Rooms Most Homeowners Don't Use and Tips to Repurpose Them

It is not uncommon to have a room in your home you just don’t go into that often. Lifestyles change with current culture and with that comes a shift in the way we utilize our homes. Right now the higher rate of people working from home and new technology have driven design trends toward repurposing some of those unused areas in our homes to make them work more efficiently while we spend most of our time there.

With some creativity, homeowners can make their current living space function better for their everyday needs without having to add an extra room to the home. Here are four rooms we typically underutilize in our homes and some tips on how we can make them function for today’s lifestyle needs.

Formal Dining Room

The need for a large room that is only used to host big dinner parties has become a thing of the past. This has been a growing thing since before the pandemic. Some new construction homes no longer include formal dining rooms in their floorplans. Now that large fancy parties are just not happening many homeowners are beginning to shift the unused space taken up by a dusty large table for other things.

In some homes, these tables have become desks to allow for remote work and distanced learning. If you do not want to entirely makeover and give up your dining space you can use a portion of the room to put a desk in or make it into a play corner for small children. If you are ready to see this room fully utilized on a daily basis to make life a bit easier it can be transformed into a full-on play space where toys are out of sight out of mind when you want to relax and watch tv in the living room, an office where you can shut out the rest of the residents in the home and focus on work you get paid for, or an older kids tv room/ hang out space for gaming and tv.

Guest Room

Bedrooms dedicated to welcoming and making out of town guests feel at home are getting a makeover right now. Right now guest rooms are sitting empty most of the time if they didn’t already before. As people sit in their living room trying to have zoom meetings amongst family noise, they are wondering if that quiet space could be better used. This is a great place to set up an office or a temporary learning area. In some homes where parents still need to work outside of the home, this room has become a live-in childcare person’s space.

Porch

Outdoor spaces were once rarely used places in homes as we rushed about outside all day long pre-pandemic. Now as many public spaces have tightened rules, homeowners saw more value in an outdoor living space. Right now there is a resurgence in the use of our porches, patios, decks, and balconies. Now people are turning these places into comfortable extensions of the home to enjoy some fresh air and get some more “breathing room.” A place to enjoy the outdoors on their terms. With the right furniture and an outdoor heater or two, many homeowners are using these spaces all year round. Some home buyers have come to expect private outdoor spaces when searching for a home, it has become part of must-have lists.

Large Closets, Spacious “Hallways,” and Cramped Rooms

Many homeowners have found themselves in need of more space, but believe their homes to be too small to find it. Some homeowners have tapped into their utmost creativity and found themselves using every inch of space they could find for something they really do on a daily basis. Large closets or storage rooms are being turned into yoga retreats, that nook in the hallway is being turned into a desk space for one of the multiple children to work from for school. The space under the stairs is being turned into a temperature-controlled wine cellar. So go look around your home and really analyze the space. If there an empty area that could be creatively turned into something useful?

All of the above are great ideas to make your home work better for you, in addition, if you are selling your home these are great ways to stage and showcase how the home has everything a buyer is looking for right now.

For more information on buying or selling homes in Columbus and surrounding areas please contact us any time.

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