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When Is a Dining Room Not a Dining Room?

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 311291

When is a dining room not a dining room?

 

That's easy - when there's a grand piano in the middle of it! My daughter, Erica, placed a gleaming grand piano where most people would have a dining room table. This makes sense because she's a professional accompanist and needs a piano for her work. Her dining room is NOT a dining room.

It got me thinking. What else do people do to change a room into a unique expression of the owner? I mean, if you call it a "living room, "...what the heck do you do in the rest of the house?

I've known people who took a bedroom and turned it into a luxurious walk-in closet. A formal dining room that was never used became a poker room and home to a regular gathering of old friends. Even a living room morphed into a media room with the addition of a massive wall-hung state-of-the-art TV and a comfortable sofa.

One family had a room in their Victorian farmhouse furnished with tree limbs, high shelves, and cozy beds for their cats - real ones. There was no room for a human to sit, but the "cat room" was heaven for these felines.

 

One family had even "decorated' their entire house with Christmas Pigs. This was quite a conversation starter.

                                                                             

And then there are the collectors. One man had a complete  "turtle room" to house his collection. I've seen rooms and whole basements devoted to trains, dolls, chairs, owls,  giraffes, hippos, and butterflies.

 

Yes, there's a grand piano in my daughter's dining room. 

So, what makes your home unique?

 

Posted by

Margaret Rome
HomeRome Realty
Broker/Owner/Realtor®

Baltimore, Maryland


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Carole Cohen
Howard Hanna Cleveland City Office - Cleveland, OH
Realtor, ePRO

I toured a restored Victorian once; each room was like a museum; in each room was a rabbit from Alice and Wonderland; sometimes only two inches high; then there was (on third floor) an entire room of these rabbits!

Very whimsical and cool post, Margaret!

Dec 28, 2006 04:40 PM
Carole Cohen
Howard Hanna Cleveland City Office - Cleveland, OH
Realtor, ePRO
Just checked out Erica's website too. What a talent to have!
Dec 28, 2006 04:42 PM
Renée Donohue~Home Photography
Savvy Home Pix - Allegan, MI
Western Michigan Real Estate Photographer

My family room is a dining area which makes a huge, open country kitchen type of feel for me!  The dining room and living room is one big game room - pool table, foosball, darts. 

We aren't formal people obviously :)

Dec 28, 2006 04:59 PM
Sharon Simms
Coastal Properties Group International - Christie's International - Saint Petersburg, FL
St. Petersburg FL - CRS CIPS CLHMS RSPS

When I do floorplans, I don't like to label the rooms - this allows for a bit more creativity in how they use the rooms.

Switching room uses is often a feng shui solution to a better feeling home. 

Dec 28, 2006 09:41 PM
Chris Griffith
Downing-Frye Realty, Bonita Springs, FL - Bonita Springs, FL
Bonita Springs Listing Specialist - Agent
Pool tables or a table tennis table in the dining room is a personal favorite.
Dec 28, 2006 11:42 PM
Maureen Francis
Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI
Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

And she went to Oberlin!

Yep, a number of pool tables in LR and DRs here in MI.  One had totally converted the LR to a pub with a pool table and installed pub 'stuff' like a beverage rail all the way around the room (for resting your beer). 

 

Dec 29, 2006 01:03 AM
Bryant Tutas
Tutas Towne Realty, Inc and Garden Views Realty, LLC - Winter Garden, FL
Selling Florida one home at a time

Ok, Our house is pretty unique.

The downstairs is a concrete block house built in 1988. Then they picked up a fishing cabin off of its stilts form across the lake and put it on top. The fishing cabin is frame and was built in 1940. We have a wrap around "porch" on the second floor and we have a old metal roof. Our house looks like a barn from the outside. Since it's only the 2 of us we did the cardinal sin in Real Estate and turned a 3000 sq ft 4 bed into a 2 bed by knocking down interior walls. You enter our house on the second level through the kitchen and there is no master bath.  We have 3 rooms that I don't know what the heck they are. One we use for storage, one is my office and the other is a play room for the grand kids. No one will ever want to buy our house. Unless of course they like having their own lake and no neighbors. 

Dec 29, 2006 01:33 AM
George Souto
George Souto NMLS #65149 FHA, CHFA, VA Mortgages - Middletown, CT
Your Connecticut Mortgage Expert
The family room that I built in our basement, became and still is sort of a wrestling room (both my boys wrestled in High School) a study room (that is where they have their laptops and do school work) and a game room.  It is nothing like it started out to be but gets a lot of use.
Dec 29, 2006 06:05 AM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

Carole, That must have been so much fun finding the minature Alice's in each room and then discovering a whole room. I would like to tour that property. And yes, I am very poud of Erica.

Renee, I love your informality and the way you are LIVING in your house.

Sharon, By not labeling rooms, we give the buyers more choices. If you have found out their needs, an extra bedroom becomes the home office they needed etc.

Chris and Maureen, That pool table can still be covered for use as a serving table and you have just multi-tasked the room. Yep Maureen, Erica went to Oberlin. Thanks for checking her out.

Bryant, It sounds like you made your house exactly what you needed. Live and enjoy now. Too many times people don't LIVE in their homes. They don't want to "mess up" a future sale! Do you think they miss the absolute joy of having the home be unique just for themselves, a place to call "our home".

George, I like the way you are USING your home.  Creative with the spaces; Since you did the building, you  & your  boys have it the way you want it and when needed, can change.

 

Dec 30, 2006 12:11 AM
Dena Stevens
Rocky Mountain Realty - Canon City, CO
Putting The Real Into Realtor Since 2004
I once went on a listing appointment for a 100 yr. old house that had  only a few closets. One room was decorated ceiling to floor in Broncos memorabilia. They insisted that they were going to take it all down. I insisted that they keep it all up. We couldn't call it a bedroom anyway and the Broncos made it memorable.
Dec 30, 2006 06:04 AM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

Dena, I think you allowed for that home to be memorable.

Forgot about all the sports rooms. One of my listings had a complete Baseball room which was more like a museum. THis same client had an extensive collection of miniture pocket knifes, all in cases and catalogued.

Jan 01, 2007 03:11 AM
Teri Isner
Keller Williams Realty at the Lakes - Orlando, FL
GRI, CRS, CIPS
We had a Victorian in Celebration that used the living room as a library really hard to explain but they had terrific seating areas with coffee table books and magazines spread out.  Very inviting, but during the holidays a true dining room is always an asset!
Jan 01, 2007 03:40 AM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

Teri,would like to see a photo of that.

Had a center hall colonial and they used the foyer as well as the living room and dining to set up tables for large parties, making the area one large dining room. Worked great.

 

Jan 01, 2007 04:15 AM
Carole Cohen
Howard Hanna Cleveland City Office - Cleveland, OH
Realtor, ePRO

Happy New Year to the best Rome this side of the Atlantic :-)

PS: very interesting ideas here! I love the library idea too .

Jan 01, 2007 04:19 AM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

Carole..best Rome this side of the Atlantic..Love it! 2007 is wonderful so far! Spent time with daughter and husband. Visited with a friend who is making a remarkable recovery. Went to a wonderful house party and ate really good chocolate. Friends and chocolate, what could be better!

Oh and I signed up a new listing tonight!

2007 is a good year so far and I have a positive post about the market that I will try to finish up tonight.

Jan 01, 2007 01:46 PM
Angus in Naperville IL
RE/MAX of Naperville - Naperville, IL

Since we didn't own dining room furniture for the first three houses, the dining room was a sitting room in one house and the toy room (when the kids were little) in the first two. In our current home we invested in a beautiful dining room set that was delivered right after we moved in, we even use it on occasion!

Moo

Jan 01, 2007 02:33 PM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

Wow you even use your dining room occasionally! LOL

Moo, Hope all your meals are happy ones around that table!

Jan 01, 2007 02:47 PM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

 Valerie, Personal taste but easy to remove all the hanging carpets.

Jan 10, 2013 11:22 AM