: "And" vs "with" in description lists When should I use the former or the later? Examples: It was a bird. It had a black head and wings and a golden underbelly. It was a bird.

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The first answer by Matt Ellen is good, but excessively rigid imho.
It is just a direct consequence of the grammatical fact that and is
a conjunction while with is a preposition. So this implies indeed
that whatever follows with is related to what precedes it. However,
being related to does not necessarily mean being part of, as in : he saw his aunt with his mother (using one of the various meanings of
with).

While the use of with is quite appropriate to describe an attribute
of an attribute, and can often suggest that, it can be used
for other purposes, especially when there is no semantic ambiguity.

In addition, the conjuction and is somewhat bland, and creates no
relation between conjuncts. It just enumerates. Using with when it
can be appropriate may reinforce the conjunctive aspect by insisting
that the conjunction may have more meaning than just coincidence.

For example, in the sentence: She wore a blue hat with a green coat., using and instead of with would be a sort of objective,
factual description as in a police report, while the use of with
puts the green hat and the blue coat in stronger relation, hence tries
to suggest something, possibly that the character has no color taste.

In the case of the bird example above, it could be that the story was
about finding an animal having a golden underbelly. Then the use of
with emphasizes an attribute that has an important role, as opposed
to other attributes, though it is emphasized softly which gives a
smoother style than writing ... but a golden underbelly.

Of course, there are cases when the intention is to provide a structureless
enumeration. Then and should be used.

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"Wings and a golden underbelly" is better because otherwise it seems like the wings have a golden underbelly.

The second example depends on if you want the rooms or the building to have the shelves. With if you want to the rooms to have the shelves, and otherwise.

In a list of attributes, such as yours, use and to demark the last attribute of the main object and with to create a sublist of attributes of one of the main list attributes.

The tree had green leaves with spikes and pronounced veins.

Leaves are an attribute of the tree, spikes and veins are attributes of the leaves.

The figure had six legs, four arms and three heads with horns

The legs, arms and head are attributes of the figure, the horns are an attribute of the heads.

It is possible to use with with the main object:

The tree was tall, with green leaves.

So the tree has leaves, not the attribute tall. C.f. "The tree was tall and had green leaves."

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