drawing room and morning room

Yes, a morning room would be a drawing room that probably got good sunlight in the morning.

drawing room
The drawing room is a larger, more formal room. A morning room is smaller, more informal - the lady of the house might write her letters there; guests might read the morning papers there after breakfast. If it's a really large house, the upper servants (butler, housekeeper) would come there for their instructions for the day.

The drawing room and the morning room are definitely separate.

One is on the right, down at the end of the hall, the other is on the left, next to my study. Haven't a clue as to which one is which, I'm afraid.

LordE - sleep in this morning, did you?

One's 'drawing room (note the apostrophe) is where one retires after dinner or perhaps a large luncheon.
One withdraws to the withdrawing room to take one's ease with light converstaion and perhaps a cigar accompanied by dinner guests after one's repast.
Afterwards one may leave the 'drawing room and commence idle study in one's library assisted by the more elucidated of one's guests.

At Corazon, dinner guests "withdraw" from the dinning room to the Great Room for conversation. I suppose that my computer room act the part of Morning Room since it gets a lot of sun in the morning. I often have coffee and beakfast here. We call our more intimate family room McGinty's Bar. Down the hall is my "study", but we call it the Library and use it both as describerd above and as a workplace. I'd put the computer down there, but its too far from the Master suite and doesn't get the sunlight during the mornings when I like to be on the computer and take care of my correspondence.

Corazon is really too big for two old people living on pensions. The grounds need a gardner, and many of our rooms are hardly ever visited. The taxes, insurance and minimal costs of upkeep are ruinous, and keep a constant strain on the budget. On the other hand we love the dear old place. I suppose in a few years we'll be sell since our children aren't interested in living in New Mexico. The upside of selling is that the profit should last far longer than our expected lifetime. The downside is to have to move into cramped quarters and divest ourselves of our accumlated property. Anyone need an antique table and four worn chairs?

Don't forget, we're talking about pre-electricity times. The eastern light in the morning room not only saved candles/gas/whale oil, but cut down on the soot produced by candles/gas/whale oil.

Also:



http://www.culbertsonmansion.com/MorningRoom.htm

Before electricity meant before air conditioning, too.

drawing room
"The Victorian House" by Judith Flanders (2004) details, room by room, the appearance and uses of the various rooms in the house. Each room has a separate chapter, including "The Drawing Room" and The Morning Room".

I don't think there's a reference to a great room. I suspect great rooms were more a feature of the manor house. Generally one seems to see them mentioned in connection with American Colonial houses; I don't think I've seen a mention of a great room in an english house, but that doesn't prove too much...

drawing room
lilcloud - I'm curious: what book are you reading? I'm a sucker for "old-fashioned English novels".

Hi everybody, I'm so glad that I found this place to ask my questions. I'm about half way through 'Some Tame Gazelle' by Barbara Pym. Tomkitten I think you're right, great room is not a feature of English house. Wikipedia says they're usually found in 20th century American houses. I haven't read many 'old-fashioned English novels'- actually I haven't read a lot of any kind of English novels. My favorite authors are Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell, and my reading was inspired by their BBC miniseries adaptions. Now you probably guessed it- I'm not a native English speaker.

drawing room
Nope, didn't guess it at all.

The great room thing found in 20th century houses is an imitation of a much earlier feature. I just tried googling "great room" and most of the entries do indeed refer to contemporary architecture - I suspect it's mainly a feature of the enormous McMansions springing up all over the U.S., and to my mind it's a great fake.

drawing room
Further googling produced the following:

Colonial Williamsburg Journal:
"So would the Great Room, full of mahogany furniture and fine accessories, ... solidly recreate the important role taverns played in colonial American life. ..."

Design Perspectives:
"During the American Colonial years, the 17th and 18th centuries, ... The great room, the gathering room, the keeping room, the us room is a space that ..."

Very interesting, Tomkitten.
You mentioned the Victorian house and I just remembered I read today of 'Elizabethan proportions' being used to describe a very long sermon. Have you heard of this term before?

No, but it's a neat phrase, and very logical. Sermons were in some ways a form of entertaiment in those days - no TV, computer games, videos ... Stuck in the house because of limited lighting; limited socially by the distance one could go on foot, or by the distance a horse could travel ...

Religion was big in politics, especially because the changeover from the Roman Catholic Church to the Church of England was still in flux; politically and religiously, you had to watch your back carefully lest you seem to subscribe to the wrong point of view at any given moment.

So given people's interest - and self-interest - going to church and hearing a lengthy sermon was a wise, and often attractive move.

In the American colonies at the time, the Sunday sermon was a major social event as well as an important part of religious observance. The American Protestants weren't much for ornate ritual in their services; the sermon was the main feature.

Tom Kitten--

Your post reminded me that in Victorian Times (source Dickens) that Magistrates Court was frequently held in the common room of the local tavern because it was the largest space in the neighborhood.

The Bath Assembly Rooms (Jane Austin) could also be considered "great rooms" providing space for social events.

The Medieval Great Hall was assembly room, mess hall and dormitory for retainers and soldiers. The fireplace may have had a chimney or may have been a fire pit in the middle of the floor with a hole in the roof.

I don't know whether the specific term "great room" ever actually applied to those more public spaces; my understanding is that it referred to the multipurpose room in a private house. Certainly there would seem to be a relationship between the medieval Great Hall and the more domestic Great Room in that both would have been large and both would have had a variety of uses.

The distinction lies in the words "Hall" and "Room", I think, with their differing implications of size.

It's really a sleeping room used to sleep for awakening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

You Rang M'Lord. Lunchon is served. M'Lady the New Housemaid is... in the Drawing Room looking at things. Sir I Belive it is time for Afternoon Tea.

Good Morning, I am writing this in my Morning Room on the east side of the house, one of the maids has brought me some delicious tea & I was just bored. Well yes a morning Room was just a drawing Room used in the morning. Though long-running ITV drama Upstairs Downstairs would state otherwise. Morning Room could also be used as the less formal ''family room'' as in long-running ITV drama Upstairs Downstairs, in which they spend the whole day in the morning Room, & the Drawing Room is only ever paraded before us once a series. We live in a goergous Georgian Mansion in Yorkshire, it has all sorts of Rooms, Morning Room, Drawing Room, Billiard Room (the room for playing Pool in), Business Room (A very Formal Study from which we conduct Business), Study (The computer room, I am writing this on my apple laptop), Dining Room, Entrance Hall (it's where visitors wait before being ushered into the Morning room/Drawing room/Study/Saloon, I'll explain later, or any other Room), Libray, Ballroom (Like the Great Hall/Room exept exclusivley for parties) & a Saloon (Even fancier than the Drawing Room but it is only ever used for big receptions that the ballroom is too big for). In the Basement there are also half a million Servants Rooms, & upstairs there are about 20 bedrooms. Oh dear here comes my wife with the vicar & antother charity. Goodbye.