I Just Discovered My Grandma's "One-of-a-Kind" Space in Her House Is Actually a Vintage Home Staple

"When I was a kid, the soundtrack of my grandma's home in Michigan was the steady hum of her sewing machine. In her workshop, she transformed the fabrics I chose into dresses and shorts, all while juggling a heap of other projects, whether it was altering dresses for friends or replacing buttons or stitching up clothes for neighbors. We always called it her "sewing room","

""These rooms served as functional areas for clothing repair, home sewing, and quilting, before the trend of open plan living erased small, dedicated spaces," says Kristina Allan, a Realtor, real estate appraiser, and the founder of KALLANLVRE in Las Vegas. "The real estate listings now refer to these rooms as 'bonus rooms,' instead of their original purpose." That updated label suddenly made sense of something that puzzled me last year while house hunting."

""A century ago, many houses were built with rooms designated for specific tasks or household items, explains Martin Horner, cofounder of Soucie Horner Design Collective, a Chicago-based design firm with a hospitality division. "There were linen rooms, there were China cupboard rooms, there were rooms for things - and the sewing rooms were just one of them," Horner says. Adjacent to sewing rooms, you might even spot pull-down linen cabinets used for storing l"

Many older homes included small, purpose-built rooms devoted to sewing, clothing repair, quilting, and storage. Those rooms supported household activity like altering garments, replacing buttons, and making clothing. Over the past century, open-plan living reduced the number of small, specialized domestic rooms and shifted how homes are described. Real estate listings increasingly call former sewing rooms 'bonus rooms' or 'flex space,' obscuring original uses. Mid-century house hunters may therefore expect dedicated sewing areas but encounter generic labels instead, while architectural features such as linen cabinets and task rooms remain evidence of earlier domestic design.

Read at Apartment Therapy