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Old 03-07-2011, 07:45 PM
 
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Found a great home (again) in UP. However there is a small area for a dining room, not very formal. There is no formal sitting area either.

There is however an extra office instead of a sitting area, in addition to another office on the first floor.

At first we looked at it as a negative, then realized how we really live and actually like having the space elsewhere.

Anyone think it could horribly affect resale?
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Old 03-07-2011, 07:58 PM
 
Location: DFW
40,919 posts, read 48,852,711 times
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Builders still build formal dining areas which are still in demand. Formal living areas are only in very large homes and most homes builders are using that space as Studies / Home offices.

Formal living rooms was the room your mother would never let you sit on the furniture. They are dying except in very large homes.
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Old 03-07-2011, 08:02 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakin View Post
Builders still build formal dining areas which are still in demand. Formal living areas are only in very large homes and most homes builders are using that space as Studies / Home offices.

Formal living rooms was the room your mother would never let you sit on the furniture. They are dying except in very large homes.
Ah, so no place for my Barcelona chair. I remember a grand piano that no one ever played and a room no one ever went in.
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Old 03-07-2011, 08:52 PM
 
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I love them and use them, but I'd guess that by now it's 50-50 in the Park Cities. It is still definitely more common to see them in new homes (and old ones, obviously) in the Park Cities- much more so than in the suburbs for whatever reason.

I don't think it's a deal breaker for resale- especially as everything continues to move towards the casual side.
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Old 03-07-2011, 11:30 PM
 
Location: Orange County, CA
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Im an interior designer. I can tell you that yes, people DO still use L/R's and Dining Rooms. I DO make both of those room multi-task, though. I am a huge proponent for built-in library shelving in D/R's and L/R's- especially in homes where space is limited but clients still want an area to host a dinner or entertain. The L/R is somewhat dying, but many of my clients still have them and use them as L/R's, "drawing rooms" and music rooms (my ultimate combo is a library-shelved music room with a nice little seating arrangement...three purposes, one room!). People still spend a lot of money re-doing them. =).

Sitting rooms, like the ones attached to Master Bedrooms have been falling out of vogue for awhile now. I personally think they are a waste of space and just require another $40k of budget to do them. Do people really hang out in the MBR so much that they need a sitting room there? haha! Most people use them, if they have them, as an office area, work out/yoga/pilates machine area or a baby's nursery area.

And, as far as resale goes...as long as your house is done up well and each room looks to have a purpose and isn't cluttered, etc.- the resale will be fine. People re-purpose spaces ALL the time. The only thing to be careful of is removing closets from bedrooms. Here in CA (not sure about TX) if a room doesn't have a closet, it can't be considered a bedroom and you cannot say that it is on, say, a for sale listing. That can be a tricky one. I have done gorgeous built-in french door and bottom drawer style closets and clients love them. I give them the disclaimer, but it just looks so amazing in a bedroom and barely anyone does it anymore (look at historic houses- many of them, if they have closets, have neat furniture-looking types of built-ints) that its a neat thing to do that is different from the gal next door who merely put in new mirrored doors. haha!
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Old 03-08-2011, 05:30 AM
 
Location: Dallas
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Multi-task...yes I agree with that concept for formal DR and formal LR spaces! Make it work for how your family lives.

Our current home has both. However, the space that was the formal LR has a beautiful bay window and was bigger than the FDR space; I was bummed that we wouldn't use that room much. Our dining room table is massive so we needed the wider/longer space to be the FDR. So we swapped spaces and made that room the FDR.

The original FDR space became the FLR...except we made it into more of a space for before dinner cocktails as we put an elegant bar as the centerpiece on one end, and bookcases. Whenever we have any kind of party, that space has become our beverage and appetizer station. Also it serves us well when we have to use all 3 extensions of the dining room table to seat 14-16 people.

So like preppyglam said, as long as the space is decorated for the purpose that your family uses it for, it will show well and should not affect resale.
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Old 03-08-2011, 05:33 AM
 
Location: Dallas
574 posts, read 1,471,617 times
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I thought you'd be all moved into the house on Stanford! Did it have multiple offers? We loved the rusty goff home on rosedale, but my husband said it felt cramped. So we also continue to look...
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Old 03-08-2011, 07:11 AM
 
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Sometimes I get a sinkin' spell or the vapors and just have to sit down for a while and fan myself. I find the parlor to be most useful in this regard.
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Old 03-08-2011, 08:17 AM
 
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understand that most people who are shopping for home in particular area are probably familiar with the floor plans they will meet--unless the house has been new construction on a tear-down lot

Most people in todays world would be grateful to have office space that is efficient and useable vs in awkward location with no privacy or security---

most home designs that are transitioning from FLR in front of the house to a study often just box in the opening with french/glass doors--yet anyone coming in through the front door can see the desk and any other surfaces fairly easily--
most people are MESSY with a home office that is really used so to me that is the last place I would want an office showing up
and the space can be small and cluttered when office furniture is in there--
making it look like it was MEAN to be the office/study not just an after-thought is the trick to resale I think...

the house we bought has an office at the front of the house but it is not open to the front door/hall and there is sliding wood door to shut (no room for swinging door) and my husband does that a lot--
the room is not that large but it has a closet which is handy for storing his paper supplies and he could even stick a WIFI printer in there

I use the extra bedroom downstairs as MY office/computer space--there is bed in there for guests--but it gives me someplace besides the kitchen table or my bedroom
so having TWO study spaces --maybe even one for your children's computer space--is no bad deal
many people work from home now and would rank having a truly dedicated office space as very functional...

regarding the small dining room--that is totally separate issue--
MOST dining rooms are afterthoughts -- they are token rooms--and finding one that is WIDE enough to have a table/buffet or china cabinet AND actually seat 10 people without bumping walls is rare--
the house we had in Bedford was not that large--about 2700sqt--but the dining room was wider than normal -- which we realized when we started shopping for another house--the house we bought in Hurst has a dining room that is wider and longer than normal so the furniture does not look squished and when we do have larger dinners--mainly holiday time or special occasions--then we can all sit at the table w/o bumping into furniture or each other--
as you say--it all depends on how you live--some people like to have big parties but tend to do them in weather that allows outside/inside flow
some people only have 2-3 couples over at time--
so the dining room issue is different problem--

CAN you fit your furniture there easily or will you have to repurpose it--are there spaces that will allow that w/o looking too awkward

we had to split up our bedroom furniture when we moved
batchelor chest of my husband's is now hall chest off the kitchen and our TV armoire/drawer piece is upstairs in guest bedroom--
this current master is good bit smaller (less wall space) than in former house--but we have so much more built-in storage in master closet that we did not lose functionality/storage when we moved them--so it was not that much of sacrifice--although we really had to think about making that change--now we don't miss them at all--
what I do miss is the better light in that former master--it faced the south and had windows on a corner--this master faces the north and sun is partially blocked by part of bathroom exterior wall--so room is just generally darker during the day--but don't spent that much time in there except at night anyway

Last edited by loves2read; 03-08-2011 at 08:30 AM..
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Old 03-08-2011, 09:48 AM
 
27 posts, read 68,899 times
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When we recently moved & house shopped we knew that we almost never used the FLR in our previous house, so we specifically looked for houses without FLR's. We still have a large dining room, but it is open to the fourier & great room, so a very open floor plan. Even then, we considered puting a pool table in the dining room, which we had done in a past house in CA. We've lived in the house 6 months and have used the dining room once, which is once more than the 6 years we lived in our previous house.
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