Describing your home
When you write about your home you can write about:
• where it is
• the different rooms in your home
• what is in each room
Vocabulary
Check some vocabulary related to rooms and furniture or appliances before writing
the essay. Here you can see some useful words:
Prepositions
Use these prepositions and phrases to describe where you live. You should
review prepositions of place before writing this essay.
• I live in a small house/big apartment.
• The house is in/on a quiet street.
• It’s near/not far from the train station.
• There’s a garden behind the house.
• It’s a ten-minute walk to/from the town center
There is/are
Use there is/are to write about the things in or near your home.
Use there is with singular nouns. Use a before the singular noun. The negative form is there
isn’t.
o There is a bus stop near the apartment.
o There isn’t a bath in the bathroom.
You can shorten there is to there’s.
o There’s a single bed in the guest bedroom.
Use there are with plural nouns. We often use some or a number before the noun.
o There are two bedrooms in the flat.
o There are some books on the shelf.
In negative sentences, we use any, NOT some.
o There aren’t any towels in the guest bedroom.
Has/Has got
You can also use has or has got to write about what is in the house. The negative form
is doesn’t have or hasn’t got.
o The flat has WIFI. The flat doesn’t have WIFI.
o The house has got a garden. The house hasn’t got a garden.
Just/Only
You can use just or only when there are a small number of things. Look
where just and only go in a sentence.
o There’s just one bedroom. / There’s only one bedroom.
o The flat only has one bedroom. / The flat just has one bedroom
o The house has only got a shower, not a bath. / The house has just got a shower, not
a bath.
With
Use with to add extra information about a home, room, or piece of furniture.
o I live in a small house with a big garden.
o There’s a kitchen with three chairs.
o There’s a cupboard with five shelves.
Some useful adverbs
Start your sentence with one of these adverbs to talk about different parts of your home.
o Upstairs, there are three bedrooms.
o Downstairs, there is a kitchen and a living room.
o Inside, there are five rooms.
o Outside, there is a garden.
Lists
When we write about our homes we often include lists. Look at the list below.
o In the living room, there is a sofa, two armchairs and a television.
Look how
o we use there is because the first item on the list (a sofa) is singular.
o we use a comma (,) between the first items on the list. Before the last item, we
write and.
To contrast between positive and negative things in a list, use but.
o The bathroom has a bath, a toilet and a washbasin, but it doesn’t have a shower.
o There’s a microwave, a washing machine and a fridge-freezer, but there isn’t a
dishwasher.
A description of my house – A1 English writing
Exercise 3
Complete the text below with the words in the box.
but from has got near only outside on there is there
are to to with
I live in a house ………………………………. a quiet street. It’s not far…………………………. the town center and it’s
a twenty-minute walk to the train station. There is a bus stop ………………. the house.
The house ………………… a living room with a large sofa and a television. There’s also a large
kitchen …………………. a table and three chairs. In the kitchen, …………………… a washing machine, a
dishwasher and a fridge-freezer……………………., there’s a small garden behind the house.
Upstairs, …………………. two bedrooms. The main bedroom is big. It has got a double bed, a
desk and a wardrobe. The guest bedroom …………………… has a single bed. There’s one
bathroom, ……………………. it doesn’t have a bath. It just has a shower.
