properties are joined along a whole wall, and attached, where they are joined along just a little bit of wall. I had never heard this expression before I moved to Scotland.

It's the same with those holiday log cabins.....suddenly they are now 'Lodges'.

We rented an apartment or flat before the house purchase went through. The address was ** ********* Apartments so we called it an apartment :-D

I keep getting told off by my OH for referring to our property as an apartment.
Apparently, here an apartment has only one bedroom. More than one is a piso.
Not being Spanish, they´re all flats to me.

similar difference .......

in BC, a second holiday home is usually called a "cabin", even if it is a waterfront property worth $1 million. People say "we're going to the cabin for the weekend".

In some other provinces, for example Ontario and Nova Scotia, the same thing is always called a cottage, even if it is a mere 1 room hut.

People get highly insulted if you ask "are you going to your cabin for the weekend", as a "cabin" refers to the fishing huts built on lake ice for ice fishing in the winter :-D

Been there, done that :-D :-D :-D