Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Oct 17, 2011 1:27 pm We (well I ) have been pondering the thought of moving for sometime. We bought out little home before children, now we've got two kids (5 and 3.5) and thought in the future we would like to move to have more space and would love to build. We were looking though some plans, and were thinking what living area's are essential with kids. Looking at some M*****n plans now they are in SA a lot of the family homes have a front lounge, open plan living area and kids area near the bedrooms. We thought being a family of four two living area's would be fine, the open plan of course but we were tossing up between the front lounge area of the kids retreat. If you had to choose, which would you have a lounge or kids retreat. Or something else? What do you have with your family and does it work? My children are young now, but if they are in primary school things might change and might not need a playroom anymore? I guess I would a room that is toy free would love to hear some peoples thoughts on what works best! Re: Essential living area's - with kids 2Oct 17, 2011 2:06 pm There are 4 in my house, the kids are 8 and 10, and I am so thankfull for their own space! We have a double storey, with the main living areas downstairs (lounge, dining, kitchen, meals and family room) and all the bedrooms upstairs as well as a kids area. ALL the toys are upstairs and they 'mostly' stay up there leaving the lounge, dining and family rooms 'mostly' kid free. Once they are in Primary school, they just gain more 'stuff', and if they are like my Son and Daughter, there will be little barbie shoes, polly pocket things, lego and beyblades strewn EVERYWHERE!!! Once they are teenagers, I know they will still need their own 'playroom' where they can hang out and watch TV (they won't have TV's in their rooms until they can afford to buy them themselves!) in an area that is not near the kitchen (ie; away from uncool parents!). In my house, having their own space as well as their bedrooms has been a Godsend, leaving the lounge and dining nice looking for when we entertain (we have a large extended family). We probably wouldn't have had a seperate lounge and dining from the kitchen/meals/family if we didn't have such a large family....but still kept the kids own 'space'. But coming from a tiny house with one L-shaped tiny lounge/dining filled with furniture...there was no room for all the kids stuff. Keeping it seperate from the rest of the main living areas is fabulous!! When the house is filled with neices and nephews, they are happy to play upstairs in the kids retreat and away from the adults With our house design, the Study is at the front of the house, not the lounge/dining. They are next to the kitchen/meals/family so that any entertaining we do naturally spills into those areas as they are not down the hall at the front of the house. It works well for our family and our needs. I'm having a party with more than 60 people on Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how it all 'works' and where most people will congregate (the bar will be in the alfresco!). Henley - Wilshire Mk 3 ... I love my house!! Site start: 4th Feb 09 Handover: 10th Sep 09 Blog: http://stormygirlscastle.blogspot.com/ Build Thread: viewtopic.php?t=7166 Re: Essential living area's - with kids 3Oct 17, 2011 2:44 pm Thanks Stormy! Your home is lovely and am familiar with the design, I remember your blog when you were building about the same time we renovated our kitchen. Good to read you are using all the space. I would just love more space, especially so we could entertain as Christmas time (my parents how downsized and they are getting older) and we have lots of family that live interstate and would love to have room to have them stay. Or to have a few families over at a time, practically at the moment we can only have one over at a time. Oh no to the kids getting more stuff when they are in primary school. I had expected it, my DH not as much as I keep staying will need to make sure we have a lot more storage. He is "why? won't they have less stuff when older?" hehe. We have two boys though, so maybe a little less as will tend to share toys. Would love a two story, but I am having trouble with my knees so probably look at single story designs. I liked the idea of the kids retreat off from the living area, just hoping they would hang out in there to play lego as that stuff really hurts when stand on it...my eldest just got it from his 5th birthday and it seems to travel all over the house! Thanks so much for responding, and good luck with your party! Re: Essential living area's - with kids 4Oct 17, 2011 5:11 pm We have 3 living areas, for a family of four. My children are 11 and 12. We have a home theatre room, that is used by everyone. An open plan family room / kitchen / dining and the kids have a small activity room with a tv. I agree with Stormy. It is great to have these spaces to spread out to. The theatre room is used for playstation, movies and sometimes tv, the family room is just tv and the kids can watch tv in their lounge room or play wii. Somewhere for everyone! Re: Essential living area's - with kids 5Oct 17, 2011 9:06 pm Thanks fairy blue, it does sound good having the three. At the moment the boys always want to be where we are but guess as they get older times will change! Off to browse the building forum area for ideas..... Re: Essential living area's - with kids 6Oct 17, 2011 11:12 pm hi MrsRusty 3 is good if you can manage it. a separate lounge/hometheatre preferably where you can close off doors so that watching a movie or tv at night/watching sport doesn't have to impact on the rest of the family or disturb kids down their end of the house or others in a family room area. Having a kids play area is also good. Your kids will use it more when they are in primary school. We didn't have a play area in our last house and found the kids took over the family-games room area which was fine when they were little and needed more supervision and wanted to stay around us but once they were in primary school it meant lego and toys everywhere. It would have been nice to have been able to claim it back for when visitors were over, Adult visitors that is. This time we have a kids playroom. Our eldest tends to spend his time in the family/games room on the computer but our youngest at 13 likes to go into the playroom to watch tv and chill out. If we had built this house when they were both in primary school we would have got more use out of the play room. Once they are both older if still at home I'm guessing the playroom will turn into a chillout area for them both. We don't have a tv in the family room area but tend to watch a lot of stuff on the computer in this area. Our lounge doesn't get used a lot but it is nice to have somewhere away from general household noise to watch a movie in peace. We also found having a separate place to watch tv was good when the kids were in primary school.( wasn't really an issue when they were littler) Re: Essential living area's - with kids 7Oct 18, 2011 5:53 am We have a single storey house and three kids under 6. We do not have any formal areas instead we have a huge open kitchen / dining / lounge area. Off that we have a toy room which is where all toys live. I think it measures approx 5m x 8m. We also have a separate home theatre room but this is only used at evening after dinner and is a toy free zone. Luckily we are about to build a pool house as the kids spend so much time outside that it will be lovely to have an outside "living" area which is where pretty much all spring and summer entertaining will be done. Some things are worth waiting for. Re: Essential living area's - with kids 8Oct 18, 2011 8:49 pm Thanks kexkez and kyton I think three areas is a goer. Be good to have a kids zone and having a lounge/home theatre area is very appealing too....love to be able to retire at night to an untouched kids zone and also to be a bit further away from the kids when they are sleeping. 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