I was flipping through the pics Miranda posted below of her new house. We are preliminarily house-hunting with the idea to maybe buy again next year and the area we are focusing in has a lot of houses like the one she bought.
One thing that I can't seem to get past is that living room space. We pretty much live out of our family room and kitchen and it's really been the "heart of the home" so to speak in both houses we've been in. I grew up in a house with a formal living room and then a regular family room and I always found the living room to be a colossal waste of space. No one ever sat in it and it just had nice furniture but no TV. I've always said I'll never buy a house with a formal living room and so far I've stuck to it. But if we buy in the area we're looking at, we're going to get one whether we want to or not. Literally every house we've looked at has had a formal living room and they've been full of frilly furniture and clearly not used much.
So, for those of you with formal living rooms and then family rooms, what do you do with this space? Is it formal? Is it another family room? Does it have a TV?
Re: NBR: So, the topic of houses got me thinking...
Totally agree with you Our front "formal living room" is our family room with my armoire and our big tv. I have a trunk in there to keep some of Ethan's toys so they can be put away quickly. Our old family room at the old house had ALL of his toys and they were taking over. We did it this way because the way the fireplace and patio doors sit in the back room off the kitchen, our family room furniture would not fit... so in that room, I have my computer desk and hutch, a loveseat, and Ethan's big train table. It is also serving as the catch all room right now, lol and I haven't planned it all out yet... we had it wired for Directv also and will get a smaller tv in there at some point either to sit on the built in shelves or to hang above the fireplace. It has worked out well for us so far. I am liking having this extra space because he can play independently while I am cooking in the kitchen and he doesn't have to be watching tv. We were depending on the tv a little too much to occupy him while we've been moving and everything and it's nice this way so far
ETA: My grandma totally thought I should use the front room as a "formal" room and that just doesn't work for us at all. Our front room is quite big also.
Agree, they are a total waste of space! We do have one though unfortunately! We have a nice couch and coffee table. Then a secretary desk that i keep photo books in. It's the couch the dog sleeps on, ha! Except for the circles Ashlyn runs through it or the overnight drunk friends that crash in it, we don't use that room at all.
Jennie
we have a formal living room and right now, it's pretty empty. We'll probably turn it into a playroom eventually. If we didn't have a separate office, we'd use it as that, but the office is right across the hall from it.
We bought this house with the intention of growing into it. So far, we haven't grown into that room yet. We still have 1 totally empty bedroom upstairs too.
We have one and we use it daily, because of the layout of our older home. It's the room you walk into when you come in the front door, and connects with the dining room and kitchen. It has no TV, just decent furniture, a fireplace, and lots of toys. I like having a room with no TV for Maggie to play in, and it's a room the dogs aren't allowed in so it's pretty much dog-hair free which is nice for guests.
Our entertainment center and more toys are in the finished basement aka family room.
We only have one living/family room (whatever you call it). There are times when I would like an extra room like this on our first floor. This is because we use a spare bedroom for an office. If we ever have #2, we'll have to lose either the guest bedroom (and we have a bed in there) or our office. Having that extra space downstairs would help... but we wouldn't use it as a "formal" living space. Just one would be our tv/play area, and the other would be our computer space.
When we were looking for a house we really didn't want to have a formal living room. We ended up buying a house with one, but it isn't connected to the dining room like a lot of them are. When you walk into our foyer our dining room is to your left and our "living room" is to your right. It is a room all to itself (it doesn't open up to any other rooms). We have it set up as an office/ sitting room.