It’s a space where you can complain about your day while listless daytime TV hums in the background. A place to flop onto the sofa and idly tap through your phone in silence next to someone else doing the same. An environment built for opening a bottle of wine on a Sunday afternoon, pouring extra glasses for anyone who decides to join in. You can eat greasy takeaways, watch old romcoms, and be cataclysmically hungover, all with the comfort of knowing you’re only ever a moment away from someone bursting in and disrupting your solitude, because the beauty and madness of this space derive from the fact that it is fundamentally shared.
Yes, I’m talking about the living room – a place that was once integral to any housing experience, but has now become a fleeting rarity. According to data compiled by SpareRoom, the UK’s busiest flatsharing website, half of UK renters now live in flatshares without a living room. The survey of more than 2,000 Britons found that 80 per cent were living this way due to landlords choosing to turn what would be a living space into an extra bedroom, consequently earning rent from an additional tenant. Just 7 per cent of those surveyed said it was their own choice to live without a living room.
It shouldn’t be surprising when you consider how inaccessible the rental market has become in the UK – a situation that has only been exacerbated by the country’s increasingly severe housing crisis. Average room rents are now £744 a month, according to SpareRoom, while in London this rises to £982. As a result, many prospective tenants have chosen to live in spaces without living rooms because of how much cheaper it is for them, not just in terms of an overall decrease in rent but also because there are more people to split bills between. That said, SpareRoom’s data found that almost a third (32 per cent) of those without a living room estimate that the discount on their rent is less than 20 per cent compared with the average rent for their area, while 43 per cent believe their rent isn’t any cheaper.
It’s not hard to imagine the impact of this. Because the loss of a shared living space doesn’t just change the way you live, forcing you into student-style accommodation where you exist entirely within four, possibly rather damp, walls. It also signifies several other losses, including practically all of the things that make living with other people tolerable, let alone enjoyable. Like watching films together on Sunday afternoons, or playing a spontaneous game of cards because everyone happens to be in one Friday night.
Even just having a conversation feels easier when you’re doing it in an area that all of you have equal ownership of: it puts you on an even playing field, where everyone is free to say and behave as they wish. “One of the top benefits of shared living is how sociable it is,” says Matt Hutchinson, director of SpareRoom. “People meet their friends and partners and make life-changing connections through flatsharing. But take away the communal spaces, and those moments may never happen.”
Almost half (46 per cent) of those without living rooms surveyed by SpareRoom said they never socialised with their housemates. “I miss not being able to spend time with my flatmates in a way that feels intentional,” says Gabriela, 30, who works as a researcher in Harrow and has been living with two friends in a flat without a living room since September. “They’re both a couple of years younger and are students,” she explains. “At the time, I was also starting a career in a new field, so none of us had much money, and where we chose to move was dependent on cost and location. I can chat to my flatmates in the kitchen, but we’re all simultaneously doing things, so it doesn’t feel like quality time. If we had a living room, socialising would be more of a conscious effort, and there would be room for better conversations.”
There are clear mental health impacts in all of this. Not having a living room means the prospect of inviting other friends and family members over can become difficult; catching up with someone while sitting awkwardly together on an unmade bed, holding cups of tea, isn’t exactly the easiest of dynamics. And what about meals? If there isn’t a dining area in the kitchen, dinners become sad solo affairs in bedrooms. On top of this, more of us are working from home than ever before, with ONS statistics showing that, in autumn 2024, more than a quarter (28 per cent) of working adults in Great Britain were using a hybrid model. “People also told us they can struggle to switch off, because they don’t have a separate space in which to wind down,” adds Hutchinson. “No one wants to feel as though they live in a bedroom instead of a home.”
It’s not relaxing, either, if you only have one space in which to exist. Without the delineation of areas where you can sleep, eat, and relax, everything becomes muddled together in one space that can quickly become claustrophobic. “It makes it hard to want to be at home for reasons other than to sleep, eat, and cook,” says Charlie, 22, who lives in a flat in Dalston without a living area. It wasn’t an active decision on his part to live somewhere without a living room, but rather, as for lots of Londoners, it was a compromise he made in order to live in a convenient part of the city. “Ultimately, I’ve always wanted a communal space that isn’t a kitchen, but it’s not currently in my budget, which is sad to say as a full-time working individual,” he adds.
The importance of having communal spaces should not be underestimated, particularly not when so many of us (a quarter of adults, according to the ONS) regularly feel lonely. But short of spending all your time out of the house, which will inevitably only create further problems, there isn’t a huge amount you can do, especially not when you’ve been priced out of accommodation with a shared living area. A recent survey commissioned by London Councils found that the cost of living crisis was the top issue among Londoners, with 75 per cent saying as such. That figure rose to 83 per cent among private renters.
My room has ended up being a place to hoard boxes of decor and instruments, and that infringes on my personal space
“The thing I miss most is being able to have friends over to watch movies, write, or make songs,” says Charlie. “That becomes difficult to do when there’s more than two of you. If I want to do those things now, I end up incurring costs to do them elsewhere.” It’s not ideal from a design perspective, either. “I feel like a living room is a space you can decorate together as a house, so when you don’t have one, you’re forced to put a lot of things in your room that typically wouldn’t be there. My room has ended up being a place to hoard boxes of decor and instruments, and that infringes on my personal space.”
There are, however, small architectural tweaks that can be made to help create boundaries within your personal living space. “If you don’t have a living room, then smart, flexible furniture and simple layout tricks can work to create zones in one room,” suggests Lee Trethewey at Sustainable Furniture. “For example, foldaway chairs, small tables that double as work surfaces and eating spaces, rugs or lighting to mark out a relaxing corner, and shelving that divides space up as you please. These choices help offer the feeling of different areas without needing any more square footage.”
And of course, there can be some perks to living like a student – though they are minimal, and may be age-inappropriate. Charlie, for example, has chosen to spend very little time in the house, which forces him to socialise more with friends out and about in London. “That’s probably not very healthy, but it works for me,” he says. “It also reduces the cleaning, which is very beneficial. It’s a 30-minute task for me now, whereas before it could have taken half a day.”
The thing is, it’s easier to make certain allowances when you’re younger. At 22, Charlie is arguably in a more low-maintenance position than someone a decade or so older, when the bar for your living situation becomes much higher. No self-respecting 35-year-old dreams of being stuck in their bedroom with three or four housemates in a property that is far too small for everyone. It’s teenage living, except it has found its way into adulthood. How can any of us behave like the bona fide grown-ups time tells us we are when we’re forced to live like children? It’s a question nobody should have to answer. And yet, it’s clearly one that many of us are dealing with on a daily basis.
