Living room

"Living Room" redirects here. For other uses, see Living Room (disambiguation).
A Tudorbethan sitting room in the UK
A California tract home living room, with a kitchen behind a permanent space divider, 1960.

In Western architecture, a living room or lounge room (informal: lounge) is a room in a residential house for relaxing and socializing. Such a room is sometimes called a front room when it is near the main entrance at the front of the house. The term sitting room is sometimes used synonymously with living room, although a sitting room may also occur in a hotel or other public building. In large homes, a sitting room is often a small private living area adjacent to a bedroom, such as the Queen's Sitting Room and the Lincoln Sitting Room of the White House. The term living room was coined in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Overview

In homes that lack a parlour or drawing room, the living room may also function as a reception room.[1]

A typical Western living room may contain furnishings such as a sofa, chairs, occasional tables, and bookshelves, electric lamps, rugs, or other furniture. Traditionally, a sitting room in the United Kingdom and New Zealand has a fireplace, dating from when this was necessary for heating. In a Japanese sitting room, called a washitsu, the floor is covered with tatami, sectioned mats, on which people can sit comfortably.

In larger homes in the United States and Canada, the living room may be reserved for more formal and quiet entertaining, while a separate room—such as a den, family room, or recreation room is used for leisure and informal entertainment. A great room combines the functions of one or more of these rooms.

With little spaces it is getting very tough for home owners to make a proper utilization of living room. So, from a rest room or front room it is basically a space that disassociate the outer part from interfering the privacy. However with some professional architect one can still manage high quality living room designs with their small spaces

From parlour to living room

Until the late 19th century, the front parlour was the room in the house used for formal social events, including where the recently deceased were laid out before their funeral. The term "living room" is found initially in the decorating literature of the 1890s, where a living room is understood to be a reflection of the personality of the designer, rather than the Victorian conventions of the day.[2] The rise of the living room and the funeral parlour outside the home meant the end of the dedicated room for receiving guests that had been common in the Victorian period.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Martin, Judith (2003). Star-spangled manners: in which Miss Manners defends American etiquette (for a change). New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p. 264. ISBN 0-393-04861-6.
  2. ↑ Halttunen, Karen (1989). "From Parlor to Living Room: Domestic Space, Interior Decoration, and the Culture of Personality". In Bronner, Simon. Consumingvisions: Accumulation and Display of Goods In America 1880–1920 (1st ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-02709-0.

External links

Media related to Living rooms at Wikimedia Commons

Small Living Room Designs