If you had a house with two reception rooms and a kitchen large enough to have a table in...

[headfairy]

would you have one reception room as a living room and one as a playroom when you come to sell the place?

We currently have our front room as a grown up living room. No toys, nice sofas we try and keep clean and fingerprint free. Our second reception room leads on to the kitchen and was originally the dining room, however we have a sofa, a shelving unit on one wall with tv built in to it, a desk with computer and lots of toys (tidied away in boxes I hasten to add). The kitchen is long and at one end we have a table which if truth be told is a bit big for the space (dh didn't measure very well), it's a 6 seat oak table, but we can all fit around it, so it does show that you can easily get a decent sized table in the kitchen.

When we come to sell, do we move the large table in to the playroom/dining room and get rid of the desk/toys/books etc, or do we leave things as is?

Ours is like that, massive kitchen-diner. The diner bit is huuuuge.

And yet another reception room was marketed as the dining room. It's now our study. Our neighbours seem to have done the same thing.

I would ask the agent?

Our kitchen isn't massive... but the end bit is big enough to get a good sized table in. I'm just curious as to whether people prefer to eat away from their kitchens and all the clutter and mess therein

It's not on the market yet, we're a bit away from that point yet, we've got some redecorating to do first.

I reckon if the kitchen is large enough to have a table in then leave it, its fine. Keeping the other room as the playroom just shows how much else you can do with the space. It wouldn't put me off at all.

I prefer to eat in the kitchen, personally, but poncey people without young DCs like my MIL might disagree!

Our neighbours who's house is a mirror of ours have their dining room as a proper dining room and I'm always curious as to where they keep all their toys. Their dd has a larger bedroom than ds's though as they did a loft conversion, so she's got the big bedroom on the first floor. I think lots must be up there I tried that, ds kept bringing the bloody things back downstairs!

I would leave the table in the kitchen and have a second sitting room.

It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to see that it could be a dining room. But some people may not be able to "see" a table fitting in the kitchen space.

It's exactly the layout we have in our house - presumably it's a family house so that's who you need to be appealing to. The agent can make the point that the playroom could easily be a dining room, study or second sitting room. I don't know anyone who uses a formal dining room any more. I much prefer eating in the kitchen and keeping all the mess in one wipe-clean place

i would leave as is.

massive bonus to have playroom next to kitchen. i think it'll appeal to a wide audience.

for those who don't have kids, they could just use it as a dining room. not difficult to visualise it.

So long as the toys are tidy, as you describe, I'd leave it as it is. We have one room as a study/slob room and one as a sitting room, with the only table in the kitchen. I far prefer that arrangement than a 'formal dining room' which I think is quite old fashioned, unless you are very posh (we are not at all posh, clearly).

oh good, that does save us a lot of re-arranging and putting things in storage. I will have a big declutter and tidy up of the toys before we go live with the sale... but it's great to know that beyond that and cleaning all the goo off the sofa I don't have to do much to that room.

Oh God, Remus we're so not posh :o It's just a very average 3 bed victorian semi, in a family friendly area and street so we're most likely to get families coming to see the place I assume.

When we sold our previous house, the estate agent advised us that since it was a 'family home' we should ensure that it 'looked like a family home' and keep up the dds' drawings etc. It sold in less than a week (though this was a few years ago)!

We've looked at lots of houses arranged like this. Agents like to call the second sitting room the 'family room' rather than a play room. If we buy the house we are currently offering on we will also have to decide what to do with a second sitting room, and I've been pushing for the family room thing. DH wants to knock the wall out between it and the kitchen diner though which is a ridiculous idea and have a massive open plan area.

I've ummed and ahhhhed about that too rhubarb because then we old extend in to the side return too and make the kitchen wider, but we'd lose our only window in the playroom. It wouldn't matter tht much as we would get light from the kitchen (and would most likely have a glazed roof to the side return extension which would give light in to the playroom) but I quite like being able to shut the door on the rumbling machines and the mess in the evening.

On property programmes they always used to insist that each room should be dressed for its formal purpose, so if you had 2 receptions one should be presented as a formal dining room. And its true that not everyone has kids and would be able to see the benefits of a playroom.

On the other hand if I were lucky enough to have a big enough kitchen to eat it then I definitely would, and use the 2nd reception for playroom/whatever.

I would hope you could credit most potential buyers with the imagination to plan their own layouts!

eat in the kitchen, I meant

We have a huge 30ft kitchen and only have a dining table in this room. Like you our second reception room is a 2nd sitting room where dh plays on the wii and the children use this a lot. It's not decorated as a play room and looks pretty smart, so no if we came to sell we would leave it as it is. It's pretty likely a family would buy this house and I think to have a second sitting room is a plus and I'm pretty sure they would be sensible enough to see it could be a dining room :)

We have a kitchen with room for a good sized table plue three reception rooms.
Oddly we use the more formal room as a playroom/family room, probably because its much sunnier, and the other room we use as a den/tv room. (The third is a study/junk room!).

Works well for us.

I woudl leave your set up as it is when you come to sell, for most families it woudl be ideal. I'd love to have an adjoining room to the kitchen with all the play stuff/tv/pc etc in it.

I'd leave your set up as it is. We have a similar set up, two reception rooms and a kitchen large enough for a big table.

We don't have DCs and we prefer to use the rooms as 2 sitting rooms and a kitchen-diner, rather than one sitting room, one dining room, and a kitchen-diner.

IME only the over 50s have formal separate dining rooms... and maybe those who entertain an awful lot and have posh guests who they wouldn't want to entertain in the kitchen.

It would put us off a bit. I think you are suggesti g a lifestyle when you sell a house and it would be a bit of an amorphous room if it was a study plus playroom.

If it were me, I would convert it back into a dining room, with some lovely candle stands and lighting and have a small table in the kitchen for coffee or snacks.

An over large kitchen dining table would make me think the kitchen is cramped and the kiddie playroom/ reception room would not wow me as is.

I would keep it as it is but remove all kids' stuff. We have a similar set up but the children's playroom can be "de-childed" to look like an ordinary extra sitting room so people can imagine the house without children.

We are not that old or posh, but we do like to eat in the dining room with linen mats and cloth napkins and bone china.

I discovered early on that an average meal tastes so much nicer when served on a well laid table and it is soooo easy to do!

I reckon the trend will shift back to dining rooms tbh!!

We have the second reception room as a playroom and are soon to convert it into a sort of den for tweenagers. We have the dining table and a breakfast bar in the kitchen. If the people buying your house want to use it as a formal dining room I really don't think the way you have it set up now is going to put them off.