Help me not hate my house

[Househater]

I hate to moan because I know we are lucky to even have our own home but honestly our house is so small that it’s hard to love it. It’s me, DH and two DDs living here. We have plans to move to a bigger house out of the area but this would be when DD2 is starting secondary school in 7 years time so we’re stuck here until then.

We’ve got a largeish living room (17x12) and a small galley kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. I can live with the upstairs but doing all of our “living” in one room is awful! There is no space in the kitchen to put a table so we have to have a third of the living room taken up with a table and the room is such an awkward shape that it’s difficult to move furniture around to make it look better.

Has anyone got any suggestions of maximising our living space and just how to make it look nicer?

Can we please have a layout and then we can suggest ideas! I love a good houseplan thread :)

A few tips that i found helped me in the meantime,

Storage! I like storage with drawers so that things can be hidden away rather than on show.

Sometimes a quick pick me up is needed. A new vase, cushions, rug etc can make the world of difference if you have a focal piece you love.

Make sure the room is tidy when you go to bed so in the morning you aren’t walking into a cluttered mess making you feel down about a room you already dislike.

What kind of colours/styles do you like?

Ok so my drawing skills are nonexistent and this is the best I can come up with

What aspects of doing all your living in one room are frustrating you?

I'd probably look at making some of the upstairs space more useable- e.g. change around your kids' room so there's plenty of play space, add a comfortable chair and bookcase in your room to make a peaceful reading-nook type space.

For the table, can you have a look at fold-down or fold away type tables? Some of them disguise into cabinets. We used to have a fold away where the chairs tucked into the middle and you could wheel it aside.

Do you have outdoor space? My family grew up in a house very similar to what you describe and I remember spending most of the daytime outside, even in winter!

I should also add that my scale is horrible here - the round sofa looks enormous

I honestly how you feel, I'm the same, 2 children in a 2 bed house and no space for anything. we do have a large bathroom which I love and we do have a large room downstairs, It was 2 rooms but made into one before we moved in, so we do have the dining table on one far side and then the living room is kind of seperated because we have a corner sofa so it separates it.
But I second the idea of hidden storage, keep it minimal but lots of bits you can stuff all the kids toys or books or whatever.

My living room is a similar size and we also have the 2 doors forming a thoroughfare thing. I'd swap your tv and sofa around and wall mount the tv with the book case underneath (for DVD player, games console etc). I'd also go with the folding table/chairs stored underneath option suggested earlier.

Mousehole I think what I dislike the most is having to eat in the, already small, living room. We have it pushed as far into the corner as it will go, so we always have to move it out to seat the four of us. Also the chairs don’t fit under the table so it always looks a mess.

I think what has prompted this is that we have just ordered new carpet for the lounge, stairs and landing and our bedroom, which I am happy about but also makes me think the lounge will still look crap but with a new carpet!

No advice I'm afraid, but I would also like to moan too. What makes it worse is the weather is getting colder, and we spend more time indoors. Our house is on the market but not selling :(

Same boat here OP bit we are all on one level. 2 dc and can't move. We have a decent sized garden and could build a living room on to the kitchen and make the existing living room another bedroom and large cupboard (which we desperately need) but the garden is shared and we probably won't get the permission as the neighbour is kicking up a fuss about splitting the garden by putting a fence up, they don't even know we would like to do an extention so I doubt they will be ok with it. It's scunnering. I have decorated my house over the years to get it looking better. Mostly finished which makes me feel better about it bit it's still not big enough and I hate having the dinning table in the living room!

Can you get one of those golf town tables where the chairs are stored underneath?

www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6006558.htm

Or something like this?

www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6001443.htm

I also have a one room living situation but I think prob bit bigger than yours. In my lounge I have one really big sofa which we all sit on (not corner sofa as too bulky) and Ikea Kallax units with a combo of drawers, cupboards and boxes. I have one as a tv unit and one as a small sideboard. They're on feet so they look like proper furniture but store an awful lot of "stuff"

Fold down...not golf town lol

I would put the table in front of the window with maybe a chair or two with it. Other chairs go into the room as extra seating.

Round sofa goes on the back wall and becomes the book sharing sofa (looks like you can't see the tv from it)

Mumsnet heresy I know but I'd make a virtue of the dining room being in there by sometimes having tv on when you eat. We like a bit of Simpsons with our dinner....

is there a cuboard in your drawing? is there an option of taking the door off? maybe put shelves in there with maybe a few storage boxes instead of having a bookcase?

Replace the table's chair with benches? Looks slicker?

Significant declutter?

Not sure if you could consider a loan or add to the mortgage but we added a conservatory to the back of our small house and knocked the window through from the galley kitchen so it was open planish kitchen and dining, we also got a small reclining sofa in the conservatory and DH and I spent many evening in there away from the kids. We also added a cabin to the back of the garden with Pierre so teenagers had their own space. It came to £20k in total but it was so worth to have somewhere more comfortable for the 4 of us to cohabit and when we came to sell we really benefited from the value we had added.

We had that problem and decided to rent our house out and rent a bigger one until we could afford to sell. Worked for us! I would rather have a bigger space and the rent we received paid our mortgage.

Could you put in a conservatory? They make great dining rooms and don't require planing permission if they are bellow a certain size. I would also suggest replacing your dining table/chairs so that you can have a bench that tucks underneath to save on space and make it look neater.

I'd Google "tiny houses" and look at all the different ways people find solutions to living in very small spaces. Then see what ideas you like and could transfer across to your home. Also, read Marie London's book, "The life changing magic of tidying up" and have a grand decluttering spree!

Why are you unable to move any earlier?

Pinterest is good for tips on storage etc.

Great suggestions and ideas here! Thank you so much. I was just saying to DH that we need to have a massive declutter too - lots of stuff thrown in drawers and cupboards and not looked at for years!

Author of book is Marie Kondo. Autocorrect fail !!!!!

I'd look critically at the existing furniture to see if it could be swapped for something smaller to free up space or allow a different layout. Google hideaway table and chairs. Consider wall mounting the tv
Everything you own has to earn it's keep. You can't afford to give lots of possessions houseroom, they are costing you space you need so let go of things you don't use.

I wouod go and tour Ikea.
Not because if their products but because they always have great display of a whole small flat organised.
I’ve pinched plenty of ideas from there before. Type of furniture that would work better, layout etc (and then you can go and buy the stuff somewhere else!!)

One thing I have learnt is to maximise storage space and to be sure that things can have a double use (eg a storage box and a seat etc...)
Also have use the Kondo method to ‘loose’ stuff I dont need.
And made the best use out of the garage to use as a pantry too.