We have too many TVs! Right now one in our bedroom, one in the main floor livingroom and one downstairs in the family room. It is crazy!
We have been looking at building a new house and my husband wants a bonus room over top of the garage, I think if we did this the TV would be there an then there would not be one in the main floor living room and yes, he wants his basement “man cave” too, I said I just get my dream kitchen 😉

My husband and I own a TV but we use it only for movies. We don’t have cable and we never will. Neither of us are big TV watching fans. We’d rather go out and experience life than sit on a couch and watch someone else do it for us (again, this is our personal POV and have no feelings about other people’s choices). We plan to continue that even once our son is born in August and throughout our lives. We don’t feel like we’re missing out on anything. We do have Netflix, which was a recent addition, but only watch movies there or the occasional show on babies if we’re feeling up to it. This allows us to view TV time as cuddle time because it’s really to watch a movie not sit down for hours of mindless television (though I obviously recognize not ALL TV is mindless). We read more, sleep better, spend time outside with our puppy, etc etc. We love it! When my mom, who is addicted to her tv 24/7 (she literally wakes up to it and goes to bed to it and has it on from the moment she gets home from work at 4pm until 11pm+ regardless of what’s on TV or if she’s watching it) really enjoyed her week visiting our TV less apartment when we lived in Texas. She said she got so much done because the TV just wasn’t an option. She read 3 entire books! And slept like a baby while at home she often has problems sleeping (another reason I’d never have a TV in the bedroom). Anywho, I think your decision is a great one! I think it WILL make you more conscious of your TV time if nothing else and in turn will perhaps make you focus more on “do i really NEED to watch TV or would we rather read snuggled up, watch a movie or even play a board game?”

We haven’t had a tv in our house in over 3 years, and it was the best decision ever. I would totally suggest leaving it out of the living room though. Like you said, it would be begging to be turned on all the time.

I’m going to quote Joey from Friends “But what is all your furniture pointed at?”

My boyfriend and I actually don’t have a TV at all for just this reason/dilemma, and I LOVE not having one – my bf is the type that if a tv is on, he’s glazed over/unresponsive and staring at it (augh!), and I would be suckered into way more reality tv than I am now – I definitely still watch some tv shows, bu I watch them online, with no or way fewer commercials! I think having a TV ‘room’ (why not rec room instead of man cave?) is a really good compromise.

I think it’s nice to just have music playing while I’m in the kitchen making dinner or baking. The problem is, in our current condo, our kitchen and living room are one big open space. So if my husband is watching tv, that’s what I’m forced to listen to. I’d really prefer to just have my Pandora going. We also watch tv while eating dinner. We live in a tiny condo and sit on the floor at our coffee table to eat dinner, so it’s only natural to turn on the tv. I hope that when we move someday, we’ll only have conversation over dinner without the tv on!

I’ll share a heads up with you on the backyard and the dogs. I’ve grown up with dogs having a backyard to do their business, so I’ve always assumed that it was instinctual that they’d go. Fast forward to now… We had our pup in an apartment for about 9 months before buying our house. He had to go on walks to do his “business.” I assumed that once he had the backyard he’d just go out there. Nope. Refused. He had a ton of accidents in the house. We’d put him outside, assume he was going and then he’d come in and make a mess somewhere in the house. Eventually, I think he got it, but he still doesn’t like it. He much prefers to do his business on walks. He uses the backyard maybe only 5-6 times a week.

So… that lovely outdoor toilet that we bought him? Useless. We’re still slaves to the leash.

Not sure if it’s because he thinks it’s part of the house, he’s picky, or just a jerk.

Our tv is in the man cave in the basement. We moved upstairs for a month and watched so much more tv. Having it out of your line of sight does wonders for watching less.

I like this idea a LOT. I went years without a TV before meeting my husband, who can’t live without a TV. We still don’t have cable though 🙂 We do use our TV now for skyping to our parents, and once our little one arrives in September, we’ll be using it ALL the time, I’m sure, for Skyping to all the family members. So it is convenient having it in the living room for this purpose!

My parents raised all three of us with some pretty unusual rules- no video games, no soft drinks until we’re ten, and we went for years at a time with no TV (when we had one we didn’t have cable or anything). After they divorced, the rules weren’t enforced as well and you can definitely tell the difference between my younger brother and my sister and I.

None of us acquired a taste for cokes- we we each went through a period where we tried to like it but quickly realized a) how gross it tasted and b) how bad it made our bodies feel. The changes stop there. My sister and I (who grew up with little TV) don’t have TV’s while my brother has one in his bedroom. I’ve played a video game 3 times in my life whereas he spends his entire day behind multiple screens playing online games.

The rules may seem strict but they worked for me and I plan on using them myself when I have kids. I think we’ll have a tv for movies only. Netflix has a pretty extensive collection of early childhood shows and I do think that watching those for a restricted amount of time is good for a kids development (and honestly, as a babysitter, I know how good it is to have the option of putting a movie on when you really need it!).

I think your tv plan is great. We own one tv; It’s in our basement and we don’t watch it very often. None of my three kids tends to think of tv as something to do regularly or when bored. We all use it mostly as a way to watch the occasional dvd. Now computers and other electronic gadgets? That’s a whole nother story 🙂

I am SO happy for James! All my houses have to have a fenced yard for my dog. He loves just walking around and sniffing in his yard.

My TV is in my living room (the only space I have for it) but I only have it on if I’m watching something. Otherwise, I’d rather have music on.

my experience with tv has been that you think you’ll miss having it (even if you’re just moving it out of a main living space instead of getting rid of it entirely) . . . but after a quick period of adjustment, you realize you don’t miss it at all.

HA–nothing is ever as easy as you think it should be, is it?

My husband actually wants to move the TV in our living room, so it’s more conducive to visiting, playing games, etc. More quality time with the people we love!

I think it’s a good idea to put your TV somewhere else. Growing up my life was very TV-centered. We had one in the kitchen, family room, rec room and my parents bedroom. Everyone would go watch a TV alone. I think doing things together would be a lot better!

In our house we have a main living room downstairs and loft upstairs. We have our TV downstairs because we plan to make the loft the baby playroom and we hoped that by not having a TV in there it would cut down on baby TV time. We’ll see.

I LOVE the idea of keeping the TV out of the main room. I am SO not a TV person anyways, so if we don’t even have one I’d be fine. We just watch movies, so that’s why we have one. Hah 🙂

Some day I hope we have a house where there’s a room for the tv besides the main living area. It’d be nice not to have it the center of the place we are most.

Kudos for getting it moved to it’s own room!

Very exciting about the backyard! I would love to get the TV out of the main living area, I just don’t think it would work in our household. I’ve suggested just getting rid of it entirely even just as a test but I haven’t convinced my husband. For now, we’ll leave it in the main living area. I’d probably never see him if it was in another room that I didn’t want to just go and sit in!

In our new place, we have a main floor, an upstairs and a basement (which is the man cave, ha ha). We only have a tv in the basement and one in our bedroom, but the main “living” floor is tv free and I love it. While we’re cooking, we’re eating a meal or having company in the living room, there is no distraction. We do spend a lot of time watching tv in the basement but it’s my hope that when we have kids, the tv will be shut off more than it’s on.

We have one tv, in our “media room”, and I LOVE it. The media room is upstairs, and most nights it never even comes on. We spend our time in the living room chatting and reading, or playing with the dog, and we rarely even consider the television. After a year or so, we just dropped cable all together (when it isn’t football season!), and we only watch movies every now and then.

We have one t.v. in the living room and a small bonus one in our extra room for video games. The video games NEVER get used so that t.v. is never on. We have agreed that in the next house we’d like to have a media room and have a t.v. in there and nothing in the LR.

We do NOT do man caves or t.v.’s in the bedrooms.
Our children are allowed one movie a week, cartoons once a week (90 minutes total) and the only approved cartoons are PBS or oldies (Duck Tales, Gummi Bears, Inspector Gadget, etc).

Also, they can earn up to one hour of computer time a week.

We have 4 going on 7 children.

Oh, Man. We have a tv in the main living space, a little one in the kitchen, one in the master bedroom, one in the upstairs loft area, one in the office, and one in two other bedrooms. Completely ridiculous, but we really do love tv. (It’s really horrifying to see it listed like that!)

I think you’re smart to keep it out of the main living room, and I’d do it too for the same reasons you gave. I used to babysit for a family that didn’t even have a TV, and their kids went crazy over books!! Right now, we have one TV in our house and I refuse to ever put one in my bedroom!

Have you considered getting rid of your TV (or, at a minimum, not having cable)? My parents’ TV broke before I was born and they couldn’t afford to replace it. 30+ years later, and able to afford a TV, they still don’t have one.

I am so glad we grew up without TV. It forces kids to become good readers, play outside, use their imaginations to play. Also families talk more without TV and it’s distractions (or background noise). People are surprised how comfortable I am being alone at home without a radio or TV on; I think I learned to appreciate silence in a TV-less home as a child.

Clearly these weren’t my thoughts as a kid when I wanted to watch Friends and Sinfeld or just wanted some entertainment when I was bored. Instead I picked up books.

My initial reaction was “you’re just going to end up in the TV room all the time”.

BUT.

If you make a concious effort to spend time in the living area w/o a TV, you will do more reading and interacting with each other.

You just have to make that effort for it to work out the way you want.

I wish we had a separate room to put our TV. My husband is one of those people who puts the TV on even if no one is watching it. I hate that! I like the bonus room idea. Out of sight, out of mind!

James is positively BEAMING! Love it!

In our old house we didn’t have a separate living room and family room. We just had a living room on the first floor and we kept it formal. NO TV! We put the TV in the basement family room. To this day, it’s the only TV in our house and I like how it’s removed from the main spaces of the home.

It can go either way…less tv for kids can make them want it MORE and sort of obsess over it, or letting them have it on a casual basis makes it not such a treat ya know?