to not have furniture (according to my mother - I dispute this claim!)

[QOFE]

We have a kitchen with a large table and dining chairs which we eat/draw/do homework/play playdoh round, and obviously we all have beds. Teenager has a desk with chair for work as do I, plus we all have bookshelves and Kallax type storage units aplenty.

What we don't have, is expensive soft furnishings. Our living room (which is also my workroom, for which I need clear floor space during the week) has a comfy corner with loads of big floor cushions and a beanbag. One smallish TV that sits on a wooden stand (cheapy IKEA one). One nice plain coffee table that we sometimes eat at, sat on cushions on the floor. No sofa/settee/couch (see, I don't even know what to call one) and no armchairs. We lounge around on the floor and make cushion nests instead.

According to my mother this means we "don't have any furniture" and therefore frightfully bohemian and peculiar. I disagree and think we have plenty of furniture

My parents don't have a sofa, and I bloody hate it. They have their own armchairs, but when I visit I sit on a dining chair. Their house is really small (Welsh cottage) and the main room is two small rooms knocked into one with kitchen at one end and living room/dining area at the other. There's a table with two dining chairs and their two armchairs. To be fair, there is no room for a sofa and a table, and they wouldn't contemplate not having a table, so there aren't any other options, but it isn't very comfortable for visitors!

Sounds perfectly fine. It's your house and you aren't harming anybody in the process. I think its more odd to not have a dining table, and that TV dinners on the sofa are considered "normal".

PP beat me to it - give yourself 10-15 years then you might feel the need for a sofa or armchairs. It's not the getting down on to the floor but the getting back up again I find tricky now that I'm pushing 60

Well i absolutely love my sofa and couldn't be without it...it's the comfiest place in the house. However if you are happy (and flexible enough) to be happy with floor cushions then crack on-it's your house so hang what everyone else thinks...

It's pretty unusual and I would personally find it a bit uncomfortable.

If I were your guest, I'd find it uncomfortable spending the entire evening sitting at the table, and also uncomfortable sitting on cushions on the floor. As people say, if any of your visitors are elderly or have mobility difficulties you really wouldn't be doing them any favours.

I must admit that it is unusual, but I wouldn't judge. I might think that you were a throwback hippy from the 1970s.

At 60 I'm agile enough to sit on a floor - I often do even though we do have two settees.

That said I'm a huge hypocrite because like a pp my parents just have two armchairs and a sort of hard love seat thing in their living room which is the most uncomfortable chair in the world. When we go and stay with them it's really uncomfortable-they are very old so we mainly watch telly of an evening when there and it's not very pleasant.
They have room for a sofa but just don't have one.
And I moan about that plenty (in my own head obvs not out loud)

I sat on the floor just fine when I was 40. Now I'm 57 sitting on the floor is agony and I cannot get up without something substantial to lean on to haul myself up, thanks to arthritis and a bad back.
I can manage a dining chair for the duration of a meal but a whole evening leaves me in a lot of pain.
Getting old sucks.

My DH lies on the floor at night to watch tv, says it is easier on his back. Our kids often did the same when they were at home. If I didn't have an armchair to sit in he would have to help me up off the floor due to OA in my hips.

What you do is up to your own family and their needs. But you will probably change the arrangements as you get older yourselves.

If we didn’t have a sofa where would the dog sleep? To be honest when we have guests they tend to kind of stand at that kitchen work surface or sit at the kitchen table.

We don't have a sofa or a dining table. We have a couple of hefty well-padded chairs in the front room, and the kitchen table is generally used for stashing relevant papers and for DS to do his homework. We have beds, and bookshelves, and a couple of coffee tables of sorts for the fishtank and the telly. But I am just not interested in furniture: most of what we have is handed down.

So visitors have the choice of a hard chair at the dining table or a cushion nest on the floor? I'm with your mother as that does seem pretty inhospitable to me, OP.

But I also can't believe that someone doesn't know what to call a sofa, so I am a bit about this thread in general.

I think it's unusual and bohemian seems like quite a good label. Though obviously, that's just one aspect of your home so may not be a good description of the rest of it. I would have quite liked this 20 years ago, but nowadays I'd be achey sitting on floor cushions for all that long, maybe that's really why your DM keeps going on about it. But if it works for you and you don't often host people on the other side of 50, I don't think conforming to other's expectations is a good reason to change.

I think it sounds great. If I could get away with it I would have no sofa either and use a futon for sleeping. I much prefer curling up on the floor on a cushion to sitting on the sofa.

It is odd. You sound proud of being so bohemian (“see, I don’t even know what to call one”) Don’t be ridiculous, of course you know, you grew up sitting on one...
Why on earth would you refuse to have a sofa?

Sounds great if you're still young enough to sit comfortably on the floor. Your home, do what suits you.

@Chiccroissant OP doesn’t have a house for visitors though does she? She has it for her family to live in.
And all she said was she wasn’t sure which of the many words to use. She knows what a sofa is.
People look at me like I’ve got two heads when I say I dont have a tv, but we’ve no need for one. I’m not spending unnecessary money to keep occasional visitors happy.

There is always the drive to entertain visitors on I suppose Owl* as it would be unusual to never have visitors to your home especially if you have a teen!

*that's a reference to a different recent thread

Lots of ethnic groups sit on the floor my friend doesn’t have a sofa they also don’t have a dining table.It wasn’t strange I had seen this a lot whilst growing up.
What was strange was my discomfort at seating on the floor
Personally couldn’t do it .
Only a mother or someone close would voice their opinion.

true @Chiccroissant
My teenage visitors appear at my door and then disappear into the Pits of Doom to talk about if V or Suga is better looking in BTS or whether their eyebrows look on fleek today. Other than that i don’t get many visitors. Maybe that’s why

It is incredibly odd.
I've been in a LOT of people's houses over many many years and can't think of anyone who hasn't had a sofa or at least big comfy armchairs, except someone starting out in their first home and using deckchairs until the settee arrived.
I would be very uncomfortable in a home with no comfy chairs nor settee.
Your mother is absolutely right, and it is you that is odd.

If you're 40 then your mum's around 60? She'll find it harder and harder to get up from the floor. Could you get a couple of small armchairs?

Ah but Shirley you need a sofa to curl up on when you are poorly sick, huddled under a duvet, red nose from sneezing, high on lemsip

Your DM is being a bit dramatic. No sofa is unusual but not ridiculous. Since your living room is upstairs I think that makes it understandable, getting one up there could be a nightmare. Otherwise if someone had no sofa I'd think they were either poor or trying to be trendy.