Why do we keep “spare” rooms in our house?

Our grandparents used to keep a “best room” or a room called something similar for when guests came round but funnily enough whenever we went to visit older relatives we never went in the best room.  Hmm I wonder why?  Now who did they keep that room for?  Obviously not for the relatives visits and a I doubt it was there for the neighbours visits either so I wonder who ever went in there.  The vicar if they ever had one visit?  A passing celebrity?  We had quite a few relatives who had one of these rooms and I don’t ever remember going in them (only to peek in) even at Christmas time.  Looking back it does make you wonder how special a visitor you had to be to be allowed in the best room J 

It seemed an awful waste of a room especially if the family was quite large.  I suppose it may have had something to do with heating and the room they all sat around in had the fire going so they didn’t want to use 2 rooms with 2 fires.   So everyone seemed to congregate in what we would now call a kitchen diner, which funnily enough everyone is going back to now.  But considering I am not that old and they had central heating when I was a child I thought they could use all the rooms in a house with ease.  I suppose it was hard for them to break with tradition.  It never happened in the house I grew up in as the kitchen wasn’t big enough for us to all sit around in even though we ate our meals at the kitchen table rather than in the dining room and the only other room downstairs was a lounge diner.  Of course this is the English way and as I have a lot of American friends you may be wondering what on earth I am talking about as that just doesn’t or never did happen in the US.

It’s the same with bedrooms – why do people keep a “spare” or “guest” bedroom unless they have friends or relatives who stay often.   Most people we know have turned their spare room into an office or put it to some other use as few of us ever have anyone to stay the night.  Maybe as we get older we like your own bed so would rather designate a non-drinking driver for the evening and go home after a dinner party or evening out.  It does seem a waste of a room to have a double bed and wardrobe in there “just in case” anyone wants to stay.  A bed settee or a blow-up mattress is probably the better idea for those very occasional overnight visitors.  If you can manage with one less bedroom for 340 or so nights a year you might as well downsize. 

That’s why I would quite like to use our dining room for a craft room.  I don’t know why we have a dining room as such anyway.  We used to eat in there a lot more than we do now.  We used to have dinner there when we were going out dancing and to different clubs in the evening.  Now we eat late as we have nothing to rush for and so we eat with trays on our laps watching television.  Very unsociable I know.  We only have friends round for dinner occasionally as in-between we go to their houses as well or eat out.  So all in all I don’t think it would be too bad if I took over the dining room for my hobby room apart from the major upheaval when friends do come round.  LOL – perhaps I will have to arrange things so that they come to us in the summer for outdoor eating.  It does seem a waste of a good space to keep the dining room for just the odd occasion.  I am sure I could keep a bit of space free for us to eat there if we did want to eat at the table occasionally.  Watch this space.

And time for todays trivia:

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.

Today I thought I would show you this link to the Blue Angels as I found it brilliant: