What's your favourite room in the house?
One of my students last year was an architectural engineer and we talked about how culture influences housing. Not just climate but how people see their world. Like in Japan, apparently they lavish all the money on the bathroom. The toilet is in a separate little area, but the bathroom where you take your bath is like the heart of the house and it's where they splash out. I'm told, the bathtubs can come with a timer and thermostat, so you can programme them to fill at a certain time and maintain a certain temp, so you come home from work and there's your nice hot bath waiting, just the way you like it!
I remember growing up in Iowa, for a lot of families the kitchen was the heart of the house. I suppose it goes back to the prairie days of the big old stove or range, and people did their living in that room to stay warm. Kids gathered around the kitchen table to do homework, moms cut clothes out on the big table (my mom would raise hers up on canned goods so she didn't have to bend over it), important conversations always took place around the table with coffee. "Company" sat in the living room to chat--real friends sat in the kitchen!!
My special place is the bedroom. That started from having no heat in the house; in winter I curled up under the blankets to read. Then DH put a the radio in there...and then the TV and DVD and satellite hookup. I used to quilt in there, too, but the room got too full for the standing frame! It's still the warmest and most comfortable room. I figure I'm getting a lot more mileage out of my matress than most people!
Here, in S. Spain, people tend to live in small apartments, and sacrifice the largest room in the house as the "parlor". Which means that they put their most expensive furniture in there, to impress visitors--and basically never use the room. People with kids will even crowd all their kids into one bedroom so that they can have a family "sitting room" and keep the parlor for "best"--which means using it at maybe Easter and Christmas or if an important visitor comes. The big room looks like something out of a magazine...and the furniture isn't really meant to sit in, so it doesn't matter that it's totally uncomfortable, which it usually is! It's all about appearances. (That tells you a lot about the culture, right there). And the family sitting room is usually the smallest "bedroom", which means that the family is crammed in there on top of each other to watch TV or eat their meals. And yes, they tend to have the TV right by the dining table and it runs all through the meal. Which is another reason why my TV is in the bedroom. I do NOT want news coverage and endless talktalktalk with my food!
What's your favourite room?
First off, i would love a bathroom like that and would totally move to japan just for the bathrooms. Second, my grandmother had a room like that, she was also first generation after my great grandparents moved here from Spain... could have something to do with it. And yes, the couches are extremely uncomfortable, my cousins and i would dare each other to sit on them when we didn't think we would get caught. My mother also used to buy fake vomit/melted popsicles/used diapers from the joke store and leave them all over that room to watch my grandmother throw a fit. ahhhh good times
I would have to say my "Room" is a combination of the living room and kitchen (but they are open to each other), although we have been spending more time on the patio since it is summer and we got ourselves a little fire pit.
probably the family room - that's where we spend the most time...
my kitchen is too small to love...
I gravitate towards the nursery now, but that's just cause it's new and fun to look at stuff.
Living room and kitchen. It's an open kitchen that looks into the living room. I spend most of my time between these 2 places. And so does my husband and baby. We're more together here than any other part of the house.
I am so jealous of American kitchens. Here the buildings are mostly designed by older men (tho this may change in a generation or two), which means that they make the kitchens tiny. Because they grew up while cooking was still "women's work" and Mama didn't want anyone else "in her way"--so the kitchen is just barely big enough for one person. Get two in there and you can't turn round. By the time you get a sink, a stove and a microwave in there, there are no work surfaces. I threatened to put our refrigerator and microwave in the living room, but DH wouldn't let me.
In my dreams, I'd live in one of those NY type apartments which are really just one big room with the bedroom and bathroom off. Except I'm so untidy the place would look like a bombsite.
My bedroom is my sanctuary. It's where my altar is set up and it's very feng shui.
The kitchen. It's pretty much the reason we bought this house (well, that and the relatively flat and large block). It's where the food and coffee is. :) Unfortunately it's also where the dirty dishes go...and I hate washing dishes...and I don't have a dishwasher. If I had a dishwasher I would probably never leave the kitchen except to sleep.
Living room and kitchen. It's an open kitchen that looks into the living room. I spend most of my time between these 2 places.
I would say it's a toss up between our family room and our master bedroom. Our family spends the most time together in both rooms. We sometimes even eat in our family room instead of the dining room, but that's because 3 out of 4 in my family like to use our table as a large shelf, lol! I like our master bedroom because in the winter we have a space heater and it gets warm and cozy, unlike the rest of the house. It's also where the kids and I watch TV late at night, although I am usually dozing off, lol!
I love gorgeous bathrooms, especially the kind with huge frosted windows and glassy tiles or stonework, but actually to be honest I was even pretty fond of the grotty textured plastic and broken-latched doors at school once the windows were cracked and there was steam coiling up from every surface. (Verdict is out on the current dorm bathroom; it has no windows.)
In an actual house with rooms, I tend to end up preferring wherever there is a desk-like surface for a computer/sketchbook, and hopefully some seating. That usually ends up meaning dining/living rooms, though in my house and some friends' houses the kitchen is attached so you could include that as well. Houses to me are a set of perches and roosts, I guess. I have lots of perches.