Gransnet forums

House and home

The main room in your house...

(27 Posts)
boheminan Tue 28-Apr-26 16:17:57

Following on from a discussion about supper, I started thinking about about different names we use (regionally) for rooms in the house!
My childhood/growing up was in London and the main room we congregated in to sit round the fire was 'the front room'. Where I am now it's 'the lounge'. What do/did you call your main living room?

Mollygo Tue 28-Apr-26 16:23:13

Living room.

Also have dining room which doubles as a study and then kitchen.

grandMattie Tue 28-Apr-26 16:24:19

I’m either in the living room or sitting room. Same difference.

(In Oz, when I lived there, it was called the “lounge room”!)

mokryna Tue 28-Apr-26 16:25:06

Never ‘the lounge’ in the 60/70s just living room but now sitting room because I sit there and eat in the kitchen when I am alone.
My small 4 seater antique dining table seats 10/12 when pulled out while having guests though, which is also in the sitting room.

Whitewavemark2 Tue 28-Apr-26 16:28:49

Ours is the sitting room.

boheminan Tue 28-Apr-26 16:33:01

I should add the the front room has stuck with me, and it's still the front room (a long way from London)

Ziplok Tue 28-Apr-26 16:36:19

When I was growing up, the living room was the main room we used (it also housed the dining table), and the other room was the front room which was hardly ever used. Then the council decided to modernise the houses and the two rooms were knocked into one room and double doors replaced the wall, so that the rooms could still be divided off if desired. It was at that point that the front room became the dining room in our house.

The kitchen was and remained separate to both rooms, and was never big enough to accommodate a dining table, so it was never a kitchen diner.

I think that many who bought their council house will have changed the configuration to make this possible.

Sago Tue 28-Apr-26 16:40:16

This wonderful poem by Sir John Betjeman sums it up.

I think of it every time hear the words serviettes, toilet and lounge I think of this.

I don’t think the word “posh” was used so much in the 50’s otherwise I’m sure he would have somehow got it in there!

Sago Tue 28-Apr-26 16:40:48

I forgot the poem!!!!!

How To Get On In Society

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

Cossy Tue 28-Apr-26 16:47:41

My parents all called their “front room” the lounge, we call ours either the front room (it’s at the front) or the living room!

kittylester Tue 28-Apr-26 16:48:38

Ours is a lounge.

We also still have a playroom though our youngest child is almost 40.

Cossy Tue 28-Apr-26 16:49:03

However, my DM called the toilet the “loo”, my father called it the “lavatory”.

B9exchange Tue 28-Apr-26 16:53:19

Please don't laugh, but growing up it was 'the Drawing Room' until we moved out of my grandmother's grand house and had a 'Living Room' in our own!

Sago Tue 28-Apr-26 17:01:25

B9exchange

Please don't laugh, but growing up it was 'the Drawing Room' until we moved out of my grandmother's grand house and had a 'Living Room' in our own!

My in-laws had a drawing room and a sitting room.
It seemed old fashioned even then in 1980 when I met them.

Aveline Tue 28-Apr-26 17:02:37

We had a drawing room too. However, now we have a sitting room.
Our old English teacher told us that only hotels and airports have lounges!

BlueBelle Tue 28-Apr-26 17:03:20

Front room, dining room, and kitchen I told you I was working class

Flippinheck Tue 28-Apr-26 17:05:56

My main room is a sitting room. It is at the back of the house with doors opening on to my small garden. In afternoons, like today, the sun streams in. It is a lovely, peaceful place and not overlooked. This is where I am most at ease.

Oreo Tue 28-Apr-26 17:07:59

Sago

This wonderful poem by Sir John Betjeman sums it up.

I think of it every time hear the words serviettes, toilet and lounge I think of this.

I don’t think the word “posh” was used so much in the 50’s otherwise I’m sure he would have somehow got it in there!

Betjeman was a terrible old snob 😁

Wyllow3 Tue 28-Apr-26 17:08:09

I've got one room as the two small ones were joined together.

So it's "downstairs"."My downstairs room". I guess I say, "in the kitchen". but before it was the Living room and the Kitchen.

As a child it was the front room and the living room and the kitchen.

Lounge was posh or southerners.

pably15 Tue 28-Apr-26 17:10:31

for some reason when I was a child, our living room was called the kitchen, and the kitchen was called the scullery, when we moved to a 3 bedroom house, it was the living room and kitchen

shysal Tue 28-Apr-26 17:11:04

Living room in every house I have been in. My childhood home also had a front room which was only used and the fire lit at Christmas.

foxie48 Tue 28-Apr-26 17:29:34

We had a living room, the front room was only used when we had visitors or at Christmas. My parents would have thought it frivolous to heat more than one downstairs room.
These days I live in the kitchen during the day except when I read or watch TV, then I go into the snug (commonly known as the "dog room" as he has free access to all the chairs and sofas. The sitting room is never used when we are on our own, nor is the dining room but come into use when we have people staying (dog is not allowed on the chairs and sofas).

mumofmadboys Tue 28-Apr-26 17:36:01

We have a lounge and a back lounge!

Witzend Tue 28-Apr-26 17:41:34

Sitting room, same as when I was a child.

Wyllow3 Tue 28-Apr-26 17:45:28

Yes as a young child although if was "the front room" not the parlour, and my parents were far from conventional, that front room wasn't used a lot, and it was the one with the sun. However it was small and the living room was bigger - and of course, it was a matter of heating! Front room fire rarely got lit.

but when we moved to a larger semi and 4 children both rooms got used a lot. Sunny larger front room, TV, hanging out. the back room was used mostly for music practice, homework, hobbies, it had the gramophone in etc. It was supposed to be "the dining room" I guess in days before, (it had a hatch to the kitchen) but the kitchen was big enough for a table.