Rooms:
They’re big.
Often they have more than one refrigerator.
The milk in the refrigerators comes in big two or three liter containers.
All the children have their own room.
Mothers have some strange idea that the children’s rooms should be left just as they were the day the children moved out, instead of used for some other purpose. Then they have some useless room, that looks like a museum.
Often married couples have two separate beds. But not in different rooms, but in the same with about a meter between them.
They’ve got big and many bathrooms.
The living room has a television in the middle, with a low table and a sofa in front.
The man has a room of his own in the cellar where he can decide things. The rest of the house seems to belong to the woman (even before divorce)
The same setup is in All in the Family. too.
I find your lack of bathrooms highly disturbing.
On the other hand, when a bathroom is seen, it’s the focus of a major conversation, and everyone in the family visits the person who is using the bathroom for whatever purpose. Corollary: no offensive smells are ever produced.
And though in some cases we have the reverse/mirror image, this is also roughly the same setup for the Cosby show, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Full House, Roseanne, Growing Pains, and Step-by-Step. To name a few.
Also known as a gallon. The most popular grocery store loss-leader.
The married couples had two separate beds because in the 50s and early 60s it was considered too shocking to have a man and a woman in bed together. I’m not sure when they changed that.
Here’s one: The kitchen table continues to infinity.
:dubious: Every Chinese place around here still uses the folded boxes, except for soup.
My food container nitpick would be that all movie and TV milk comes in quart-sized glass bottles. Now that’s something I haven’t seen since I was a kid.
And all bakery boxes are pink. I’ve never seen an actual pink bakery box. They’re always white or have a logo on them.
Back to the OP, and this one is more TV:
Everyone has their sofa right across the middle of the living room, with a telephone on an end table. Where’s the cord and jack? Under the rug?
Nearly all homes have two staircases, one in the front entry or living room and one in the kitchen.
Even if they have a dishwasher, every kitchen has that wooden IKEA dish drainer that always has dishes on it.
All attics are huge rooms that you can stand up in and walk around in (never just crawl spaces with insulation), and are full of cool stuff hanging from the rafters, especially that oil painting of a long-dead relative who looks exactly like someone in the current family.
I hate those metal trays, but the best Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood uses them so we’re stuck with them. They’re too hot to handle and the spill all over the inside of the bag by the time you get them home. Bring back the cartons, say I!
I know what you are trying to express here, and I agree… but to be nitpicky, Microsoft doesn’t make computers. 
This is fun.
It seems to me that the front entrance always leads directly in to the living room (especially tv, but in movies too).
No matter how small the apartment is, the kitchen is always roomy.
Gardens are always well groomed and with big old trees, even with newer houses.
I noticed from movies, and my visits in the U.S. supports the observation - Wooden houses have the outside boards horizontally, over here, they are put vertically.
As someone upthread said, everyone wears their shoes indoors.
There are rarely microwaves in sight in the kitchen, a blender will always be on the countertop though.
Kids always leave their bikes on the front lawn, and they’re never nicked.
There are rarely paintings, but often framed prints (movie posters, art galleries or old products).
People only watch tv when there is important news aconcerning the plot of the movie. The tv is almost never just on.
Only intellectual / professor types have bookshelves with actual books in them.
And the important news always comes on exactly when they flip on the set.
Re: horizontal boards on the outside of houses; they are called clapboards (may be pronounced “clabbards”, depending where you’re from) and they overlap to keep rain and snow out. How do vertical boards work??
They do. An American friend, when visiting me, was quite shocked that we didn’t. It was actually slightly distressing for her, at first.
(And there was an extremely unpleasant thread started in the Pit some time back where a Canadian complained about workers tromping through her house with their boots on, and she was called all KINDS of nasty things by Americans who thought it was normal to go tromping through houses with boots on, and she was just being a nasty neurotic bitch for thinking otherwise.)
I think Rune’s nailed it. Except that milk comes in gallons and quarts (and rarely in suburbia, pints) and that sometimes the garage subs for the cellar…it’s correct. :eek: (oh, and where I come from, the TV is in the family room, not the living room).
Also, notice that mail never piles up–we see the people bring the mail and the paper inside, and put it on the occasional table or counter–but it never becomes a larger stack. Kids may refer to homework, and may even be seen “doing” some–but no backpacks, lunchboxes etc, unless it is germane to the plot.
There is no recycle bin–anywhere, ever.
Women seem to carry around grocery bags or laundry baskets, but never a broom, vacuum, dustmop etc. And where are the kids or males for this work?
As to the shoe thingy–I have bone spurs that neccessitate my wearing my shoes at all times (except in bed or bath)-so, no, I won’t be taking my shoes off in your house. Sorry. (some families DO have guests take their shoes off here–my kid’s tell me of houses where this is required, plus, I have kids come over who automatically take off their shoes etc).
A lot of these are actually reasonably true.
It’s quite common for those on familiar terms with a family to come in through the side or back door.
Maybe not every room, but it’s quite common to have one each in the kitchen, living room, dining room, hall, and bedroom of everyone over the age of 12, plus a portable phone or three which can at any given time be found in any room of the house.
I’ve seen far more open yards than fenced ones.
Some do, some don’t. It’s about half and half, in my experience.
The most common size of milk container in the US is the gallon jug, followed by the half-gallon carton or jug (as pictured here). For comparison, that’s 3.8 or 1.9 liters.
The room of a child that moved out is often used as a guest bedroom, so there’s no need to change the furnishings or decor. Especially since, if that child comes to visit, that’s probably the room he or she will be sleeping in.
Most bathrooms aren’t all that big any more, but 3 or 4 of them are not uncommon in a house. You’ll typically have one per floor (sometimes including the basement), plus another one off of the master bedroom.
American homes also have tremendous storage space. There’s never a cluttered garage, attic or basement which is stuffed to the walls and rafters; there’s always plenty of room. The garage, in fact, will have enough room for two cars, Dad’s workbench and tool cabinets, the kid’s bikes and maybe the Queen Mary, too.
Absolutely agree!!! What’s worse, you can’t reheat them in the microwave!
Are you from So. Cal too? I assumed that this non-box Chinese food thing was a nationwide trend, but maybe it’s just a regional thing…
There is always a fresh pot of coffee made and waiting. However, no one ever actually takes more then one sip out of their cup.
The garage will be amazingly cluttered if a child needs to clean it out for punishment.
Even the most disfunctional families all sit and eat together at the dining room table. Never in front of the TV or in shifts.
Front doors are never locked.
Quite amazing, actually, as if you have ever been to a real New York apartment, most have enough locks, chains, bolts and iron bars to withhold an onslaught by the Iraqi National Guard.
Even though I live here, and never seen anyone actually do this (because it would be considered incredible rude), but according to the movies, we just hang up the phone without ever saying goodbye.
DRIVES ME NUTS.
Also, at our household, we always take our shoes off at the door. Not only is it uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t want to track “nature” into my house.
They overlap too, something like this:
---_-
Whereas the American version is more like this:
////
Does this make sense to anyone but me?