Just wanted some advice. I have one DS who is married with children. Whilst we are comfortable, my DIL comes from a much richer and more upper class family. My son is incredibly bright, going to Oxford and has a really well paid good career. He married a lovely girl who he met there who is always very polite and welcoming but there has always been an undercurrent of knowing that we are not the normal type of people she is used to. She isn’t snobby or rude and is welcoming but it’s just an unacknowledged obvious thing.
Her family are much richer then ours, her father is incredibly successful (they own 5 houses) and are obviously very generous with the grandchildren which we are not able to be. They are also very generous with ds/DIL which we can’t be. For example I found out her parents give her £5000 as a gift to buy something nice for Christmas. Again they are never anything but polite to us, but it’s clear that we aren’t their sort of people.
My grandchildren are just so different to us, they have been sent to private school and whilst they do seem to love us, are quite clearly much closer to her family. Over Christmas I used the words settee and lounge and was corrected by my GD, my DIL winced with embarrassment as she obviously wants me to feel welcome but obviously my GC are being taught not to use ‘lower-class’ words like us. Another example is stockings. We still do stockings for our children (2) which are cheap and cheerful, but I recently found out that when my DS has Christmas with his in laws they do him a stocking with really nice presents. Now I feel like it was rude for me not to do one for my DIL, but she wouldn’t want our cheap one anyway. When we’ve bought her presents in the past she’s always been very polite but they don’t get used. For example we bought her a footstool we thought she would like, but DS said we shouldn’t have as she is very into interiors and likes to pick everything herself. I’ve only seen it used once and obviously that was to be polite.
I probably sound jealous and of course it would be nice to have more money, but I think it boils down to knowing in my heart we will never measure up to her family in generosity and that they are already so much closer. It doesn’t help we are the ‘paternal grandparents’.
Am very proud of my DS for moving on up in the world and we have a great relationship, but am I just destined to be a poor relation and is there anything I can do.
Joseann
Yes, Callistemon, I think it's the most expensive property on the Monopoly board! The dark blue one!
Most of the properties are flats or hotels these days because who needs such posh big houses?!
People who entertain a lot and have lots of visitors?
He he. What kind of visitors?. That sounds a bit suspect.
Talking of board games, why is there no drawing room in Cluedo? The Colonel, Professor, Reverend etc all sound very posh.
Why in the WORLD would you buy someone a foot stole? A scarf would have been a more thoughtful gift.
Your DIL sounds lovely, you sound deeply insecure and neurotic.
I'd call a footstool a pouffe!
And a stole is a scarf anyway!!!!
Though I've never seen it worn on the foot.l!
Joseann
He he. What kind of visitors?. That sounds a bit suspect.
Talking of board games, why is there no drawing room in Cluedo? The Colonel, Professor, Reverend etc all sound very posh.
The Professor and the Reverend are our NDNs
But we're not posh!
People squash into the kitchen even though I try to usher them into the sitting room drawing room.
His name always makes me think he has a plum in his mouth!
Joseann
He he. What kind of visitors?. That sounds a bit suspect.
Talking of board games, why is there no drawing room in Cluedo? The Colonel, Professor, Reverend etc all sound very posh.
I was thinking of scattered families and friends, Joseann.
Sadly, Joseann it looks as though that drawing room is now just an office... 😕
Doesn't even look like a study.
A foot stool and pouffe are diffeent things. A footstool has visible legs, a pouffe is entirely upholstered. At least that is how they were differentiaated when i grew up.
👍
I use the dog! He is both upholstered and has legs!
Enough now Joseann! I think Silverberry, (7 days on and no comment), will have realised how trivial worrying about the wrong use of a word can be.
Adieu.
Doodledog What do people call the currently fashionable open plan areas? They aren't 'rooms', but zones, really. Maybe the idea of a sitting room, a dining room and a kitchen will die out altogether if the trend continues, and the terminology with it?
We added along the entire back of our quite old home - extending from the side entrance/laundry and kitchen to the far end bedrooms. It's a large open space with cased openings along the segments - fireplace, appliances, worktop, 2 islands, many grouped tables, chairs, couches, playroom/space for GC. It's called 'the kitchen' though one granddaughter calls it 'the gathering space' (?)
I think there is currently something called "broken plan" living, which has evolved from open plan living. As Norah and Doodledog say, you basically break the space up into areas or zones using bookshelves or open display units. That's why IKEA is so popular.
Re: open plan rooms... we had the wall between our kitchen-diner (across the back of the house) and our lounge (at the front of the house) knocked through so now our main downstairs room is one big L shape.
From the hall we enter via the kitchen, at the end of the short arm of the L.
The dining room is the lower half of the upright and the lounge is the top half of the upright.
One of the two sofas sits partway across the room between these two areas to divide the space.
(The integral garage takes up the rest of the rectangular floor space of the house).
Sitting in the lounge you cannot see the kitchen, but you can now see the back garden.
This was my aim as the view from the lounge previously was of our drive and the brick wall at the top of the cul-de-sac, so not very scenic!
A big advantage now is having windows each end: previously one room would always be sunny and the other one dark, and vice-versa as the sun went round.
Another benefit is it's easy to adapt the space eg to extend the dining table if we need to.
The playroom, my office and the laundry are in similar areas of the second room which used to be a big conservatory.
This runs across the width of the back of the house behind the kitchen, ie below the short arm of the L.
I love it, it's a very sociable use of all the space 🙂
My preference is and will always be for separate rooms for separate functions. I like a house to 'flow. We have a large hal/recepton room and everything opens off it, but each can have the door shut, to stop cooking smells pervading the house, to enable anyone wanting a quiet space to work to cut themselves off, or to keep the heat from the stove in the living room so that it doesn't confuse the sensors on the central heating controls.
Joseann
I think there is currently something called "broken plan" living, which has evolved from open plan living. As Norah and Doodledog say, you basically break the space up into areas or zones using bookshelves or open display units. That's why IKEA is so popular.
Not exactly, I undoubtedly explained 'the kitchen' poorly.
Ours is a long space on the back side of the house - from the side entrance (not including the loo/ dog room with doors). Fireplace, cased opening, into the kitchen with islands, table/chairs, appliances etc. Next a 14 ft wide case, then the couches, tables/chairs, TV etc. Then another 14ft wide opening into children's toys, library, TV, couches, chairs etc. Fireplace.
A lovely old door opens, near fireplace, into bedrooms area.
The casements enclose wall supports and electricals - but don't provide zones or displays. I know what you are speaking of, but we have an old home, nothing fancy or modern, no IKEA - old brown wood (or painted wood).
Doodledog wrote What do people call the currently fashionable open plan areas? They aren't 'rooms', but zones, really. Maybe the idea of a sitting room, a dining room and a kitchen will die out altogether if the trend continues, and the terminology with it? I'm told that open plan is on the way out because of the cost of heating though.
In California open plan living areas are called the great room/hall. My son’s IL’s have one. It’s nice in one way, in that people are all bimbling around together but otoh, if one person wants to listen to music or watch TV, everyone has to. Also, there’s nowhere to be private unless you go to a bedroom. At least they have the Californian weather so you can outside to get away from everyone else.
Our neighbours knocked through their living area into their kitchen and really regretted it. For some weird reason, it made their house colder and their heating bills rocketed (pre-COL crisis). I guess open plan may not work so well in older homes in Scotland!
Yes, I prefer separate rooms too. I don’t want ‘social space’, unless I’m having a party (rare these days). I want somewhere I can have peace and quiet, or where I can watch tv or listen to music without worrying about someone else’s need for peace and quiet. I also value my privacy, so would have found family life in one large space stressful, as, I’m sure, would my children.
Each to her own though. There’s no right or wrong, just preferences.
That sounds nice Norah.
Actually I think you could get a job as an estate agent writing room descriptions. Some of their attempts are rubbish!
Our house opens up nicely for parties. I have a big family party(20-30 people) every summer and there are days when it rains and we are stuck indoors but with food in one room, drink in another, a large central hall, people wander around and because we are not in one big room, noise levels are low in every room. Quite useful when nearly everyone present is over 70 and some are beginning to have hearing problmes.
Doodledog
Yes, I prefer separate rooms too. I don’t want ‘social space’, unless I’m having a party (rare these days). I want somewhere I can have peace and quiet, or where I can watch tv or listen to music without worrying about someone else’s need for peace and quiet. I also value my privacy, so would have found family life in one large space stressful, as, I’m sure, would my children.
Each to her own though. There’s no right or wrong, just preferences.
I can't abide interior doors, apart from bedrooms, offices.
The front half of our home, dining hall, living room, foyer are connected by wide openings to usable space, no doors (same to the back half of our home). We're happy with our open situation, even as we introverts have small noisy children and daughters round most days for short times.
Funny how people are so different.
I hate open plans. Too much trauma growing up, I need walls so there’s a directed flow of traffic, a wall to put my back to.
When DH was emptying the dishwasher I was glad to retreat to the sitting room.
How can plates and cutlery make so much noise?
We must be unusual. Never had a party in our house - and I don't think I've ever been to one in someone else's house either.
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