Many young Americans do not live with their families, but in apartment blocks or residential areas where everyone is more or less of the same age.
Young people often move away from home when they leave school into shared apartments or smaller apartments. They do their own cooking and cleaning, and go to the family home perhaps for the weekend.
Young married couples may move to new suburbs where most people have young families. In the country, some even build their houses themselves.
If a family’s income goes up, they often move to another suburb, where the houses are bigger, with two or even three garages, a swimming pool, a games room for the children, and everything a family could want.
Old people often do not live with their grown up children.
Many live in old people’s homes. Some live in special towns, built for old people, where there are no young children and the atmosphere is quiet.
Americans are always on the move, and some families change their homes every few years. Every year, 20% of Americans move house. Mr. and Mrs. Schultz could start life in an apartment in New York, go on to a white painted wooden home in New England, with small windows to keep out the cold in winter, and end their life in a sunny house in California, where oranges grow in the garden, and big windows give a wonderful view of the swimming pool and the sea.
Tag Archives: Homes
Bolg：American Homes
Bolg：Stately Homes
It was believed that in the old days the rich were very rich and the poor were very poor. Is it really different now? Some of the aristocratic families of Britain still have a lot of money, and some still live in magnificent #stately homes# built by their families hundreds of years ago.
Castles with strong walls and towers may be almost a thousand years old, but most stately homes date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and many are filled with wonderful collections of paintings and furniture. Even for the richest, life in these old houses is expensive. There are roofs to repair, hundreds of rooms to clean, and miles of parkland to look after. To make money, owners of stately homes often make their parks into playgrounds. They set up zoos, safari parks, model railways, and small museums — anything that people will pay to see.
Not everyone is lucky enough to keep their old home. Many of the people who once owned the castles and palaces of Britain cannot afford to look after them now. Luckily, the buildings still stand, full of wonderful antiques and art treasures.
A large number of them now belong to the National Trust, a private organization which buys historic buildings. The old owners often still live there, and keep the atmosphere of a beautiful private home, but the houses are open to the public too. In this way everyone can enjoy the great cultural treasures of the past.
