What to do with two living rooms

[hummusscot]

Looking for a bit of inspiration. After living in flats with a small kitchen and not much bigger living room for most of my life, we'll be moving to a detached house with a big living room, medium sized kitchen, small downstairs loo, big dining room with doors into a big garden, and then upstairs family bathroom and 3 bedrooms (one with an en suite, whaaaat!) Glorious, but I have no idea what to do with all the space so it's also pretty overwhelming.

Moving in will be my partner and I, my teenage sibling and two cats. We will also be getting a dog and are trying for a baby. We have friends over a lot (who often have small kids) and family stay often-ish. So we're looking for ideas that are kid friendly, animal friendly, and will suit more than three people at a time.

Thanks in advance!

So, one living room and one dining room? What's overwhelming about that?
Either use them as most people do or if your kitchen is big enough to eat in you could turn the dining room into a playroom when you have kids.

@Iamagrey Yes but they're both massive and a dining table isn't going to take up a whole room :)

It may not sound overwhelming but I've lived in very cramped flats with shared back courts my whole life- no idea what people do with so much space and we'd like to make it homely :)

Have you got a floor plan of house?

You could have one for summer and one for winter :)

@ManyFloral No because it's rented so there's not one attached on the website

@yousignup People do that? Wow!

How vast are the rooms that you'd lose a table in them?!

Music room in one which doubles as a guest room when required.

TV in the other.

Not me, but there is a poster on here who has seasonal sitting rooms. I have a tiny room with a sofa and dining table and washing machine and broken dryer altogether.

@LizzieMac Oh wow that's a really lovely idea!

We are moving to a house with a big farmhouse kitchen plus two other reception rooms.

I have persuaded DH to ditch the dining room and have two sitting rooms. I think they will get used more. I can count the number of times that the table in our dining room has been used on one hand (since 2009), we always use the kitchen table as it is a much more sociable experience.

I reckon two sitting rooms would work quite well for you in your position, as long as the kitchen is big enough to seat the number of people you will feed at the table.

@ElanorGamgee I'm not sure if the table will fit in the kitchen but I agree that kitchen tables work better than a dining room

We have two living rooms, one with DP's playstation and TV in so he can watch lots of History programs and News etc. The second one has DS and DD's playstation in and a TV so they can watch the kinds of programs that interest them. We all go into the bigger living room together to watch a film or nature documentary or something together for about half an hour each evening.

Maybe your teenage sibling would like a tv in one room and you and your dp a tv in the other so that you could watch different things/game etc. Then you could all go into one living room to watch things you all like.

What are the dimensions of the dining room? Can we have a floor plan?

If it’s big enough, you could have half the dining room for the table and then a sofa/chairs by the doors to the garden for sitting in with the dog.

Or put the dining table in the middle of the room and get a table tennis table that goes on top, if you would enjoy playing ping pong.

Or a piano, they always look nice.

I think you’ll get used to the space quite quickly!

@Tinty That would be great idea but my DP is the only one that watches TV really. Teenage sister just spends most of her life on her laptop haha!

When my children were small we moved from a sitting room & dining room type house into a house with enough rooms for a playroom too. The playroom saved my sanity.
If you are thinking of having children there that might be worth bearing in mind for the future.

Buy a nice sofa bed for dining room so it doubles as a second sitting room and guest bedroom . That is what we have done and it works really well. We have the space for formal dining if required but it is not unused the rest of the time.

I've a larger sized dining room. It also houses the piano, a sideboard and some book shelves.

@greatpumpkin No floor plan (it's rented, not buying it and there's not one on the website) but the living room has small-ish bay windows and the dining room has one of those big glass patio doors that take up most of one wall. I've always wanted a proper piano, that would be amazing!

@FaFoutis Yes that's definetely a good idea for the future :)

Sounds fab!! My friend was the same - she moved from a tiny one bed flat with a kitchen/living/diner into a place that sounds like yours. She kept losing her DH

They did this:
Small table in the kitchen with 2 chairs there all the time; works as additional worktop space and place for quiet coffee. There's a small TV mounted on the wall, they use it mainly to watch the news in the morning I think (or did when I stayed over!)
Back room with garden doors they put a big dining table just as you go into the room, then near the doors a pair of armchairs and lovely bookshelves on either side of the doors and round to the walls at either side. All their books, board games, vinyl etc are stored there and they have lovely boxes and mini sets of drawers for other random things that need a home. They also have a couple of big dining pieces like a platter that takes up a shelf as a decoration.
In the living room they have sofas, TV and fireplace plus her DH's x-box. It's a good space and is very clutter-free. There's also a piano at the back of the room.

Their house is lovely and while they have loads of stuff, it doesn't feel cluttered I think because most of the day to day storage is a "feature". I love going there!

@caoraich
Oh wow that really sounds nice. The living room where we're moving also has a fireplace. I think the kitchen will have space for a teeny table rather than a proper eating from one so I like that idea in particular.

I also forgot to mention that both my DP and I work from home most days. Trying to work out if/where to put desk space- at the mo we just work on the sofa!

Oh also if you have cats - will they be going outside and is there a cat flap somewhere?

If not, it's possible to have a cat flap put into glass doors - even double glazed ones, it does mean replacing it though. You can also keep the original glass and put it back when you move out, since you're renting.

Assume bedrooms will be yours, sister's and guest room for now. When a baby comes along it might be worthwhile thinking of a good quality sofabed for the main living room.

They're outdoor cats and we don't have a catflap where we are now. We're also not allowed to put a catflap in the new place- I know that would be a dealbreaker for most people but we're used to letting them out as and when.

Yes that's the current plan for the bedrooms :)

Ok. I have two living rooms and two dining areas plus one in the kitchen so we have space. In your case I would open up the medium sized kitchen into the dining room, if you can, to make one large space. Then you won’t be cramming a small table in the kitchen but would easily get a table and settee in the new opened up room. Is this is possible.

If the dining room is a decent size, put a table in it and you can possibly get a Home office unit in there as well. We have our Home office in the hall with our grand piano so you can use all sorts of space for Home working. It really depends what works for you. Casual dining in a big kitchen is cosier than formal dining in my view.

I have a big dining room too and I have an 8 seater dining table in there, there's a sofa in the bay window, shelves over cupboards (built in) on one wall where I keep books, records and a record player. Big Plant in the corner, You will soon fill up the space!