Who invented the living room

Living rooms today are distant descendants of rooms like this. This was particularly true in the United Kingdom, where the term caught on.

This was also a space to entertain visitors, with one main difference: a drawing room was like a quieter, smaller parlour, where the owner of the house or his wife could withdraw from a public setting into a more private setting with a distinguished guest. Of course, modern living rooms today have no longer any such function. In the 20th Century, the first recognizable version of the modern living room emerged in the United States. Indeed, as we shall see later on, technology like the television has become a near-indispensable part of the modern living room.

In the history of the living room, there is one note of irony that deserves some attention. As millions died from the disease, and without having the immediate means to bury bodies, while simultaneously wishing to take the time to mourn, unused parts of the house became a place for stacking bodies. The parlour became the natural room for it; no one was entertaining guests in this terrible time. Nowadays, there are so many other names for living rooms.

So when you walk in your living room today, remember all this extensive living room history and appreciate this wonderful living space in each of our homes!

Fella Design logo. Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh. His interest in art began in his late teens, he left theology school and moved to New York t There were no mods and rockers in s but simply youths who wanted to have a good time. Back To Top. Depending on personal taste, the living room could be the site where the entire family hung out, and communicated Or it could be a more formal "sitting room.

As we moved into the '50s, the living room became more focused on comfort, and less on formality. Televisions were a far cry from the huge screens we're used to today — sitting up close meant the view was better.

Truly, sitting more than a few feet away meant that you might not be able to see. Plus, there were no remotes yet, so changing the channel and volume still meant getting up and adjusting them on the TV itself. When the '60s hit, people began getting more adventurous with their decor. Colorful couches were all the rage. As evidenced by shows like "That '70s Show," teenagers began getting relegated to the basement or "rec rooms," which were even less formal than a traditional living room.

Another telltale sign of the '70s is shag carpeting, which can be seen here. Floral wallpaper was also a staple of the decade. By the '80s, a television wasn't just for watching — video games were just arriving on the scene. However, we're still a long way from the TVs and video games that we know and love today. The '90s saw more technological invention, and a focus on mixing bold colors and patterns. And yes, video game technology continued to evolve as well.

The early s were all about combining entertainment and practicality, hence the giant media system that held your TV, DVDs, and any other knick knacks you needed to display. For the past decade, everyone has been knocking down walls so they can have an "open concept" living area, popularized by interior designers like "Fixer Upper" stars Chip and Joanna Gaines. And even though TV is still a huge part of our daily lives, we're trying to hide it behind art. They were supposed to chat all night, just getting to know each other without physical contact.

Then they might choose to marry. Bundling was a step along the way towards your spouse being a matter of personal choice rather than someone picked out for you by your parents. It died out because the Victorians found it rather undignified - and in the nineteenth century all the bedroom's social uses fell away and it finally became a private place used just for sleeping.

Next we come to the room in the house that has the shortest history: the bathroom. Two hundred years ago, bathrooms didn't exist. The bathroom's development has not been a straightforward matter, and you might be surprised to learn that many Tudor people had worse personal hygiene than their medieval ancestors.

People often use the word 'medieval' to mean something horrible and dirty, but those at the top of medieval society actually kept their bodies very clean. Medieval London contained numerous communal, mixed-sex bathhouses, with single tubs and communal tubs, steam baths and herbal potions. You could spend the whole day and even have a meal, like a modern spa. Around , though, bathing entered upon two hundred years - the 'dirty centuries' - of decline and neglect.

This was partly because many bathhouses had become brothels, and partly because of fears that water spread illness, especially the new and frightening Tudor affliction of syphilis. People were concerned that polluted bath water might penetrate their skin. But that's not to say the Tudors and Stuarts had no concept of cleanliness. In their idea about personal hygiene, clean underwear played an important part as it was supposed to soak up sweat.

A shirt 'today serves to keep the body clean', wrote a commentator in , more 'effectively than the steam-baths of the ancients who were denied the use and convenience of linen'. Hence the emphasis on sparking collars and cuffs in Tudor portraiture: it signifies a clean body - and a virtuous mind. The Tudors also overlooked a rather extraordinary invention which didn't catch on for another two centuries.

Sir John Harrington thought to give his name to 'the john' published a book in describing exactly how to construct a flushing toilet, and he had one installed for Elizabeth I in her royal palace at Richmond.

Using Harrington's instructions, we re-built one of his toilets for episode two and - rather surprisingly - it was completely effective in flushing down a handful of cherry tomatoes. However, in an age of cheap labour, it was much nicer to have your servant bring a chamber pot to your bedroom than it was for you to be obliged to walk to a shared, rather smelly, and fixed flushing toilet somewhere else in the house.

Only in the nineteenth century, with the improvements to the water supply forced by the fear of cholera, and with the building of underground sewers, did the flushing toilet finally take its place in most homes. But it's also a place for display - a room for impressing your guests with your taste and wealth. At its heart is the chair, originally reserved for the household's head. The original 'chairman' sat down while his servants stood, or sat upon lowly stools not chairs with arms.

The notion that those in charge have the best seats is so powerful that judges still have 'benches' and professors hold 'chairs'. With the ending of the Wars of the Roses, the defensive requirements of manor-houses declined, and grand houses began to acquire extra rooms purely for the purpose of receiving guests. Why did living rooms eventually develop so many different specialisations: drawing room, parlour, morning room, smoking room and so on?