mums of little children - which would you choose: a playoom or a formal dining room?

[Titter]

assuming kitchen is big enough for a table to sit 6

A playroom - particularly if that meant I had a toy free room in the evenings to sit it. We don't really do much formal dining now we have kids.

Playroom.

Dd is 3 and we have just had an extension built to include a playroom downstairs. We included a huge floor to ceiling toy cupboard in the plans which makes all the difference.

It means that the sitting room generally stays as a more adult space. Dd often brings toys out of her play room and plays in the sitting room but they always get put back in the playroom at the end of the day.

Playroom every time!
We have turned our dining room into a playroom. It is so nice to shut the door on it and have no toys all over the lounge

We had a conservatoty built just before I found out I was expecting DD1 that used to be playroom but she wouldnt play in there if i wasnt in there so swapped around, conservatory i snow dining room (we had a huge radiator fitted for winter and fav blinds and fans so still useable in summer) made the dining room which was fairly small into playroom but have nice (2nd hand) furniture in there and a huge matching toy box so when everything is away the only things I can see are the play kitchen and the dolls house. The dd's play in there all the time as its next to the lounge and kicthen so they can see me.

I'd keep the lovely big sitting room. Hate pokey English houses with lots of small rooms. Go open planned.

excuse typos am typing this on the smallest IE box as am at work and keep minimising when people come into my office without knocking grrr

Can I choose another bedroom?

If you can all eat together (I would never compromise on that) in the kitchen anyway, I'd go for a playroom.

Oh just read the thread properly now...

Don't do it. Keep your big sitting room!

Definitely a playroom, it would be bliss to have all the toys out of the living room

neither. I would keep your kitchen/diner for family use, then turn on room into a formal dining room/adult sitting room - I' have this arrangement and it works brilliantly - we have a table and chairs, in one end of the room, and piano, coffee table, books and comfy chairs at the other end. I also have my laptop in here - study is used solely for dh to work/me to store paperwork.

Then your other big room becomes a family room/TV room -kids play in it during day, but you have lots of storage so they can put all their toys away at the end of the day and you can use it if you want to watch TV in the evening.

We have a big kitchen diner, lounge for all and the original dining room is me and DH's playroom! It's full of musical equipment, his vinyl and CD collection and is about to have the pc in there too.

I think you need to be realistic about how tidy you can keep things when deciding on room usage - we are very untidy so I thought there was no point having a separate lounge and kids' playroom. Kids can do work/play on the kitchen table too if they want.

Some people are funny about letting their kids play in their bedrooms though, aren't they? I've heard people say they think it's unsociable and stops them settling at night! Not true!

sorry, i should have clarified

this is a house we're thinking of making an offer on. it is perfect except it has no playroom

we currently have a playroom and love it - means we have a no-toys grown-up sitting room

our choices with this new house would be:

1. lose the formal dining room

1. lose the study - but the study is further away from the kitchen, and is smaller. and it would mean ripping out fitted study furniture/shelving

1. lose half of the sitting room, possibly by putting in french doors

any of these options would be an interim measure, just for a few years until the dsses are old enough to be out of my sight in the attic playroom

Playroom - we NEVER use our dining room. Ever. And I am very of my friend's playroom. Although her dh's dad is a millionaire. Am quite of that too!

btw sitting room is 31x16ft

Lovely big sitting room, with play area(good storage required) up one end
Use kitchen table for eating
Our dining room is only used at meal times and have seriously considered how to move things around. Imo a room 15X12 only used 3x daily for 45 mins a time is a waste.

sorry but "Our dining room is only used at meal times" did make me chortle

Or titter maybe? Our playroom is a godsend, I wouldn't be without it.

Playroom.

Your children are still very young, so I would guess it would get more use as a playroom than a formal dining room.

You can always turn it back to a dining room when they are older and have their toys in their room.

I Know am but a simple person Titter.
At least we use it for something

i think you are all right

the wise thing to do would be to lose the dining room for a few years

it looks beautiful the way they have it though - stunning furniture, light fittings etc

seems a waste to use it as a playroom, but at least it would be used

plus - the study is just off it, so i could keep a close eye while MNing

another vote for a playroom here, you could have a formal dining end to the big sittiing room if you felt you needed a posh table and chairs for dinner parties ....we have a formal dining room which i love , and we do use quite alot ( do alot of entertaining , so we built a conservatory off the kitchen to be aplayroom.

Playroom, morphing into second sitting room for games music and teenage things , in due course.

How big is the dining room? We use our dining room as both (well, dcs are older so it's called a family room/dining room rather than a playroon/dining room) but at 16 x 10 it's just big enough for dining table + 6 chairs, and a sofa, bookcase full of crap dcs' vital stuff and a tv.

Although given how big your living room is I'd split off 8 feet off that so you'd have a 22 x 16 living room and an 8 x 16 playroon (or could this be the dining room if it's near the kitchen?)