What is the difference between a living room and a family room?

Living rooms are usually more formal, family room is where the family goes to watch tv and hang out.
My parents house has two family rooms and one formal living room.

The OED cites family room as a North Americanism (is it?) and as a “living- or recreation room”, so to some extent they are interchangeable. But I think @casheroo is correct in saying that the living room is the space for more formal, social situations, and the family room is for relaxation.

The living room was the place you didn’t want to be caught in by my mother or you were dead. The family room is where we lived. Go figure. What is that taste? Ohhh, it’s the irony.

My aunt has:
A living room: where you sit and just talk.
A family room: where the TV is.
A sitting room: where you can’t sit on the furniture, it’s just decoration.
and
A “foyer seating room”: where there’s more decoration chairs.

We have a “living room”. That’s the TV/couches room.

@rangerr What is a Den ?

My Family Room is where we watch TV .

They are the same thing.

Family room is the den.
Living room is the one with the big,
main fireplace and where the adults
gather for cocktails before going out
on the town.

@Pretty_Lilly Our den has a day bed and a few chairs. And an itty bitty black and white TV.

Here’s something I bet people don’t remember much anymore.

Back before there was TV, the room for socializing was the “parlor.” (“Parlor” itself came from the French parler, to speak.) When a family member died, that’s where the viewing and wake would be, too. However, when the funeral industry took hold and people moved these occasions into the ”Funeral parlor,” that’s when the at-home parlor became known as a “living” room – a room now for the living, not the dead.

@laureth

Yes, my aunt’s house has a so-called parlor. Mostly we sit around wondering what to do or say to one another when we’re in that room. Conversationally dead, har har. All conversation takes place in front of the television (in the den) or in the kitchen now.

I’ve never lived in a house where we had more than one space like this. We just call the room with the couches and the tv in it the living room.

In my house they are both considered the same thing.

The living room in our house is the formal room. It’s where the Christmas tree is, it’s where the piano is, it’s where the fancy furniture is, etc.

The family room is where the big-ass flat screen TV is and the family game consoles and everything. It’s the “hang out” room. The living room is the showy room. Movies are stored in the family room and everything. We also have another family room on the second floor.