Dictionary of Interior Designing

Parapet - A low wall or railing built along the edge of a roof or a floor.

Partition - A partition wall may be defined as a wall or division made up of bricks , studding , glass or other such material and provided for the purpose of dividing one room or portion of a room from another.generally , these are non-load bearing walls.

Plinth - The portion of a structure between the surface of the surrounding ground and surface of the floor , immediately above the ground.

Plinth area - The built up covered area measured at the floor level of the basement or of any storey.

Porch - A covered surface supported on pillars or otherwise for the purpose of pedestrian or vehicular approach to the building.

Portland cement - This is the most widely used type of cement and is so named because of its resemblance of its properties with a well known natural stone quarried at portland. Lime , slica and alumina are its main constituents.

Parliamentary hinges - This type of hinges are used in situations where door or window opening is required to be kept free of obstruction due to shutters when open. These hinges permit the shutters , when open , to rest parallel to the wall clear of the opening.

Perpend - It is a vertical joint on the face of a wall directly over vertical joints in alternate course.

Pier foundation - When a heavily loaded building is to be situated in sandy soil or soft soil , overlying hard bed at reasonable depth , pier foundations are sometimes used to transfer the load of the building to the hard bed below. This method consists in sinking vertical shafts up to hard bed and filling them with concrete.

Pier or Pilaster - It is a vertical member of stone or brick masonry constructed to support an arch , beam or lintel , the width of which exceeds four times its thickness.

Purlins - These are horizontal members of wood or steel , used to support common rafters.

Post plate - This is similar to a wall plate with the only difference that it run continuously , parallel to the face of the wall , over posts and supports the rafters at their feet.

Pitch of roof - The inclination of the sides of a roof to the horizontal is termed as the "pitch of the roof".

Pointing - It consists in ranking out joints in brick work or in stone masonry to depth of about 13mm and filling the same with mortar of slightly richer mix.

Poppy oil - It is prepared by pressing poppy seeds. It is used for very delicate colours , it is expensive and is thus used for internal painting of light shades.

Priming - This consists in applying first coat or the priming coat on the surface to fill the pores of wood by penetrating the primer inside the wood.

Plaining - The process of taking the shavings of wooden member is called plaining.

Plank - It is the name given to a heavy , thick and wide wooden piece of timber.