You NEED a HiFi Room. Fight me!
by: Our Very Own, Over-Opinionated Geoff Woods.
As we take a look at home design, there are a few things that remain constant year after year, decade after decade, and will likely never change. At a bare minimum, you’ve got a kitchen, a living room, bedrooms, and bathrooms, and after that, everything else is negotiable. Even in a studio apartment, where your bedroom, living room and kitchen might not be separated by walls and the only separate room is the biffy, you still need to have all those basic elements. Beyond that, we start talking about the luxuries. Even the term “living room” might be interpreted in a number of different ways depending on the lifestyle of the homeowner, but now we’re talking about the next step. . . the first luxury, what should that be? For some it’s an office, or maybe a formal dining room, maybe playroom for the kids, maybe a gym, but for me – and I would argue for the good of mankind, I think it should be a listening room.
Let’s dismantle the alternatives one at a time: First, the home office. Screw that. That’s not a luxury, that’s work. Work is work, home is home. I know that in 2020 everybody shifted to working at home and a lot of people decided not to go back, but personally, I think that’s a bit of a misstep. In this age of everybody being connected all the time, it has become expected of us to always be working. Technology was supposed to make our lives better, and yet having a phone and a computer in our pocket all the time is turning us all into the equivalent of ER doctors that are on call 24/7.
Now I know this isn’t possible for everyone, but I think for most people, we need to reestablish a boundary between our home life and our work life for the sake of extending our life. Leave work at work and turn that home office into a sanctuary of sanity. Put in a hi-fi listening room and if you absolutely need to read reports or answer emails while you listen, you still can, but it will feel less like work if you can enjoy a little music while you do it. Turn off the news, turn on the stereo, live longer and happier.
What about a formal dining room? This is almost a non-starter for most people. Really, be honest, since Covid, how many times have you had the occasion to use a formal dining room? And this is not the 18th or 19th century when you had footmen and servers standing in the corner in their livery, waiting to whisk your soup bowl away before bringing in the next course, while you worry about whether or not you’re using the right fork. These days, when people come over for dinner, they want to be carrying on a conversation with you while you put the finishing touches on dinner and that’s happening in the kitchen (or better yet, outside by the grill). I submit the need for a formal dining room is a holdover conceit of a bygone age. For considerably less than what you would pay for a solid wood table and 8 chairs, you can buy a pretty kick-ass stereo, and the folks that come over for dinner 2 times a year will be more impressed by your Hi-Fi than they would have been by your Cricklewood purchase.
A Playroom for the kids? Okay, to be fair, I have a weak spot for kids. Of course, they need a space where they can be free to spread their toys out in a fashion that resembles a trailer park after a tornado, but why can’t that just be their bedroom? Do you really want them to destroy ANOTHER room in the house? Maybe if you have lots of rooms to spare, but once again, if we’re talking about the first choice for a room beyond the basic necessities of sleeping, eating, and hygiene, I would argue that the bedroom can hold their toys and a music room offers something for the whole family and can be both educational and calming and they won’t outgrow it the way they outgrow their toys. Besides, just from a cultural perspective, we owe it to the next generation to instill in them a love of music. And stop letting them listen to the Wiggles or whatever. The sooner you expose your kids to mature music – and I don’t mean foul language riddled rap, I just mean good music that has complexity and creativity – the smarter they will be.
What about a gym? No, but really. Seriously? Ok, hold my beer. If you can afford the type of equipment that would occupy a room to such a degree that you could call it a gym, then I would argue you can afford the $19 a month for a membership in a REAL gym with BETTER equipment, and people around to rescue you if you make the dumb mistake of putting too much weight on the bench press. And if you really need a rack for drying your laundry, there are less expensive versions than a $2000 Peloton bike or NordicTrak treadmill. If, on the other hand, you’d be more limited in the number of athletic appliances that you’d be purchasing, why not combine the gym with a listening room? Face it, you’re much more likely to stick to your workout regimen if you can crank up some motivational tunes while you work off last night’s pasta. And while you might only work out for 20 – 30 minutes a day (and yes, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here – be honest) If the room is a listening room as well as a gym, you will likely double or triple its daily usage, and doesn’t it just make sense to get the most dollar value back from your biggest investment? And by that, I mean your home, not your audio system. At least, I think that’s what I mean. . . maybe.
So if you have a hundred or so square feet of space that is currently devoted to storing clothes that you’ll never fit into again, or an arts and crafts table that has simply become a catch-all for clutter and old family “heirlooms” that no member of the family ever remembers using, maybe it’s time to re-think that space and treat yourself to a good pair of speakers, an amp, a music streamer, and maybe even a cool turntable and a comfy chair or two.
I promise you, it WILL make your life better.
