Ever felt lost and confused talking to a real estate agent, architect, or a home improvement expert about your home? You’re in luck! Put your fancypants on acquaint yourself with the chic homeowner’s vocabulary list!
Here are twenty obscure words that are actually pretty common finds in your Northern Virginia home.
1. Portico
A porch that is a walkway to the entrance of a building. The portico gives your home an impressive look when visitors are approaching your front door. The most recognizable porticos may be those in ancient Greek and Roman styles, such as the White House’s porch.
2. Enfilade 
An enfilade is a row of successive rooms with their doorways all in a line so that, when the doors are open, you can look down the row of rooms. You might make an enfilade during a home renovation and include the master bedroom at the end of the row.
3. Clerestory
A high wall with a row of windows near the top. A traditional clerestory is in a church or cathedral, but it can be appropriate in a home library or study as their soft, natural light from overhead supplements light from lamps.
4. Bargeboard 
Also called a vergeboard or gableboard. A board hanging from the edge of a roof. It may display fine masonry, and can give your home character as a simple step in an exterior renovation.
5. Inglenook 
A cozy area with a fireplace that can be in a smaller room or in a enclosed area of a larger room.
6. Fireplace Cheeks
The sides of a fireplace opening that are angled rather than strictly perpendicular. They give the fireplace the feeling of being more warming.
7. Gazebo 
A small outdoor pavilion that lets you enjoy your backyard. It can be rounded or octagonal, and it gives you a 360-degree view of the landscape.
8. Tympanum
A decorative wall surface over a door that can be carved with images. It can be semi-circular or triangular. Some of the most famous ones are in ancient Greek and Roman temples, Gothic cathedrals, and Romanesque architecture, but you can have one on the front of your home.
9. Efflorescence 
An aesthetic technique in masonry that you might run across during exterior home renovation. It’s also known as salt-petering because of the salts that come to the surface as cement is being laid.
10. Sconces 
A light that might remind you of a cathedral because of its design. The lamp is attached to the wall, and light is often directed upwards.
11. Gablet 
A triangular end of a buttress that can be plain or elaborately decorated.
12. Solarium 
A sun lounge or sun porch that lets you get more sun. It can be an enclosed porch that has a view of the outdoors so you can look at the landscape without catching a chill from wind or getting wet from rain. Your solarium could be good for growing plants that don’t get quite enough light in the rest of your house.
13. Oeil-de-Boeuf 
Literally French for “bulls-eye,” it is also called an “ox-eye.” It is an oval window in a dormer.
14. Quoin 
A reinforcing block at the corner of a brick or stone building. A quoin isn’t always structural; it can be decorative and display interesting masonry.
15. Den 
Not just an afterthought in your Northern Virginia home improvement project, this is a room that can be the heart and soul of your home. It is less formal than a living room, and you can add your personality to it with skylights, comfy furniture, and your own books and music.
16. Flashing 
Quality flashing is a key element in your exterior home renovation. These are thin pieces of material where the roof runs into edges and chimneys. Often made from copper, flashing is part of your home’s system to keep out the elements, namely rain.
17. Labyrinth 
A maze whose concept dates back to ancient Greek and Roman buildings that were built to be so intricate that prisoners could not easily escape. You can build your own labyrinth in your garden using hedges.
18. Scullery 
A room where you clean dishes and do other chores requiring hot and cold water. You can also call your laundry room a scullery, especially if you don’t have a servant, as in the old days, to clean piles of pots, pans, and utensils after you entertain houseguests.
19. Dormer 
An extra interior space built into a sloping roof. Adding windows to a dormer can give the effect of having skylights in the room.
20. Cricket 
A type of gutter that is part of your roofing. It guides water around a chimney or from higher to lower parts of the roof.
21. Buttress 
An architectural supporting stone or brick built against a wall.
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