My wife and I are struggling with our 1905 old home. It's about 2200 square feet on 2 levels with a small 3rd floor actic space that is semi-finshed and used mostly for storage. We live in our kitchen and a small second floor den (10X10) where the TV and computer is. Our large living room and formal dining room sit vacant about 80% of the time.

We think about building a house that uses space for more efficiently...but also love the warmth and character of our old home. I think we're on the verge of turning our main floor formal living room into a less formal family/living room, and then concealing the TV there. It would give us more space for where we spend more time. My wife and I would like to have our own office and study/reading space which would fit well in the den I referenced above.

Any thoughts. Any specific guidance in one or more of Susan's books to do this?

Thanks

(it may be obvious...but I'm new to this board and the big small house approach).

Tim, if you are still reading this:
We live in an old house as well, although our issue is lack of space. Our solution was to go with wireless network computer technology. We set up a computer with a large flat panel LCD screen (lower electrical usage and you can hang it on the wall) and then routed our cable TV and added Beyond tv software(or something similar). We can then route any recored tv program or watch movies on our laptop anywhere. It takes some setting up- a wireless network is pretty easy, its the installation and setup of the TV software/surround sound/pc that took the most work. But we can hide the laptops among our books and the LCD/computer screen saver is a slide show of family pictures.