Why donso many house have long narrow living rooms?

[Ninetwenty]

Like this one?

Where do you sit to watch TV?

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/92653314#/?channel=RES_BUY

Usually a knock through of an old school lounge/diner, or the separate "formal" front parlour and the informal family room.

Plus furniture was often smaller and more upright than modern furnishings. More like a padded bench than the sort of lounging furniture we favour nowadays.

Also terraced houses in our area are often very narrow, which was a form of mutual insulation back in the day. Lots of the houses round here are about 4m wide max, Inc party walls.

Our house has a smaller footprint than most houses here, but people.remark on how much bigger it feels because we have a proper hallway and square rooms.

Yeah that is bad @Ninetwenty Guaranteed to put me off (and DH.) So hard to furnish, and as you say, how can you watch TV from THAT angle?

We have always gone for houses with a pretty much square living room (like 15 ft x 15 ft,) or even 18 ft x 15 ft, like a little bit of a rectangle.

On that house you put the link to, the length o the living room is almost double the width, like 18ft x 9ft. Bloody awful.

Forgot to add pic. How can anyone watch TV properly?

It's almost certainly because that house had a small living room and a small dining room. It's not rocket science.

I'm looking to move next year and fed up with looking at houses on Rightmove where the sitting room is long and thin. Television invariably on the chimney breast with sofa directly opposite, about three feet away.

That's a moden house, built c. 1990, I don't think that's the reason in this case.

This describes my DMs house. Lots of smaller chairs or armchairs around the room. Great for family functions! But had to sit up one end to watch the small tv!

That is unusually narrow. I thought you were going to show a knocked through Victorian living and dining room which is long and thin but with better proportions.

My living room is like that. It has a window at each end (east and west) and a fireplace in the middle of the wall.

I love it. It is bright, cosy and warm . The fire and rug being the focal point.

TV is on a stand in the corner.

It ain't the size, it's what you do with it!

Yes, I do think this one is particularly badly laid out.

What is the Gameswarehouse machine in the photo?

3 of the bedrooms are miniscule as well. Very strange layout.

Agree.

It says

....bedrooms three and four offer versatile accommodation that can be used as additional bedrooms, a home office or nursery depending on requirements....

What a bizarre way to say that 2 of the 'bedrooms' are so small you can't swing a cat around in them. They don't even give the dimensions. Don't want to admit they're 5 ft x 6 ft in size I expect! 😆

As has been said, it's a dreadful design...

Bloody cheek flagging it up as a 4 bed. And the price is outrageous! It's Basildon!

And you're right @Ninetwenty this long thin lounge was not originally 2 separate rooms. It was designed like this.

No garden at the front either, and the back garden is small and overlooked, and the houses are crammed in. Almost claustrophobic!

It was a new build estate at the height of the housing boom. Coloquially known as Toy Town round here because of the way tiny houses were squeezed into tiny plots. Probably a bit earlier than the 1990 I said originally.

I'm looking to downsize and most small houses round here are in not very nice areas. This, from the outside, seemed like it might be suitable.

Clearly it was squashed in to a nearly unusable space, on a tight corner and then someone thought they could have four ‘bedrooms’. I think it’s hideous, I hate the shiny/slippery floors, the bedroom sizes are ridiculous (no storage whatsoever) and that living room is a tunnel/corridor.
I can’t understand why anyone would want to spend nearly £0.5m on it.

I can’t work out if it’s a new build or not
They squeezed the downstairs toilet, but there isn’t really room for and upstairs it will be better as three beds instead of four

ahh just seen it as a new build due to the building regs they have to have a downstairs toilet also they’ve gone for the four bedroom to try and increase it value but it fools no one

We had a look at one which was a new build. It was shocking. It was like a rabbit hutch. It had a downstairs toilet the utility room and then upstairs there is two ensuite which just made everything too small whereas if no downstairs toilet utility or ensuite would’ve been normal size rooms.

I hate them, it’s a main thing which would put me off a house. Much prefer a fairly square sitting room.

Ours has those proportions and we basically furnish it as two square rooms with matching decor - the far end has a tv area on one wall and a sofa against the opposite wall to watch it, the front has a wide cupboard on one side and a piano and bookcase on the other, there are windows in between the two parts. This works well for us.

It's not the narrowness of the living room that's the problem, it's the absurd location of the TV.

Ours is 11 x 18. I know an extra foot can make a difference, but it doesn't feel like that. Our tv is in a corner, so chairs/settees can be angled towards it. Also, our radiator is in a different position without a cover, so not so intruding in the room. Not for everyone, but we've got a fair amount of furniture in here, but can easily walk straight through.

TVs used to be deep but smaller screens and fitted best in corners of rooms.
Modern flatscreen TVs are massive and fit better on walls than across corners.
Plus a lot of houses were built before TV existed.

I do prefer square rooms. Our house has a square living room so two large sofas, a fireplace and a wall with door and TV. I love that room (a shame about the rest of the house!).

I think it would originally have bee designed for a dining table plus some sofas and chairs with the fire the focal point.

Our living room is 27ft by 13ft , because it's two rooms knocked into one. We have a TV end with sofas arranged in a loose L shape, and a reading end with a bookcase and two wingback recliner chairs. It also leaves plenty of space for a big Christmas tree without getting anyone's way.

I'm going to hazard a guess the TV is on a bracket that pulls out and swivels. And if it isn't, it ought to be!

It's OK if it's wide enough to be used in a "two squares in one room" format, which seems typical for a period house knocked through, but some are too long and narrow for that and it often seems to be 1980s onward houses. It has put me off buying houses before too.

Mines like this but I have a tiny kitchen.

So at one end I have the sofa and TV (not a massive TV as don’t need it) then at the other end I have a small breakfast bar/dining table.

As a PP said the TV could be on a swivel hinge else I can’t see why they’d not put the TV on the wall by the sofa