Bloody Well Write

Those who know me, and those who don’t but follow my new-house blog, know that I’m wading into the mystic waters of building a home. And my, what hazy waters this project is turning out to be!

No, I jest. I’m thrilled that my husband and I have the opportunity to create something pretty much exactly as we see fit. True, we’re not going to finish the basement immediately — we haven’t found that elusive money tree yet — but we’re getting the main living areas as close to ideal as we can and will complete the basement a little at a time.

In our efforts to make sure that we don’t overlook anything, we — OK, I — have been researching the fool out of every aspect of building a home. And one thing that I’ve come across that I’ve had to investigate further is the en suite.

I caught part of an HGTV real estate show highlighting a newly married couple searching for an acceptable residence in Dubai. They insisted on having two en suite bathrooms. The realtor and the announcer used the term en suite several times, and it sounded so posh to me that I had to verify exactly what it is. After all, my last French class was 25ish years ago.

Decidedly not an en suite (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/119849288/)

En suite. It sounds very French to me. Indeed, it is French. Its first use was in the early 1800s, and its modern-day meaning is “a bathroom or shower room that is attached to and only accessible from a bedroom.” In other words, it’s in the master suite, not in the hall.

Other bathroom terms include the shower room — a room with a toilet, sink and shower but no tub (in the United States, this is referred to as a 3/4 bathroom) — and the Jack-and-Jill bathroom — typically, a bathroom with a tub, toilet and sink(s) sandwiched between two bedrooms.

We’re building an en suite bathroom for us and a Jack-and-Jill bathroom for our two girls. So wouldn’t that technically be a Jill-and-Jill? Aha.

Happy trails!

SAK