A billiard room is a recreation room

Recreation room

A recreation room is a room used for a variety of purposes, such as parties, games and other everyday or casual use. The term is common in the United States and Canada, but is less common in the United Kingdom where the preferred term is games room...

, such as in a house or recreation center, with a billiards, pool or snooker table

Billiards table

A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which billiards-type games are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole elevated above...

. (The term is sometimes also used as synonym

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...

ous with "billiard hall" i.e., a business providing public access to hourly-rental or coin-operated billiard tables.)

A one-table billiard room requires enough space around the table to accommodate the range of a stroke of the cue

Cue stick

A cue stick , is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the...

 from all angles, while also accounting for chairs, the storage rack and any other furniture that is or will be present. Optimally, there should be at least 6 ft (1.8 m) of clearance between the table and any walls, furniture or other objects, on all sides and at all corners of the table. The table size is really a measure of the of the table, and does not include the which are typically around 6 inches (15.2 cm) wide. The typical cue is a bit shorter than 5 ft (1.5 m) long (snooker

Snooker

Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...

 cues, however, are often longer), and many shots need 6 in. or more of forearm-swinging room, totaling around 6 ft (1.8 m) of space. Examples of optimum minimum free space dimensions for common table sizes, using this logic:

• For a 7 ft (2.1 m) by 3.5 ft (1.1 m) table for pool, the space needed to enclose the table is approximately 17 ft (5.2 m) by 15.5 ft (4.7 m) (ergo, a room probably around 20 ft (6.1 m) by 18.5 ft (5.6 m) to account for furniture).
• For an 8 ft (2.4 m) by 4 ft (1.2 m) home-market pool table, the space needed is approx. 20 ft (6.1 m) x 16 ft (4.9 m).
• For a 9 ft (2.7 m) by 4.5 ft (1.4 m) regulation pool table, approx. 21 feet (6.4 m) by 16.5 ft (5 m).
• For a 10 ft (3 m) by 5 ft (1.5 m) carom table, approx. 22 ft (6.7 m) by 17 ft (5.2 m); for an American snooker table of this size, 24 ft (7.3 m) by 19 ft (5.8 m) in space (to account for longer cues)
• For a full-size 12 ft (3.7 m) by 6 ft (1.8 m) regulation snooker table, the longer cues may call for up to 26 ft (7.9 m) by 20 ft (6.1 m).

Many table manufacturers' brochures suggest considerably smaller spaces as acceptable minimums, but these numbers do not agree with simple and obvious measurements like the ones above, while they could be skewed by the desire to sell as many tables as possible, and as large (i.e. most expensive and profitable) as possible. Such smaller rooms may be marginally acceptable to some players, but will render -to-the- shots much more difficult than they should be, due to cramping the player's space and requiring that the cue be significantly raised at the (greatly reducing accuracy) to avoid running into obstructions behind the player. Insufficient space may also thwart powerful .
However, special shortened but weight- and balance-adjusted cues are available, in lengths such as 52 in (1.3 m) or 48 in (121.9 cm), and even smaller, rather than the typical 58 in (1.5 m) pool cue or 55 in (1.4 m) carom cue.

Billiard rooms need overhead lighting, and a multi-bulb light fixture specifically designed for illuminating a billiard table is most often used. Such fixtures are available in both incandescent and fluorescent models, and range from crude to highly ornate. Billiard rooms with windows usually employ curtain

Curtain

A curtain is a piece of cloth intended to block or obscure light, or drafts, or water in the case of a shower curtain. Curtains hung over a doorway are known as portières...

s or blinds during daytime use, to prevent excessive glare.