What would you do with a second reception room?

[JackieTheFart]

We’re (hopefully) moving soon to a much bigger house - kids will have a bedroom each, well have a large garden, a kitchen diner and a second reception room currently with doors that open into the living room.

I’m not really interested in having a formal dining room, and as the children get bigger I’d really like a room that they (and all of us really) can use together.

I’m considering a games room of some description, maybe with a small pool table, but I’d love to read some inspiration and I’d you’re brave enough to share, see some pictures?

Thanks all

We have a living room which is more formal for guests/ reading or working in. Second reception is a family room with TV where we spend most of our time. We do also have a small study with cupboards for coats/shoes, it used to be the dining room.

We are in a similar position. We have a large kitchen diner and a sitting room at the back of the house with two extra reception rooms at the front which look out onto the street (so they can be viewed by passers-by as the windows are large). It's a Victorian House so the rooms are both quite large. One is a designated study and the other one is currently a formal dining room but it's hardly used. We are going to turn the latter into a library/music room with a double sided fire to our other sitting room. Like this hopefully: pin.it/4fSCUs5
Just need to find some spare cash!

For kids that age I’d use it as a second living room/games room that they can hang out with their friends in

We have 3 receptions. One is the lounge, one is the “reading room dumping ground and the third is my glass studio.

We use ours as a formal dining room but at the moment it is mainly used as a study for dh. If we had three reception rooms I would have used one as a playroom as my kids are little. In your case a games room sounds like a fab idea, you could have some arcade type gaming machines in there, or if big enough a pool table or put the games console in there and get some gaming chairs.

Mine is a play/toy room by DS is only 4 so much needed! I think when he is older it will be a games / cinema room with a desk for home working and this will free up a bedroom. I actually want built in cupboards / seating and desk so a multifunctional space 🤣

We have 3 plus a study,

The first one is part of open plan kitchen dinner (sofas and coffee table down one end) this is the main used one, it really is the hub of the home.

2nd is a very grown up living room, big squishy sofas big TV but barley used even though it is lovely and comfy.

The 3rd is currently set up as a gym, rowing machine, exercise bike, running machine, punch bag. but we've in the past had a pool table in there and the dart board is still on the wall. it got occasional use as a games room, but as a gym it was very much used during lockdown by the DC.

Mine is a study/craft room with a sofa bed.

We have four teens. This is our second reception which is a games room (it’s meant to be a dining room but it seemed a waste of such a nice space). We love it (more than the actual living room to be honest). The TV unit wouldn’t fit on the photo but it has the consoles, VR headsets and TV.

The pictures and cushions are all references to games, TV shows, movies etc. We did the pictures ourselves as a bit of a fun project.

The living room is a bit more formal so hardly ever gets used apart from when people want to watch different stuff on tv.

Having two reception rooms is brilliant when you have a big family.

Love all these ideas! @Minfilia is your sofa a sofa bed? I honestly can’t wait to have another room. I’m leaning towards having the gaming stuff in there and maybe considering pool table in a few years time.

Ours is a shocker but useful space overall.
Two wardrobes for coats, jackets, winter gear
PC
All the house admin on shelves
Rowing machine
Table/ desk
Guitars hanging on wall, amplifiers on floor.
That's the purposeful stuff
Books and sewing stuff hanging about
Whatever junk is piled on top of wardrobes
Nest of tables
Couple of noticeboards.....

We have a front room and a back room although the back room is actually plan apart from 1 supporting column with the kitchen / eating area.
We find the kids tend to be in the front room with the games consoles and me and DH are in the back room with just the tele.
I also WFH currently in the front room on an Ikea desk.

Both rooms have access to all the same streaming platforms etc and it's nice to have the kids downstairs instead of upstairs (mostly )

I’d really reconsider the pool table unless you’ve someone on the house who is a fanatic, my brother had one growing up and they just take up a lot of space, and honestly it changes the purpose of the room. It’s no where near as nice to put guests up next to it, you need to maneovre round it etc,

If you want it as a second living room and social space, then the games consoles can be placed discreetly in a unit, and then just kit it out with sofas etc and it means it is multi purpose and aren’t sitting peering round a pool table.

I would install a wine fridge and lock my family out

We have a, 'snug'. It's a second reception room which has a doorway to the dining room.

It was once the kitchen of the house many years ago, I think.

We use it as an extra living room. We purchased a double seat recliner settee for it last week. I have made a small cabinet (self assembly) to put a t.v. on. I purchased a small table to put next to the sofa when we purchased to sofa.

It's a useful extra relaxing room. When one of us wants to watch a different t.v. show, there's a nice relaxing space all ready. It's lovely to be able to look at the back garden and the line of fir trees glistening in the rain.

Mine are 1, 1 and 6 so it would absolutely be a play room however much I want a library. Then would merge into a study / games / library combo so bookshelves, comfy chairs, pull down projector screen. etc

We've made our second reception room into a games room so the kids can play on the PS4 etc and not take over the main lounge

We have 2 reception rooms , the larger one has the family TV , Sky , piano etc the second one has TV with Sky , 2 different types of Xbox and a PS4 . It’s only our now adult ds that uses the consoles on the odd occasion that he is at home . Since wfh started dh also now uses the second lounge as an office ( because he doesn’t want to work upstairs in what is the actual office ) .

Ours has the piano and DH's (many) guitars and the cupboard with his sheet music, so we usually call it 'the Music Room' but it also has a bed-settee so can be used for guests.

I've got a room with double doors to the lounge and a separate door to the hall.

It was originally a playroom with storage and floor space to play. It also had a TV and Wii.

As the kids got older I added a corner sofa bed, still with the TV & Wii.

In 1st lockdown I put a desk for ds2 in there so he wasn't spending all his time I his room online on his own.
I've now rearranged the room and have my desk as I've been working from home throughout.

2 pics are as it is now, one from the lounge into the room, one from the sofa under the window towards the room.

Ours used to be a playroom, but is now a snug.
Just a sofa and a large tv. We have movie nights in there, and when DD has friends over they use that room.

I got my boys a pool table when they were about 8 & 5. Not full sized but you still need a lot of room around them to play.
Ours was in the conservatory over winter (it was a Christmas present) where we usually have a kitchen table and chairs (also have a separate dining room and conservatory is cold over the worse winter months so don't use it in the evenings, so losing it to a pool table wasn't awful).
In the summer it went under a bed and was brought out again in the autumn, this regenerated interest and so it was used again, I think more than if it had been out full time. We had several years of use, but I think it's been under the bed for quite a few years now!

Not very good shots of pool table in conservatory the year we got it, and pushed to the end of the conservatory with the table back in place one summer (DH was V ill so we hadn't got around to moving it - that was actually quite good as we could push the table up the kitchen and pull the pool table into use).

We have two reception rooms on the ground floor. Our basement is converted and we use that as the lounge, and the other room on the ground floor as the dining room.

The remaining room we use a junk/mud room as we don't have a garage etc. We use it for all our bikes, outdoor gear, coats and shoes.

I'm in a similar position with a spare room. Kids grown so no need for a games or play room. Don't want a formal dining room and I already have an office upstairs.

Thinking about using it as a spare bedroom but I'm a little stuck. It's currently the cats room.