[Fluff time] What is your take on family room?

I’ve never lived in a house with a family room.

The closest thing was living in houses with basements.

We have a rumpus (family) room, and it’s my favourite room to spend time in outside of my bedroom. I often work in there. As you say, it’s a functional room and it’s not always tidy. The lounge room is at the other end of the house and at the moment, my daughters use that as their space. So it’s handy having different zones where we can have our own space. If they weren’t living with us, it would be a tidy space to use when we have visitors.

I liked having a family room when my children were little too. It had an easy clean floor, it was connected to the kitchen so I could be cooking and see them while they played. We still used the formal lounge, but we used it in the evening more once the kids were in bed or when we had people visiting.

^^ The closest thing was living in houses with basements
In times past house used to have an attic and a basement. Past the 60s, I have rarely seen a house with a basement unless some fancy mansion, then it was a wine cellar. If there was an attic, it was mostly useless space, not good for much but a place for installation or a kayak or two.

I don’t think you can buy a house without a basement here, and most have attics. I’ve only got a partial attic because there is a flat roof at the back of the house – it’s a rarity.

@BellaB, I have always wanted a basement and/or an attic. None of our modern houses have such things. Older ones would, but not anything built now.

When I was young I lived in a house that was built in the late 1800s, and had been a dentists’ office. The upstairs and attic was his family’s home, and the downstairs was the office, and the basement was accessible from the office and the storm door.

I lived in the downstairs, and because of what it had used to be it was a very odd layout.
[Long explanation deleted by me]

Screw it, I’ll draw the Floorplan

That’s 100% from my childhood memory and I’m sure the dimensions are off. The storage closet(s), for instance, were really small so I know I got them wrong. Oh! I just realised half the storage area would have been the upstairs neighbors’ staircase. That’s why.

Anyway, the big middle space was used as a dining room, and my mom had some kind of hutch or something in that alcove. The front room was everything from my bedroom to a playroom to not much of anything at all while we were living there. It was a really weird space. It’s where the Christmas tree went.

The real party was downstairs in the basement. That’s where Daddy’s weight bench was, and the punching bag, and the big toybox and the poker table.

@Seek Only one giant bedroom and no bathrooms?
I also want to know what the room you were not allowed in was. That was hilarious, ” I was not allowed in here.” haha Was that the room where your mother chopped up the delivery boys in? lol

There was no family room in the house where I grew up. I wasn’t even sure what one was until I moved away. In our present house there is no family room, unless you want to count the loft upstairs. Our house is pretty big too.

Haha, the bathroom is marked “wc”. It was very small. My parents slept on a sofa bed in the living room, and the three kids had the bedroom.

I honestly have no idea what was in that room.

^ Ooooh, water closet…I thought it was witches chambers. haha

The house I grew up in didn’t have a family room, we just had one room for what I’ll call hanging out in and we called it the living room.

Most of the homes I’ve owned had a living room and family room, and I much prefer one bigger room than splitting the square footage up. Formal living rooms are almost never used in my experience.

Family rooms are usually open to the kitchen I guess. Some homes have one room that is called a great room, and it can have an open kitchen format, or the kitchen can be separate. I go back and forth with which I prefer. I like it open because if I’m with just my husband and am in the kitchen and he watching TV, we are not separated. But, there is something to be said for having a mess in the kitchen from cooking and all the guests being out in the organized calm of the “sitting” room.

In Tennessee most homes had a hearth room rather than a family room. Basically, a room off of the kitchen with a fireplace. They were relatively small rooms and I found that annoying. I want that room large and the formal living smaller. Ideally, I don’t want any formal living room at all.

I have a formal dining room set and kitchen nook table and part of me really wants just one table. The house in living in now I only have the kitchen table set up.

A lot of this arose from the growth of television. Once everyone got a TV the TV went in the family room, and the living room was for when guests came.

About twenty years ago, when I owned a house, it became apparent that our formal living dining room was a huge waste of space since we used it about four days a year, but it took up about 20% of our floor plan. A friend pointed out that when his kids got into second or third grade, the living room became the grown ups rooms, the family room was the kids room.

I like the idea that started to become common about twenty years ago of having a “great room” kitchen/informal eating/tv/relaxation room.

@snowberry In our present house there is no family room, unless you want to count the loft upstairs. Our house is pretty big too.
Larger than 2,200 sq. ft.? Even homes hovering around that size or a little smaller often have a dinky family room, but they have one.

@JLeslie Formal living rooms are almost never used in my experience.
I have noticed that in many homes, the living room seems to scream ”don’t use me until there is business of company that is not familiar”. If the furniture was not covered in plastic, it had throws that you can’t sit on, pillows that had to be arranged just so, no kids, no pets, and you certainly would not dream of eating in there much less on the furniture. Like you, it seems to become unneeded space as the formal dining room which hardly gets used.

I grew up (and still live) in a house with only two rooms, kitchen, and a bathroom. Five of us used to live here (until my two siblings moved out).

I don’t understand the concept of a separate rooms for eating, having guests, and spending time with your family. If you ask me, that is unnecessary. It’s all the same room here.
Maybe it’s just me being minimalistic, though.

We have a naughty room, used principally for errant staff who require mild to moderate discipline.
It’s a soundproof room so the rest of the house need not be disturbed by their pitiful whimpers as they are tied to a chair & forced to listen to an album containing the pre war speeches of Benito Mussolini while watching a muted video of chimps slapping a rather bemused chicken.

Spare the rod, spoil the child staff.

@Hypocrisy_Central In Tennessee they called the formal living room the great room, and some people did furnish it in a manner that was inviting and during parties people used it. It didn’t feel like a stiff room just for show, but, as I mentioned above they had a hearty room if the kitchen rather than a large family room, and for day to day in the house I didn’t like that set up.

I grew up in a messy home, so when my first and second home had formal living rooms that were always neat I liked it. I didn’t have to tidy it, because I never did anything in those rooms, they were just there to show off my furniture and artwork. After the second house I was ready to give that up, although my living room furniture fit my third house so perfectly it was surprising. I have crescent shaped sofas, and that room had a round feel, it really was like I had hunted to make that room perfect when it was practically dumb luck.

The last house I designed I put a room at the front that I used as an office, but someone could put their formal living room in there. I had another room that was a cave room, basically a second living room, that could be a pool table room or kids play room, or even a bedroom. Lots of flex spaces I guess, I figured that’s good for resale.

Haha I’m poor, I barely have a fucking kitchen.

For the longest time I just not allow TV in the living room. It had to be in another room. Then Rick moved in, and the first thing he did was move the TV into the living room. >_<.

The house I grew up in had a consolidated kitchen/dining room/family room. All one big room, with a formal living room set apart. I liked this set up since this large room felt like the “gathering place”, plus you could easily see the big-screen TV while cooking at the stove. It can also be nice having a separate living room for more formal occasions.