Your digs: Lacking entertainment space?

[ny biker]

1BR condo here, 711 square feet. Last year I got rid of my old couch (a futon) and replaced it with a loveseat and chair. The smaller furniture fits the room better. However I have less seating as a result.

Potential overnight visitors know that I only have room for 1-2 people. Any more than that I and will refer them to a nearby hotel.

Since getting rid of the futon couch I got an aerobed for guests who do stay over. But the people who are most likely to stay over are my parents, and I give them my bed and I sleep on the aerobed in the living room.

As for parties and such, at most I would only invite a few people over at a time. Which is okay, since I've never been much of a hostess.

I think it makes sense to take advantage of the community meeting room when you have groups of people over. It's more comfortable when there's adequate seating and room to move around. I'm sure people understand that some of us just don't have large homes for entertaining.

By the way, I also try to get furniture that doubles as storage when possible. Last weekend I bought a storage ottoman at Target. It looks nice, gives me extra space to hide stuff away, and could also serve as seating if necessary.

[shootingstar]

1BR condo here, 711 square feet. Last year I got rid of my old couch (a futon) and replaced it with a loveseat and chair. The smaller furniture fits the room better. However I have less seating as a result.

Potential overnight visitors know that I only have room for 1-2 people. Any more than that I and will refer them to a nearby hotel.

Since getting rid of the futon couch I got an aerobed for guests who do stay over. But the people who are most likely to stay over are my parents, and I give them my bed and I sleep on the aerobed in the living room.

What's an aerobed?

When I moved to Vancouver, I actually had 2 couches because I had my own condo before I joined up with my partner under 1 roof. So we kept my loveseat and I sold the other. We have a chair and it's not even an armchair.

My place was 770 sq ft. but it was just myself living there. So when I entertained my family which was over 12 people at that time, half of the guests had to sit on the floor and eat their dinner. This is what I meant..reasonably fit loved ones. I also lived in a building with a meeting rm. but I just didn't want to use it since condo rules required I put down a deposit of several hundred dollars in case of damage. Frankly, it was just more warmer in terms of family feeling to throw an informal party in my own home space. Sure it was alot of clean-up for me, but it was only a few times a yr. Shrug.

Now it's same amount of space, different home but it's 2 of us. So just tighter.

[Grog]

Thanks for reminding me of the importance of space.

The conditions for your communal room don't seem too bad, I wouldn't hesitate to use it more!

As my dear partner and I are thinking about our future living space, and continuously shell-shocked at the price of real-estate in this cruel but beautiful city, the thought of buying a small condo has crossed my mind. But one of my five core values is "conviviality" and I love to have people over. Lots of people. Many times a year. So the condo doesn't fit the the values list.

We have almost 1,000 sf of space right now and although our official eating space is very small (only 4 people can sit there, and one can't go anywhere unless the table is moved!!) we actually cramped eight grown-ups and a baby around a folding table by moving the furniture in the living room. Nobody was quite comfortable in their seat, but the company was wonderful and the food was great! At a stand-up & sit-around wine and cheese party this winter we had as many as 18 people over at one time, and could have had more. So we'll just keep renting (this place is also quite cheap for what we get so we can save lots) until we have the money to buy a place with as much room to entertain, or more!!

[Crankin]

You know, I think no matter how much space we have, we aren't happy with it. I love to entertain, but have never felt that the space I had, whether it was size or configuration, was comfortable for entertaining.
The house I live in now is big, the biggest one I have owned. But it's a very untraditional floor plan. A couple of years ago, I had a party for my husband's birthday. It was the first time I ever had something catered, with servers there. I was totally worried about how they would set up, serve, etc. It felt cramped to me. We used both our dining room and kitchen for the dinner, for about 25 people. I am pretty sure no one except me noticed. And my theory is, if your relatives complain about sleeping on a futon, etc, then show them a hotel. My in laws refused to stay at our last house because of the size of our guest room! They wouldn't pay for a hotel and we were done enabling them by paying for them. Thus, they missed our youngest son's graduation from HS.
I used to entertain in my studio apt. when I was single. We sat on the floor and ate lasagna one time. After a few bottles of wine, no one cared!

[ny biker]

An aerobed is an inflatable mattress. I have a pretty basic model, which I got free from the grocery store through a customer loyalty program.

http://www.thinkaero.com/category/1/...tcategory.html

I've been to plenty of events at other people's houses where we had to squeeze to fit folks around the table. And of course growing up we always sat at the "kid's table" in the kitchen for holiday meals. I think it's true that the company is more important than having tons of space. I wish I could afford a 2BR, so I could use the second room as a bike room/office (notice "bike room" comes before "office" ), but otherwise I'm happy where I am. I made the decision to have a small home in an area that I like rather than a larger home in a place that didn't make me so happy.