In the United States, there is a front part of the house for welcoming visitors and a separate common space where the family gathers and hangs out. The two areas are usually called the "living room" or "dining room", but they can be one single space if it's very large.
The purpose of having these two rooms is so that people can enjoy being alone if they want to or with others if they feel like it has the potential to make them uncomfortable if they're by themselves in their bedrooms.
There are several reasons why houses have more than one living room including: saving money by using one area as both a dining room and a living room; wanting to have a place for guests to sit down and visit; wanting to give children their own space when you have kids.
Living rooms are such an important part of our homes that many new houses are built with only one room instead of two. These one-room houses tend to be smaller than traditional houses and often have no other rooms except for the kitchen and bathroom.
People used to live in one-room houses before the advent of modular building systems. They were easy to build and cheap to rent.
A residence having rooms on either side of an entry hall. A home split vertically by a party wall and intended for two families to live together. A house with separate living quarters on both sides of the central hallway. Also called a "double house."
The first house was built in 1885 by Henry Hobson Richardson, known as the father of American architecture. It is named after its owners, the Gardiners, who lived there until 1914. Today, this house is part of Yale University and is not open to the public.
The second house was built in 1908 by the architect Charles McKim. It is named after its owner, Edward Harkness, who died in 1937 at the age of 102. This house is now a museum devoted to him and his family.
You may have heard about double homes on the market. These are houses that were built as duplicate structures for two families. Each house has its own floor plan but they share common walls and a basement. The older house would have been built first and served as a template for the new one.
Double homes are most common in New England where housing prices are high. Many wealthy families could never afford to build their own home. So, they would pay someone else to do it for them.
They were known as rooming houses or boarding houses in some locations, particularly in smaller cities and towns, and they were usually single-family residences that had been transformed into lodging for single men or single women (one or the other, never both) who would share toilets and eat meals together.
These accommodations were often found in large cities with large populations of immigrants or refugees who were coming to work in the factories - thus the name "hoteling" after working hours! In fact, until the early 20th century, hotels didn't open for business until after noon, so people living within walking distance from the hotel used to be able to get a good night's sleep before going back to work.
In larger cities, rooming houses were more common than hotels because they were less expensive. Also, since most workers came from outside of town, they wouldn't know where to go for accommodation. So they just looked for someone willing to rent them a room for money or food.
Finally, note that in French hotels and hostels also mean rooms we stay in when we are on vacation or traveling somewhere. So if you ask someone how does it feel to be a hotel owner or manager, they will probably say that they are in the hotel industry because they love hotels!