Check out this very interesting article about “Here’s all the space we waste in American homes” - complete with a heat map of where people are spending time in their house - and where they are NOT.
Look at the map. The dining room as one might predict - desolate! The kitchen and family room, hearts of the home.
Bringing all kinds of discussion about “is bigger really better” in a home? What do we really need? What rooms could we do without? Do we build/buy homes for use or to impress?
I think many will agree that a dining room goes often unused. Not always, but often in many homes. Ours was largely unused until H started a small business and he uses the dining room table on and off during the day for work projects.
I disagree with this map re: the porch. Our sunporch is really like a family room and gets very frequent use.
I love a big house. I admire them, want to tour them, would treasure having one without the costs attached! But our home, 2000 square feet was pretty fine for a family of 5. (note: another bathroom would have been VERY helpful!)
Our most used room? I would guess kitchen. Next a split between the living room and sun porch.
Least used room? Still got to go with the dining room.
Thoughts? Ideal square footage for you? Room you could do without???
I have a very small home and truthfully, I never really wanted or needed a bigger one. But it’s just my daughter and me, so we are a small family. I wouldn’t want to take care of a bigger house - that’s more work than I want.
My dining room is my computer work area. I don’t remember the last time we ate a meal there. But that dining room table has my laptop, bills, and a few other odds and ends on it. Keeps the mess out of the rooms we really DO use!
We use our dining room all the time when it is too cold to eat outside. What we don’t use… is the kitchen nook. It is totally opposite to what was going on in House1.
We use our dinning room quite often. It is important for us to have at least one meal with everyone sitting together and just eat and chat. Kitchen nook is for breakfast and quick bites.
We have an eat-in kitchen and a dining room. Dining room is where DH dumps his stuff when he comes home. Kitchen table seats four and is where we eat. Lots if folks in our neighborhood have opened up the small galley kitchen and made the LR/DR/kitchen into one big space. House is @2400 sq ft including partially finished basement. Like most 60s split levels, there are many small rooms. We don’t use our living room much. Family room, yes. Our 4th bedroom (office) gets tons of use.
House is around 2000 square feet. I live alone; I got the house in the divorce because my ex has not been in a position to live here for several years. (He is his parents’ full-time, live-in caregiver in a city 150 miles away.) I literally live in the living room. I use one of two bathrooms and the kitchen; I occasionally wander into the dining room, the basement, or one of the bedrooms but I don’t use them for any activities regularly. The house has much more space than I need but I love the backyard and the neighborhood and so I’m not ready to sell.
When we remodeled we combined the kitchen and dining room into one open area with a banquet and a round table. My remodeler was all, “are you sure you don’t want a formal separate dining room?” and I was like I never use it and the heck with resale. Once a year at Thanksgiving we bring in a portable table, throw a tablecloth over it and call it a dining room. Nobody complains.
We also live in the living room. We don’t have a family room. I just wish we had two showers now that we’re both retired. There’s a daily conversation about who should shower first.
The dning room may not be used much but it’s used on the most important occasions. And what the alternative? Never having a large family gathering ever? I need a house with lots of rooms that have nice heavy doors that close otherwise I start to lose my mind. My family couldn’t have lived in an Rv because I would have run away from all the togetherness so fast their heads would spin
We have about 1800 square feet. When it was just the two of us, we used the living room, kitchen, dining room (aka mud room and office) and one bedroom. Two kids, the other two bedrooms used and the family room was filled with toys and activities. One went off to college, then the other, and we were back to using the living room, kitchen, dining room and one bedroom. One is back home for now and is using both her and her sister’s room.
I visited friends in a 24,000 sq ft home. Where did the family spend their time? Not in the huge and beautiful formal spaces. On a day to day basis they used three bedrooms, an attic playroom, an office, and mostly the roughly 20x40 open plan kitchen/family room.
Our previous house was around 2300 sq ft (3 br and an office) which sounds roomy but with 3 young kids, a hubby that worked at home some of the time, and parents from out of town who would come to stay for a week at a time several times a year we really started feeling like we needed more space. Moved to this house which is something like 3600 sq. ft about 8 years ago. I love it but it’s too big. We rarely have houseguests any more so the guest room that seemed like a ‘must have’ when we moved here hardly gets used. Our oldest is in college so only home a few weeks a year and the other 2 are in high school. I spend all of my time in the family room and kitchen when I’m awake, my youngest actually does hang out in the dining room (because that’s where his laptop lives), my hubby hangs out in his office and my middle kid has a bedroom downstairs right by the kitchen.
Apparently people spend a lot of time in the toilet (per the map)!
I’ve told my kids not to buy too big a house. Maintenance gets expensive. They both have cute little houses that are plenty of space. Not sure if that will stay the same once my son gets married next year.
My big goal right now is declutter move and downsize. I want a nice little houseboat is easy to maintain. Must have 2 toilets though - I couldn’t live with my DH in a house with just one. I’m too old to be squatting over a chamberpot!
We have a home that is 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, plus a kitchen, dining room, family room and patio. We don’t use the patio or yard much but it was good to have when the kids were young plus we like having our lawn and vegetation with some privacy between our home and neighbors. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have more space for storage but now that the kids have moved out, we COULD use their rooms for storage.
I started with a 1200 sf home when I first built it and was single, at that time I always rented a room to a friend to help pay the mortgage. After my second child was born, I added another 700 sf which was much needed; it added an office for myself and a second bathroom, pretty much a haven for me with a master bed/bath/laundry, office and large closet lol.
I am now downsizing to a 700 sf apartment and renting the house once that is completed (finally framed so the fun will start now!). I find that I am never on the first floor of the house anymore without any kids at home, I spend all my time on the second floor in my office/den. I use the kitchen every day but never the small dining area or living room and my daughter used her bedroom exactly 3 nights this entire summer.
That being said, outdoor space is VERY important to me. I have a large wrap around deck with nice table and grill which I use often. I also sit on more than an acre and enjoy what that brings me. While my apartment will not have a large yard, it will have a nice deck area.
The smaller the space, the less the utilities and more importantly, less to keep clean !
Our kitchen breakfast room has a table that has three leaves in it. We have done a lot of less formal “important occasion” dining, and when there are more people, we add the leaves to that table. We can easily seat 12 people there.
Our next house will be smaller…and will have a great room, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 full baths, 2 bedrooms, a den, and a laundry room. I can picture it in my head.
We live in a 2700 sf house and hardly ever used the formal LR and DR. We have a large eating area between the kitchen and FR that accommodates a good-sized table, so those rooms are the ones we mostly live in.
In a few weeks, we’re moving to a 1200 sf 2BR apt. I won’t miss the formal LR and DR, but I will miss counter space in the kitchen and storage space throughout.
It is totally opposite to what was going on in House1.