Play room for 5-8 year olds

[Classicblunder]

We are planning an extension and as part of that, I was trying to figure out how we might use our house differently when the children are a bit older.

Currently, we use half of our double reception room as a playroom - our kids are 5 and 2 so they have things like play kitchen, train set etc in there.

If you have slightly older children, do you find you still need a play area downstairs? What sort of thing do you have in it? Or in the future, are we more likely to want to set up a quiet homework area?

I am just starting to think about how we lay out our space and choose furniture to be ready for the next phase

Definitely no to play room. We had one when we moved into this house (children were 5&3) and it lasted about a month. It was always full of toys, children kept trailing toys around the house, wanting to be where we are. When we renovated the house we kept with two nice sitting rooms (one is a bit more formal, one more cosy), and a piano/study room. Children play wherever and there is much more emphasis on tidying up when it’s in multipurpose space. Also, at 7&5 we don’t really have the play kitchen anymore. It’s all about the Lego. They are currently in the other sitting room playing on the switch. I’m under a blanket on my own

We had a playroom growing up which was where we stored toys and sometimes played (though often moved toys out of there to play too). We actually used it more as we got older as we hung out there with friends when we were teens (obviously we’d replaced things like play kitchens with a dart board and pool table by that stage!)

I would have a playroom still.

5 and 7 year olds still play a lot I think.

Comfy sofa and tv for if you want them to watch a kids film with friends when people are over and adults talking in different room. Nice place to read for school books and leisure.

Decent storage for board games, and lego. Place for all arts and crafts storage even if they use at main table ( school always want you to build a castle at 5pm on Sundays), so basic glue/ tapes/ pens.
5-10 year olds still like tents/ forts/ setting up huge castles and play mobil areas.

It’s a good place for play to happen if you have play dates and want to limit mes sun bedrooms and can keep an eye on what’s going on a bit more. When teenagers I would prefer they hang out in second living room/ playroom for tv and games instead of bedrooms.

To be clear, we weren't thinking of a separate closed off room - what we currently have works well, half of the double reception room is play area but it's open to the more grown up half

Playroom needs to be in or off the kitchen, otherwise it doesn’t work. Same for study for the older children - you need to be visible for homework supervision purposes, otherwise they’ll be online gaming.

Mine are 8, 6 and 2. We have had a playroom since the oldest were 2 and 1.
We’re soon going to turn it into a second living room. The older 2 prefer to play in their bedrooms now, and the toddler just drags his toys into the living room to be near to me.

We split our large living room into a living room and playroom when the dc were 3 and 5, this is knocked through to the kitchen. It still houses most of their toys and games, be also has a sofa bed, desk and the PlayStation. The dc are 10 and 13 now. If the PlayStation was in one of their bedrooms, it would be hard to control, and I’d literally never see them. The desk was DH’s lockdown workspace, but is now a homework desk.

We have a similar set up and my dc are now 5-10. The playroom is used everyday. We have a massive desk area that they can sit at together with loads of arts and craft bits, tonnes of books, puzzles and board games, masses of Lego and playmobil. We still have a toy kitchen which the younger two still play with and youngest has a couple of boxes of wooden train track still.

@Thesearmsofmine

We have a similar set up and my dc are now 5-10. The playroom is used everyday. We have a massive desk area that they can sit at together with loads of arts and craft bits, tonnes of books, puzzles and board games, masses of Lego and playmobil. We still have a toy kitchen which the younger two still play with and youngest has a couple of boxes of wooden train track still.

This was helpful and reminded me that I have been wondering whether we need separate desks/kids table space or whether just using the dining table would work