Humans often build houses for domestic or wild animals, often resembling smaller versions of human domiciles. The number of floors or levels making up the house can affect the square footage of a home. The 'square metres' figure of a house in Europe reports the area of the walls enclosing the home, and thus includes any attached garage and non-living spaces. The square footage of a house in the United States reports the area of 'living space', excluding the garage and other non-living spaces. Feng shui can also mean the 'aura' in or around a dwelling, making it comparable to the real estate sales concept of 'indoor-outdoor flow'. Feng shui, originally a Chinese method of moving houses according to such factors as rain and micro-climates, has recently expanded its scope to address the design of interior spaces, with a view to promoting harmonious effects on the people living inside the house, although no actual effect has ever been demonstrated. Ideally, architects of houses design rooms to meet the needs of the people who will live in the house. A house may have a backyard or a front yard or both, which serve as additional areas where inhabitants can relax or eat.Įxample of an early Victorian 'Gingerbread House' in Connecticut, United States, built in 1855 A house may be accompanied by outbuildings, such as a garage for vehicles or a shed for gardening equipment and tools. Some houses only have a dwelling space for one family or similar-sized group larger houses called townhouses or row houses may contain numerous family dwellings in the same structure.

Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups, such as roommates or, in a rooming house, unconnected individuals. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. Some large houses in North America have a recreation room. A house may have a separate dining room, or the eating area may be integrated into another room. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain one or more bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen or cooking area, and a living room.

Houses may have doors or locks to secure the dwelling space and protect its inhabitants and contents from burglars or other trespassers. Houses use a range of different roofing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. A house is a single-unit residential building.

As built drawing services davis ca