What do you call your rooms?

June 8, 2017 4:52 PM

We have a new house (well, in a couple weeks). A house with more rooms than we are used to. They called the big room the "grand room". That doesn't work for me - I need help naming my rooms NOW before terrible names stick! Tell me what to right on my moving boxes!

We have a crazy big room that will have a giant sectional (we bought it off the sellers, it's giant!) for movies, a table for board games and maybe air hockey or something. We have a den/living room/place that will be very casual and maybe most used and also a sitting room place where I will put a couch and chairs and books and kids eating oreos won't be allowed.

While I know this is not a real problem, I have enough problems right now that I want THIS to be the very pleasant problem I want to think about. I grew up without even a living room because my folks had to use it as a bedroom. We watched TV in the "TV room" on a tiny, old closed in porch so it's a little exciting to have this problem for our family of six.

What do you call your room other than "living room"? What are your rooms named?

posted by beccaj to Home & Garden (40 answers total)

We have a crazy big room that will have a giant sectional (we bought it off the sellers, it's giant!) for movies, a table for board games and maybe air hockey or something.

The Funatorium
The Entertainment Dome
The Theeeeee-ater (must be said like that)

We have a den/living room/place that will be very casual and maybe most used

This is the fambly room

a sitting room place where I will put a couch and chairs and books and kids eating oreos won't be allowed

LIBRARY OR GTFO!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:58 PM on June 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

We had a "family room" and "living room" in our house growing up. The living room was more formal, where guests would come over and chat with my parents over coffee or tea. The "family room" was more casual and relaxed, where we did all our family hanging out. Game playing, TV/movie watching, sitting and lounging around, homework, napping, and more.
posted by raztaj at 4:58 PM on June 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'd go with family room, den, and parlor respectively.

We just have a casual-tv and-sectional that's the family room and the more formal chairs and fireplace that's the living room.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 4:59 PM on June 8, 2017

Other names we have used for these kinds of spaces (I don't know if any of them would fit any of your new rooms, because you haven't said where any of them are in your house or what their window situations are, but they might) have included a "front room," a "back room," and a "sun room."
posted by redfoxtail at 5:05 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

And the sitting-room place you describe would in my house be called a "study." (We also currently have a room known as the "dumb room," but you probably don't want that.)
posted by redfoxtail at 5:07 PM on June 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

"Family room", and call the room with the books the library. That's what I call my room with books, although sometimes I eat Oreos in it. A "study" to me has to have a door.
posted by madcaptenor at 5:09 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just call it the big room!
posted by zsazsa at 5:13 PM on June 8, 2017 [6 favorites]

When I was growing up, we had the family room and the Pink Rug Room, which was the Pink Rug Room forever and always, long after the pink rug had been replaced by something less hideous. Which is to say: If you don't pick a name, one will present itself and you'll be stuck with it forever, so good job thinking about it ahead of time!

(Currently, I just have a living room. But sitting room and den seem like good alternatives. Rec room, maybe?)
posted by Stacey at 5:22 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Den for the big fun place, living room for the oft-used place, parlor for the Oreo-free zone.
posted by Night_owl at 5:26 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

We had a room like this and already had a living room when it was added, so my baby (at the time) sister named the new room The Enjoyment Room, which we all loved and she continues to be embarrassed by even at 27.
posted by masquesoporfavor at 5:27 PM on June 8, 2017

Sounds like the family room or maybe the playroom if your kids are a bit younger. The non-Oreo room is the living room.
posted by defreckled at 5:27 PM on June 8, 2017

We have a room like this at my dad's house and we call it the Great Room. It is both big and pretty excellent.
posted by jessamyn at 5:31 PM on June 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

The big room would be "the great room" which is an actual thing that people talk and complain about. The sitting and book room is the library because all nice houses should have a library.
posted by Mizu at 5:35 PM on June 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

Lounge for living room, I might use that for the family room. Big Room for the big room.
posted by jbenben at 5:42 PM on June 8, 2017

We had a lounge (clean for guests, no TV) and a family room (TV, often giant lego/fisher price town with volcano made out of the rug in the middle of it).
posted by kjs4 at 6:01 PM on June 8, 2017

I would say family room, living room, and den, respectively. This may just be me, but "library" sounds a bit pretentious unless the bookshelves are floor to ceiling and filled with musty tomes.
posted by ejs at 6:05 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

We had a den (regular couch-and-TV room) and a playroom (crappy old couch and crappy old TV + toys room). Our house didn't have a living room (nice couches, no Oreos), but friends did.

I would call the sectional/game table room either the playroom (if you have toys in there), the game room (if you get an air hockey table), or the movie room.

The casual living room is the den.

The fancy room is the living room or parlor depending on how old fashioned you. Or definitely the library if it has lots of books.
posted by raspberrE at 6:18 PM on June 8, 2017

The Great Room ?
posted by some loser at 6:22 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

The big room. Biggie for slang.
posted by AugustWest at 6:23 PM on June 8, 2017

Growing up we had a giant room like that. It had the big TV, the comfy couch, a pool table and some horrible red carpet. We called it the 'rec room'.
posted by cgg at 6:23 PM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just go with something clear. Our family room still has the yellow paint from when we moved in. It is "The Yellow Room."
posted by teddymac at 6:36 PM on June 8, 2017

Media room where you put giant tv and stereo equipment.
posted by brujita at 6:37 PM on June 8, 2017

We had a room we called the "anomaly " because we weren't sure what it was.
posted by SemiSalt at 6:48 PM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'd go with family room, living room, and study, respectively.

Study, because you can have a desk in there for paying bills/writing correspondence and the word study indicates it's intended for family members (of all ages) participating in quiet and grown up reading and working. My dad had a study and I always thought of it as an almost sacred place because it was always so lovely and quiet.

Your new house sounds like it'll be a lot of fun -- congrats!
posted by mochapickle at 6:49 PM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Parlor, sitting room, library.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:26 PM on June 8, 2017

The house I grew up in had a den (paneling, fireplace, TV) and a living room (formal furniture, no Oreos). We also had a formal dining room connected to the living room (only used for special occasions) and an area in the kitchen large enough for a kitchen table (where we ate most meals).

Our rowhouse now has a living room (less fussy than the one from my childhood, Oreos allowed but not encouraged), a big room in the basement we just call the basement (TV, couch), and a library (larger of two guest bedrooms, lots of books).

I'd call your big room a great room or a family room (and maybe a rec room), and the other one a den or a living room. And I'd call the library the library.
posted by fedward at 7:29 PM on June 8, 2017

I'd call the big room the "play room." I'd call the book room the "den" (or the "book room") and the other one could be the living room. "Living room" is a common enough word that it will slip out easily anyway. Library sounds pretentious to me. My dad's library, which is extensive and rather serious, we call "the stacks"; because it is actually set up with library stacks.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:57 PM on June 8, 2017

My grandfather's rooms are generally named after the decorating style used within. "The Russian room" is the room with the Russian patterned wallpaper and color scheme, the "Berkeley room" is the one with the tangerine paint job and blue borders, etc.
posted by Soliloquy at 8:27 PM on June 8, 2017

we had a Wing of Abundant Joy (the WAJ for short)
posted by andreapandrea at 10:02 PM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

We have a big room like that and my husband calls it his "chambers". I prefer to think of it as " the lair ".
posted by lollusc at 12:22 AM on June 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

We have one room where we keep everything we don't need but like to have anyhow and call it the Awesome Room. Drums, musical equipment, games, weird yard sale finds, old photos, odd collections.
posted by katinka-katinka at 2:35 AM on June 9, 2017

In the houses I grew up in, the living room had the nice couches, the better TV, and was used by everyone but parents had veto powers. The family room had the little crappy tv and couches, also had the ironing board and random stuff stored in it, and was where the kids were sent when we wanted to watch something different from the adults. The study was very boring, and only used for homework or its grown-up equivalents. Now I live in a one-bedroom flat in which all these things are the same. If I could start from scratch, I like the idea of coloured rooms - the blue room, yellow room etc.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 3:02 AM on June 9, 2017

Formal: sitting room
Most-used: living room
New, big room: rec room
posted by functionequalsform at 4:19 AM on June 9, 2017

I think your new big room with air hocket and giant couch etc. should be a Romper Room.



Personally we have a:
- "living room" where the TV is
- "theatre" where our home theatre is (yes, separate room, it is epic)
- "the nook" where we have a big window and small loveseat and a ton of plants and that's about it. It is sort of like a sunroom, but the "nook" name stuck.
- "The Sanctuary" is my home office/no boys allowed room for me


Funny side story: I once lived in an apartment where we had an extra/unused bedroom and when we moved it we jokingly said that we would only use it for storing balloons. It was the Balloon Room. Even when we turned it in to a guest room/home office it was still called The Balloon Room and we always had at least one balloon in there on principal.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 6:16 AM on June 9, 2017 [4 favorites]

Your "den/living room" where oreos will not be allowed is your living room. The great room is the den (or the great room, if it's that big). Or the playroom.
posted by vignettist at 8:01 AM on June 9, 2017

My Ozarks family was, to say the least, a bit eccentric, but we had a kind of entry foyer that had a sink in it which was called the "stop room" - stop and wash your hands when coming in from farm labor! We often called the living room the "front room," and the central not-really-used kind of walk-through office room, from which one entered the bedrooms and bathrooms, was called the "middle room." So I'm suggesting you could use directions or positioning instead of usage for the name.

I mean, I'd probably go with something like "the east wing" in a pretentious voice, though.
posted by Occula at 8:06 AM on June 9, 2017

Funny side story: I once lived in an apartment where we had an extra/unused bedroom and when we moved it we jokingly said that we would only use it for storing balloons. It was the Balloon Room. Even when we turned it in to a guest room/home office it was still called The Balloon Room and we always had at least one balloon in there on principal.

In our basement we have the "box graveyard", which is where we put empty cardboard boxes that are good enough to reuse. (These are really nice to have around the holidays, because it's a lot easier to wrap a present if it's in a box.) I suspect if we ever fix up this space to the point where it has another use we'll still call it the box graveyard.
posted by madcaptenor at 9:23 AM on June 9, 2017 [2 favorites]

In our house the room where all the fun things are is the "gathering room" but if you wanted to go the historical route you could call it a keeping room.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 11:43 AM on June 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have been flummoxed in my house as well, because I have two rooms of approximately equal size used for approximately the same purpose--sitting around. I call one the living room (decorated a bit more formally, front door is there) and the other the "fireplace room" (self-explanatory). However, the house is a long ranch that is situated East/West (facing South), and each of these rooms is on one end of the house. So now I think I'm going to try to get "East Room" and "West Room" to stick.
posted by Stewriffic at 12:14 PM on June 9, 2017

The room that the real estate agent kept calling the "Library" only has a couple of shelves of books so ended up as the "Kindlearium".
posted by scrufflehead at 6:35 PM on June 10, 2017 [2 favorites]