Bedrooms in American TV houses?

[bluebluezoo]

Watching This Is Us- one of the brothers is very well off, the size of his house is commented on regularly, a thing is made that it has a huge kitchen etc etc...

Yet it appears to only have 3 bedrooms, one being a small single. Any visitors sleep on the couch, in the basement, or one of the dd’s give up their room for guests.

Same in nearly every tv show, guests always on the couch. The OC, another massive house yet only 2 beds as Ryan stays in the poolhouse or the sofa.

Is there some weird US architecture that means houses have massive downstairs and tiny upstairs?

It’s really annoying me now! Along with how labour always starts with waters breaking with no warning, and an immediate rush to the hospital while millions of friends sit in the waiting area.

And everybody never takes more than one forkful off their plate of food

The kids always share bedrooms in massive houses

You are right now I come to think of it! Maybe they have big suites with dressing rooms and en suites, and an office or something? But yeah, you would think that they'd have at least one guest room!

I suppose in TV shows they like to stress the difference: someone being out of place, in the way, not quite welcome in the house maybe?

I always think this watching Modern Family!! The girls have to share a room despite it looking like a substantial house?!

I wonder if it’s accurate or a tv thing

And in Jays house he loses his office when they have two kids - despite it being commented on as a large house with a pool.

Is there some weird US architecture that means houses have massive downstairs and tiny upstairs?

the house relatives live in in the usis a bit like that.
massive house with a big double height lounge and entrance. but only 3 bedrooms and a lot of dead room under the roof as no room has a slope.

a bit like this one

Where land is expensive you tend to have very vertical houses, so there's as much upstairs space as downstairs, so that means lots of bedrooms if you have lots of space downstairs.

When land is cheaper, you often have very large downstairs but still limit the build costs by only building as many bedrooms as you "need", hence lots of 3 bed houses with large living spaces.

I have often thought this - no guest bedrooms in massive houses.

Gloria and jay’s house must be at least four bedrooms.

And when people in American programmes do have overnight guests they always have a neatly folded file of sheets and pillows in an upstairs closet. Just ready to put in the sofa.

And their bedrooms are always immaculate, and the couple always go to bed at the same time, with the wife applying hand cream while sitting up in bed!

I've NEVER watched an American film where somebody hasn't climbed in through a bedroom window. It must be some sort of tradition over there

This bugs me too, also when the married couple has an argument, someone ends up sleeping on the sofa, even though they live alone in a massive house!

Surely there’s a spare room!

I am a Yank.
Usually but not always I've been put in a relative's actual spare bedroom or my aunts had to share for the night so me & my sister could go in one of the aunts' rooms, and almost no one has asked me to sleep on the sofa... That said

Is there some weird US architecture that means houses have massive downstairs and tiny upstairs?

There is some truth to this, look up Cathedral Ceilings. My cousin's house for example:

2 modest size upstairs bedrooms (over playroom & study), 1 enormous ensuite master bedroom (over garage), another bathroom upstairs (over downstairs poky bathroom)

Downstairs was double garage, bathroom, utility space, study (could be a spare bedroom), playroom, kitchen-diner, music room, large foyer space. Music room & foyer space shared Cathedral ceiling.

This bugs me too. In National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation the two kids have to give up their bedrooms for the two sets of grandparents and appear to sleep on a couch together somewhere 🤷‍♀️

Yes!! I thought this when watching The Gilmore Girls - Lorelai’s house looks quite spacious but I think there are only 2 bedrooms, which seems odd!

Hahaha yes!

Gilmore Girls is a case in point!

Lorelai and Rory, JUST Lorelai and Rory, live in this not insubstantial dwelling (see Exhibit A).

Yet Rory's bedroom is off the KITCHEN and is pokey as hell (see Exhibit B).

Huh 🤷

Notcontent crossposts 😂

there is definitely an aversion to sloped ceilings.
plus in some areas there are extra taxes for additional stories, hence massive finished basements and those big masions with lots of roof.

I don't really watch much in the way of tv and films, so can't comment on that, but I did grow up in the US. And yes, the sort of big middle class McMansion style house you would see on tv probably would have massive rooms, but not lots of them. The compromise on big rooms is fewer of them. Americans would think it equally odd that many old detached houses here might have 6 bedrooms, 4 of them only just big enough for a double bed, a single room and a box room. They would generally see bigger rooms as the norm and preferable - obviously, we're talking on a very general sense. There are still many Americans live in overcrowded multi-generational houses, sharing rooms, and would love the extra bedrooms, even if smaller probably.

I don't think it's a whole lot different from here though that most people can't afford a guest room, so yes, people would sleep on the sofa or air mattress somewhere.

But realistically, houses you see on tv aren't the norm for the houses people actually live in. They are relatively huge, because they need all that space for moving cameras around and having space to get the shots, even when filmd on a sound stage.

I did an American exchange as a teenager, stayed with a lawyer who had the most beautiful "mansion", swimming pool, huge kitchen diner, formal dining room always made up but rarely used, central grand staircase etc etc. It only had 3 bedrooms, the bedrooms were large, all had bathrooms, the master was a full suite, the landing grand with a laundry room upstairs. My life has been a disappointment ever since

I want to know why they all come straight in off the street into the living room. Here that only happens in very small houses. Don't they have draughts in the US? And where do they dump their coats and shoes?

When I lived in the US we had a three bedroomed house. Downstairs was much bigger than our 4bed detached UK house. Upstairs the children's bedrooms and bathroom were a little smaller than in the UK. The master suite however was ridiculously huge. Our king size bed looked lost in there. The walk in wardrobe was the size of DS's bedroom and we had a huge en-suite. We just couldn't get our heads around why it was so out of proportion to the other rooms. It could easily have been two good sized rooms making it into a 4 bed but wasn't.

And yes like someone else said it was a double height living room so the downstairs was a larger footprint.

I'm American. There do tend to be fewer but larger rooms here. But also the tv production companies can't be building one set after another. Better to put guest on sofa in existing set than squeeze another onto the soundstage.

We've been watching Escape to the Country and most Americans would be taken aback at the tiny bedrooms and bathrooms that are the norm.

There's lots of room at the Home Alone house. 2 families of 7 I think staying the night before the flight?

Kevin only gets sent up to the attic to sleep when he gets into trouble.

Meanwhile in EastEnders those 1880's terraced houses can house multi generations no problem!

‘But realistically, houses you see on tv aren't the norm for the houses people actually live in. They are relatively huge, because they need all that space for moving cameras around and having space to get the shots, even when filmd on a sound stage.‘

I was waiting for someone to explain what tv is😂😂😂😂

@EscapeTheCastle

There's lots of room at the Home Alone house. 2 families of 7 I think staying the night before the flight?

Kevin only gets sent up to the attic to sleep when he gets into trouble.

Meanwhile in EastEnders those 1880's terraced houses can house multi generations no problem!

In Home Alone, at the beginning, they clearly refer to setting up beds in the living room.

A house like that would likely have four bedrooms plus perhaps a couple in a converted attic.