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I was just wondering, how many of you have your main living area facing the front of your house?

The reason I'm asking this, is that I find quite a few homes have their living areas in the back of the house now. Our neighbors across the street and to the left of us have their livingrooms/family rooms in the back so most of the time, it looks like nobody is home. I rarely see lights at their homes. My nephews house is the same way. They do have a good livingroom in the front but they always sit in the large family room in back. It never looks like they are home.

Our livingroom and diningroom are at the front of the house, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom at the back.

My kitchen/family room with TV are at the back of the house. The living/dining room are in the front. I always open the mini blinds in the morning but have not been able to spend much time there lately. With my brother living with me, he's in the front room. (I wish I had a mega-mansion with more rooms and bathrooms)
But before everyone moved in, I used all the rooms, and enjoyed sitting in my clean living room, free from kid-clutter.

since our house was built in 1958, the lr and part of the kitchen face the street...back then it faced a bunch of trees (which some are still left) but now the street is a n/s connector and is 40mpr...we had to tear down the old one car garage (in the back) and replaced it with a y-build shed, lol...

in this day and age we often escape upstairs to watch tv, so no lights are visible...kind of sad...

All our living/kitchen/dining spaces are at the back(not street side) and it's perfect for us as we live on a lake and that's where our view is. If you pulled up to front, the den office window is always open and show the light from rest of house. Even with those that don't use their LR at front of house, I'm always amazed at those who keep it unlit rather than a small light on-looks nicer from the street.

Our living room is at the front of the house, but a few years ago we added a family room on the back. We spend most of our time in the family room, so it probably looks like no one is home at our house in the evenings. In our last house, both the living and family room were at the front of the house, which I did not care for. I think its much better to have the main living room in the back.

Our living room and sitting room (don't know why there are two but there are) are in the front of the house, d.r. behind sitting room, kitchen behind d.r., "blue room" (old kitchen) behind l.r. w/the deep brick wall for the chimneys in between.

I notice that the newish houses owned by my nephews and nieces, even the one's done by one builder nephew, also have the l.r.'s in the front but they are not used. These families have big family rooms in the back next to the kitchens.

BTW the nephew that builds houses just builds houses. He is not an architect nor has had anything but on the job training, his four year college degree is in something totally unrelated. He lives in a very wealthy part of the country so his houses sell for millions of ****. He doesn't work for a builder he is the boss and has employees.

I have almost no windows on the front of the house, so you wouldn't know if we were home or not from the front. We do have timed accent lighting on the outside, so the house is always lit from the outside at night.

Our kitchen and family room are in the back facing wooded common land whereas our powder room and dining room are facing the street. The living room is to the side and not viewed from the front. For this reason, I often have my entry lights on as I for one, dislike returning home to a blacked out house after the sun sets. There are no street lights on our cul de sac, so having the front entry lights on and a table lamp in the foyer helps too.

Our kitchen and living area used to be in the front but since we added on, the main living area is way in the back.

The old living area was made into the dining area next to the kitchen. When you enter my home you enter the dining room/library.

As we have a view of a lake, we designed our house so that the family, living and master bedrooms face the view at the back and kitchen, foyer bathroom is at the front. That way we can enjoy the view in most of the house.

So, from what I can see, most of you have your main living area in the back of the house too.

I guess that I'd have a small lamp on in the entry if I lived in the back of the house. I like the idea of having landscape lighting around the house too. I have to say, I do love to see lights on when I pass by a house. I also like to look into windows as I drive by (when hubby is driving, I wouldn't dream of taking my eyes off the road when I am driving

I am thinking about lighting as I plan my 'curb appeal' for my house. I have started by having DH more plants and remove some, getting the bones of the yard. The larger plants have been planted so now they can grow and fill some areas. I am now working on the second layer which is medium sized supportive plants to fill in views under the later plants.

DH and I talked and since he is an Electrician who used to work on public buildings and large home yard low voltage lighting and spot lights, he is helping me work out a plan for lighting the best views for the night atmosphere lighting.

We live in a neighborhood that is near a preserve and most people do not light up their yards at night, we have safety low light street lights, but all the back yards face the preserve area and are dark, so I do not want to be the 'neon' house in the area! LOL

But, when I am expecting company to come for an evening, I would love to put on the lights!

Here in Florida a lot of people use white or clear Christmas lights on the palm trees and in landscaping, I like this fun approach to lighting a yard for a party or cookout.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Ruth,

VG,

We have a front LR but use our den (back of house) most all of the time. No looking in the windows here since shades are drawn to keep the heat out in the day. Cool and cozy! They remain closed in the evening too.

We do have landscape lights in the garden planters along with carriage lights on the garage.

quote:

We have a front LR but use our den (back of house) most all of the time. No looking in the windows here since shades are drawn to keep the heat out in the day. Cool and cozy! They remain closed in the evening too.

We do too, we have a South exposure front of the house. We do have 3' over hang on the roof which helps as the summer sun becomes more directly overhead, but in the winter the sun streams into that front room and I love opening the blinds then!

I am thinking about a Pergola as an extension over the front door and front window. We have to work out the plan so that the sun will not be so direct in the summer, that way my front door won't be such a 'hot' zone in the summertime.

My LR is at the back of the house so it faces the view. The kitchen/dining is at the front and the dining also has the view through one window. The view out the kitchen and another DR window faces my garden and the road altho the road is 500' away.

Because my LR/dining/kitchen are semi-open to each other lights in any room make the house look occupied at night so when I go out in the evening I leave a few lights on inside as well as some outside lights for security. I vary which lights are on and even when I am home I sometimes leave the outside lights on. Because my house is on a private road in the middle of nowhere there is no drive-by traffic.

Leaving a low wattage light on is a good idea for security reasons, makes the house look nicer from a distance, and doesn't cost much. I have several lamps with 5-7 watt bulbs that cast a pretty glow, other fixtures have CF bulbs so cast more light but are still low wattage. Likely many people never think about how their house looks from outside at night and are concerned about saving on power bills. Electricity is quite reasonable in this province (altho going up) and I think it's good insurance to have the house look occupied at all times.