Accommodation Let’s move on to talk about accommodation. Tell me about the kind of accommodation you live in. Do you live in a house or a flat? Is it a big place? Does the place you live in have many amenities? What do you like about living

A granny flat (informal) is a set of rooms for an elderly person, connected to a relative’s house.
Often for students  
Rented house
Student accommodation 
Student digs 
A studio / A bedsit (a self-contained unit; everything in one room) 
Collocations
Remember to use collocations to add ‘color’ to your language. 
A run-of-the-mill house  = an ordinary house  
A cosy / noisy / cramped flat
Cozy = small and comfortable 
Cramped = too small and uncomfortable
A three-story building
Note: ‘three-story’ is an adjective and so is singular. You can spell this ‘story’ or ‘story’.
I live on the third floor
a spacious /comfy flat
Spacious = plenty / lots of room
Comfy = comfortable
Parts of a House
Rooms
Kitchen 
Living room 
Dining room / area 
Bathroom
Lounge = living room 
Entrance hall 
Office (n.) / study (n.) 
Bedroom 
Bathroom
Furniture and Equipment
Kitchen island (table in the middle of the kitchen for food preparation) 
Oven (for baking and roasting) 
Fridge 
Stove (hot plates for cooking) 
Cupboards (for pots, plates, cups…) Tiled floor
Coffee table 
Couch = sofa 
Fireplace
Cabinet
Bookcase
Desk
Armchair
Bed
Bedside table
Carpet (wall to wall) 
Rug 
Chest of Drawers (for socks, underwear…) 
Wardrobe (for clothes)
Staircase
Sink 
Shower Bathtub 
Mirror 
Decoration
Paintings Photos
Plants 
Ornaments (any kind of decoration) 
Table lamps 
Floor lamps 
Model plane
Desk calendar 
Useful Collocations 
En-suite bathroom (attached to the bedroom) 
The master bedroom (the biggest one, usually for the parents) 
A king-size bed (the biggest size) 
Open plan kitchen
Spacious living room with a modern look  
Colorful bedroom
An elegant bathroom 
A bedroom full of contrasting colors 
Fluffy cushions (on the sofa) and pillows (on the bed) 
A hand-woven carpet (made by hand) 
Fully-furnished house
A well-lit living room
A flat-screen television
A state-of-the-art TV 
Artificial plants
A wooden table
Homes Now and in the Past
This is a typical IELTS Speaking Part 3 question on Accommodation, and the examiner is testing your ability to make comparisons and between two different things, but also across time (in this case between now and the past). So, try to make use of comparisons if possible, and also an appropriate use of tense. 
We can use a wide variety of tenses, as seen in these sample phrases.
I am living in a coastal city (present continuous) 
I have been living here for 2 years (present perfect continuous) 
We live on the sixth floor (present simple) 
It’s quite a cozy place, but it is a little bit cramped
Before we moved here, I was living in Malaysia (past continuous) 
We lived in a condominium (simple past) 
It was a 27 story building
We can use the following kind of language to show our knowledge of comparisons.
It was much bigger than where we are now
There was far more room
It was just way more spacious
It had a lot more mod cons (modern comforts) than what we have now
Common Phrases and Idioms