The Naming of Rooms

I call the room where we take off our boots the porch.  Hubby calls it the mudroom.  Ours contains our washer and dryer so doubles as a laundry room.  I'm not sure if there is a snazzy name to cover both those uses. Similarly, I still call the outside deck or step the bridge. This is a direct result of where I grew up. Different parts of the country have devised their own system for the naming of rooms.  My grandparents never called their outside buildings sheds, they always referred to them as stores.  Back in England, such structures were also called back houses.
I read real estate ads and I enjoy the way realtors have changed the names for certain rooms.  Living rooms are seldom called that anymore; more often they are described as great rooms and from what I can tell, this description has nothing to do with the size of them.  Similarly bathrooms are often called spas and old-fashioned rec rooms are now games rooms or theaters. The master bedroom is now the master retreat.  But kitchens are still called kitchens even though sometimes they are described as chef's or gourmet and a pantry is still called pantry.  Did you know the least used room in the house is the dining room?  On average it is used just four times a year.  Seems like a good argument for multi-purpose rooms.
I still think fondly of the old t.v. show, The Golden Girls.  They introduced me to a new name for the back patio..."out on the lanai" was where they often took someone to talk privately or to get alone time to mull over some problem or other.