Dining rooms

We don't have a dining room in this house although we can seat 4/5 in the kitchen but certainly have no room to entertain the whole family which I am really quite glad about if I'm honest, the only problem is no one else has a dining room either so it isn't easy when a celebration comes around we have to do a BBQ in the Summer or a buffet style eat on your lap in the Winter time.
So in one way your DGS1 is right about a lot of people not having dining rooms.. although all in one kitchen,diner,sitting rooms are popular nowadays

Our present house has a huge sitting room and had a tiny dining room, barely big enough for a table for 8 and sideboard/glass fronted bookcase for glasses and plates so we took down the wall between it and the kitchen to give us a big eat-in kitchen. If we are more than 12 e.g at Christmas, we bring the big teak garden table through from the garage as our table will only take 12 at a pinch. I would love a huge long table but it would be silly for the 2 of us the rest of the time!

They are going out of fashion...we are now 'open plan' but with partitions (barn conversion) to differentiate between the messy kitchen/the cooking kitchen/ and the eating area. Works for us as we do have a lovely big dinning room table a local craftsman made. I stipulated that it had to have a very utilitarian top (oiled oak) but wanted the frame and legs varnished. GC can get good and messy on it whilst we all sit around chatting then its cleared for the meals....I even like the fact that the top is developing a few stains (wine rings mainly).

We have a dining room / library in the part of the house we (rather grandly) call the East Wing. Just before we went to Spain in mid January I went to check that everthing was OK and found the mats on the table from Christmas day.
I had cleared the plates though!
So no I don't think we really need one.

To be fair to the little blighter, we Can seat 6 at a push in the kitchen so that is what we mostly do. We have to pass through the dining room to get to the stairs and to the lounge so it comes in very handy for dumping stuff! Our dining table seats 12 at a pinch so we get out 'Auntie Sally's table', if we need more. No one likes 'Auntie Sally 's table' as it seems to have more than its fair share of legs!

We don't have a dining room but a table that can sit8 at a pinch. Reading this thread I'd actually like to change the table. It's a 'utility table ' I'm told, inherited from MIL with ruddy cross-bars that mean you can't tuck the dining room chairs in. The legs always seem to be in the way too. It's got 'barley sugar' legs, its only redeeming feature!
Perhaps I'll look at changing it when/if I can.

I've been half-heartedly looking at flats. Mine is almost ideal but I'm hankering after a better river view. Every new development or conversion has a kitchen/dining area/ living room, all squeezed into an area smaller than my current sitting-room. I hate it!
If a room were big enough for living and dining I'd sacrifice my dining-room but will not spend an evening looking at dirty pots and dishes. I want a kitchen where I can close the door and return to deal with the debris when it suits me.
Probably staying put then!,

I'd prefer a second sitting room, all to myself, that stays tidy and peaceful rather than a dining room, given a choice.

In our last house we had a dining room and it was rarely used, only when we had visitors, otherwise we ate in the breakfast room, which was part of the kitchen.

In our current house we have a big square hall and the dining table is in there. We have a long, not tremendously wide, kitchen breakfast room, with the kitchen area separate from the breakfast area. When family come and stay we use the dining table as we cannot all eat in the kitchen but the rest of the time the room is the hall and the dining table is very convenient for dumping things on.

Ideally I would rather have a really large family room kitchen, as seen in all the smartest magazines, than a separate dining room.

I have L shaped living dining. The table takes 8. At Christmas we pull in a plastic table from the garage and put the two tables end to end covered with two large lace tablecloths over white sheets. This of course extends a bit into the living area and means shuffling an armchair or two. All part of the fun. Ds has been know to bring some chairs with him to add to the existing chairs plus office chair and high stools.

We have a long living room /dining room and a table that has extending flaps so I can get 12 round for a big family do as we did at Easter. We had a choice when we bought this house five years ago of this one or one further down the street with a dining room but £10K cheaper. We chose this one and spent the £10K on a conservatory which gives us an extra sitting room/garden room and we find we get more use from that.

Our last house in UK and the one here have sort of Kitchen/diners but each has a half height wall dividing the areas - the wall is taller than the worktop height so hides all kitchen clutter while we eat and when we have guests I can chat away while finishing off. When we had the family at home we had a long kitchen with a pine table i could scrub and a dining room. Our table is an oak one we had made for us and will easily seat eight and ten at a push and I have two extensions which when added mean the table would seat fourteen. I have only ever had need to use one extension - mainly at Chr ****s or birthdays.

I love my dining room. It has many uses, other than the obvious one. I like to do sewing in there so I can set up the machine and leave all my stuff around. It also has a comfy sofa bed, so can be used as an extra guest room or provide a quiet refuge for people who don't want to listen to TV. When the DC were at home, especially when revising, they liked to work in there as a change from their rooms. I have a small table and chairs in the kitchen but I don't like eating amongst cooking smells and dirty dishes.

We have a dining room and breakfast/ family room both have extending tables to seat at least 8.
We seem to gather tables and chairs, bought to fit a variety of spaces then stored in garage. Two are waiting for new homes as I speak. We did keep them for DSs to use, they did then brought them back. Very shortly they are off to the charity shop.

When we had a Victorian house with matching dining room and furniture, it was only used at C**********s. One day in June DH went in to find the ceiling had collapsed! It must have happened when we were out, but as the dust was well settled we had no idea when!

x

We have a dining room. We use it to find in at Christmas and perhaps Easter! Rest of the time it is a dumping ground for my DH's rubbish collections. We eat in the kitchen for the rest of the time as there are now just the two of us, or three if my DS comes for lunch.

i opted to change my kitchen and dining area into one large farmhouse-type kitchen, where the family can gather round the big table, children can paint, bake and build Lego, I can put my sewing machine out, and sit listening to the radio watching the goings-on in the garden. When I had a dining room at my last house, everybody gravitated to the kitchen anyway, so I put some effort into making this one a cosy room with sunny yellow gingham curtains and chair cushions and lots of sentimental pictures and inherited tea set on display, a toy drawer and an accessible handy box with bubbles, balls and frisbees ready for the children to grab when they visit. It's the most used room in the house.

I have one. It links the kitchen and the lounge. It has a table in that seats 8, 12 if you keep your elbows in. My long case clock is in there and a large Victorian sideboard.
All the post, tribunal files rubbish essential items get dumped carefully placed on the table there!

Unfortunately our dining table is DH's dumping ground

Our dining room is the conservatory, which is now linked to the utility room which is off the kitchen. We can seat 10 fairly comfortably, but the table - a lovely, plain, solid oak affair does extend further, though I'm not sure where it would extend to! It is a useful area, for the DGC to play (nice oilcloth on the table then!) and as we have the doors from the sitting room open it's part of the family area.

I also work in there when I need to, as the study in this house only houses one person, and sometimes I'm glad to shut him away in there!

We have a small eating area in the kitchen with a round 4 seater table where DH and I eat. We also have a large dining room which opens out onto the sun room where we spend nearly all our time as its south facing. It makes a great family space and our table can seat 6 without the leaves and 10 with them. Our last house had an entirely separate dining room and it was never used from one Christmas to another.

Our dining room faces south/east so we always eat breakfast in there - occasionally eat other meals as well but mostly used for birthday celebrations, Easter and Christmas plus any other family do's. We do have a second television in there so often used by DH to watch football. We have a rocker that he uses in there to sit on.

We eat other meals in the conservatory or garden when it is just us.

My dining room is linked to the kitchen by French doors and is on the sunny side of the house.

My PC is on the dining table but can easily be put to one side when the family comes round for Sunday dinner or on celebratory occasions!

We have a dining room, allegedly. In reality it is an all purpose craft room come computer room come TV room which happens to have a dining table and chairs. The table is mostly used as a crafting/sewing table by me.
In an alcove is my computer desk and filing cabinet with my iMac and printer, which I mainly use for photography processing and the odd bit of printing.
We also have a second, wall-mounted TV with Sky multi-room, so DH and I don't have to squabble over the remote control . Oh and my massage chair. Bliss!

I once read about a little girl who was describing her new house to an auntie and uncle, "In our new house we have a living room and a dying room!"