I had NEVER SEEN these common British items before moving to the UK

Hi Kalyn, The airing cupboard, in the UK, does not normally have a boiler in it, It has a hot water tank, this tank can be heated by many different methods, including a boiler, but that boiler is not normally in this cupboard. The hot tank and water pipes in there generally causes this room to be warm and dry. This makes it a good place to store Towels, It also makes somewhere good to finish drying some items. There should be a vent (often in the door) so the cupboard does not get musty or damp. These hot water tanks are the basic reason for separate Hot/Cold taps. See legionnaire's disease, in the US this tends to affect design of air conditioning, here it affected the design of taps.

Henry Hover is part of a family of hovers in addition to him, there's also Hetty, Harry, George, Charles and James. They also come as kids toys for the kids who want to pretend to hover.

Window locks are there to prevent young children being able to open an upstairs window and possibly fall. They tend to supply them on all windows.

Henry vacuum cleaners are made by the Numatics company in Somerset. They are something of a model company and deserve support. They also now sell a hand held battery wand cleaner which in my view is much better than Dyson's - clearly designed by a vacuum cleaner company rather than a design studio.

When I got my flat remodelled in the 90s I got 0.5 inch thick green water-resistant carpet to go with the large marble wall tiles, gold fittings and big corner bathtub. It was so luxurious when I got out of the bath, with my glass of wine and walked over the carpet to the window seat where I could chill for a short time before getting my bath robe. It made bath times really special for me. Most carpets in bathrooms are pretty grim because it costs a lot to buy the right kind of carpet, but was the one room that I wished that I could have taken with me when I moved out.

UK shaver sockets in bathrooms include an isolating transformer and thermal cutout so that neither wire of the shaver (or hair dryer, toothbrush etc) has any voltage to earth (so a shock to earth is impossible) and the socket cannot be used for more powerful appliances. The 2 pin sockets are reversible, so are not polarity deoendent.

What about: toast racks, tea or egg cosies, fish knives & forks, egg spoons, paper doilies, poaching pans, fruit knives, dumb waiters; and galoshes, anoraks, kagools, gilets, and draught excluders?

In the UK they are only ever referred to as sockets. An outlet is a shop selling goods direct from the manufacturer and cutting out the retailer.

Used to use the sink to wash the dishes and seemed to chip crockery but a washing up bowl being plastic, I’ve never lost a dish in the washing up battle!!!!!

The airing cupboard houses the hot water tank, not the boiler. It may have an immersion heater, but no flames!

A Henry hoover is the best damn hoover you will ever buy, a little cumbersome but they last forever, that's why builders use them, they can be repaired if needed and will suck the clouds out of the sky, there is also a missus Henry called Hetty.

Kitchen scales make life vastly simpler and more accurate. Need to measure 250ml of water? Just weigh it: 250g

Hi Kalyn, Carpet in bathrooms. An explanation of how this came about. Generally we need to realise it was a 1950/60 thing. The bathrooms we are talking about did not have a WC (Toilet), they contained a Bath and probably a Sink. They were cold, often no heat, or a heater on the ceiling or high on a wall. There was probably no radiator in there, there may have been a towel rail that was heated (but not much). Flooring options were limited, depending on the underlying floor, which could be Stone, Cement, or Floor boards (basically planks, untreated, not good for bare feet). So options were to install Thin Lino tiles, cork flooring or this new water resistant carpet. It was later that bathrooms started to include a toilet and shower, I think these change the idea from OK to probably not. But also other flooring options became available.

There is Henry, Hetty, Harry & James hoovers. Also we use "Hoover" as a general term for a vacuum cleaner!

I live in a really old house. There is a sign on the wall that says 'This House is equipped with Edson Electric Lights. Do not attempt to light with match'. Oh alright there is also a Bates Motel sign outside so I may have put them up myself. There is even a light switch that doesn't seem to do anything. Probably released a door to a secret passage somewhere. But as the walls are thick and it is hard to put anything up I doubt it. Egg cups are interesting. A boiled egg has to have its own egg cup. No wonder there is anarchy in the outer colonies. Also recipe 'cups' make more sense as I remember old scales and my Mum weighing out ingredients for a fruit cake. However in the end the cake was eaten before it had cooled down from the oven so the ingredients were measured by sight in the end. Happy days.

Americans do have those digital scales.... they typically use them for 'substances' which are weighed in grams. ….. and, due to stupid American law, you can be arrested and charged for having 'paraphernalia' if you are caught with one

The key for the window is used to lock the window when it has been tilted inwards so that if you have young children they cannot open it and possibly climb out. They are mostly installed on high rise buildings

I like the French style windows that open inwards so you can open and close the shutters. This means you can have the shutters closed and the windows open in hot weather.

The bathroom carpet was used in the period before Central heating it helped to keep your feet warm while you got dressed, in those days we had proper winters and proper summers we used to have snow for 3 months of the year so the carpet helped a lot, the only heating we had was coal fires down stairs and the airing cupboard upstairs.

I think it’s often not made clear that carpets for the bathroom are specifically made for wet areas with a rubber backing and normally a higher percentage of man made fibres for the tufts. My parents had a carpet in the bathroom when I was a kid before we had double glazing and central heating fitted. Our bathroom was also downstairs and the whole of the lower level of that house had a concrete floor. So the carpet was just to help make the room a little warmer for when it was in use. Once the double glazing and central heating were fitted the carpet got ripped out and replaced with varnished cork tiles that helped to create a little warmth underfoot. But it’s also worth realising that for those who grew up without double glazing, central heating and insulation, during the winter ice had to be chipped off of the inside of the windows (mainly in the bedrooms) which had been created due to the condensation from people breathing and having every room carpeted (our kitchen was carpeted too) meant that there was always some warmth for your feet to touch and coupled with the other soft furnishings in homes (there were fewer leather sofas or minimalist interior decor trends) just created a little bit of warmth through both look and feel and of course they would absorb and retain a lot of the heat created when the fire (be it a gas, electric or solid fuel one) was put on. So I daresay that for some it just became a mainstay in how those rooms were decorated/fitted out.  Though I think it was also a status symbol at some points in the not too distant past, to have a home with fully fitted carpets in every room.