If you could have a separate cosy room, or a bigger main room… which would you go for?

[Jessforless]

We are imminently stating our extension, can’t actually wait and can’t believe it’s finally happening.

We currently have a through lounge diner and a separate kitchen. Adding to the back to create L kitchen-diner-seating area with TV.

I had planned to wall off the living room part of the through lounge diner, adding a doorway from the hall and making a snuggly separate room with the fireplace, TV, sofas, blankets etc…

Our builder is amazing and has said that because this is internal we can decide what we want to do right up to the wire..

So there are three options…

1. close it off, add a door to the hallway and make a separate room.
2. close it off, but do glass double doors to the dining / kitchen and have the ability to open it up…
3. leave it all open, light from front to back, no separation.

DH and his friends regularly meet around the dining table and DC really moan about this and the noise meaning they can’t watch TV…

what would you do?

We have done this recently. We have a small cozy sitting room with half glass double doors that let light through and can be opened up if we want to. There's comfy seating and a tv in there and a smart speaker if you just want to listen to podcasts/music etc. it's become our favourite room in the house.

We've just made a separate cosy room, I absolutely love it. Open plan looks great but isn't as liveable.

We’ve just had an extension and we now have a kitchen- dining- family room which is an L shape and a separate lounge. Lounge is very cosy (sadly no fireplace though!) I love it and it is working really well for us. The other week I had friends round for Prosecco and pizza and dh was in the lounge having peace while we used the other bit. Is also handy if my daughter is watching some shite programme on the tv - I can escape it!

Separate room but with glass double doors.

I have a main sitting room, plus a small cosy one off the kitchen/diner. We did it this way when open plan was all the rage, because I really don't like open plan. How we have our house works well for our family, we have quiet space we can retreat to.

Separate cosy room.

We have a separate cosy living room, we always intended it to be our nice child free living room but the kids have gradually taken over it. It is nice to sit in in the evening with the log burner on though. It rarely gets used during the day.

When I had a very grumpy teenage boy practically couch bound for six months following an accident I was so glad I had a separate living room that could be closed off when he had his friends around as well as our big open plan area. To me it’s the best of both worlds.

I had a spare bedroom at one point. I turned it into a cosy tv room.

I loved it. My partner could watch his noisy sport shows and not bother me. I could watch a movie late at night and not worry it was disturbing anyone sleeping.

The children watched the tv in the open plan lounge dining kitchen area, so I could keep an eye on what they were watching.

The oldest child boomeranged home again and needed a bedroom, so we all went back to watching tv in the open plan area. I really missed the tv room.

Separate or soundproof glass doors. I'd plan to have curtains or blinds on the doors.

1 Separate room.

We have this, and it's bliss. DH can watch crappy (and noisy) sport on tv in the living room. And I can sit and read or knit in peace in the snug. One open plan room means you can never just get away from noise and other people.

If we ever move it's the one thing I will be insisting on in the next house. I could not go back to being in one room.

Seperate cosy room. We have a snug and I love it. It isn't under a bedroom so you can watch TV late at night in there and myself and DH like to cosy up on the sofa in there under a throw while the kids watch their own programmes. We have a big family room that used to open into the kitchen diner but furniture placement was really awkard with two double doors into the kitchen diner, another door into the hallway and double patio doors out into the garden, so I made that a seperate room as well. I am not a big fan of open plan living!