Dining rooms

When we moved I specified that the house must have a separate dining room. Trouble is, modern houses, when they have dining rooms, they tend to be long and narrow, so we struggled to find one that would accommodate our oval dining table with both extenders in it. We do eat in there most days. We had a dining kitchen in the last house and I hated it. I would love to be able to eat in the conservatory in the summer but it is always too hot even when fully ventilated. In the winter, it is freezing!

We usually eat in the conservatory (summer) or kitchen (winter), though we do have a dining room and when entertaining we can seat 10. The table is a 1960s G Plan which I bought at auction for £7 and it came with four G Plan chairs. The table to is a bit scratched but it is always covered so no problem. The dining room currently is used for ironing and various craft activities.

We extended our kitchen with it's small dining area when we decided to stay put. We had lots of discussion about whether to take the wall between the back sitting room and kitchen/dining area down and eventually decided not to. Good decision to keep two separate rooms, one has the radio, the other the tv. I love having a bigger space and agree with mcem, newer places seem to squeeze open planning living into a very small space

Our dining room is only used when the family visit. DH and I eat in the kitchen which suits us.
I am very pleased that DS and DIL insist on GC eating at the table with the family, so often now you hear of children eating their meals in front of TV.

My dining room is very much the heart of my home. At the moment there are seven adults living in the house, with another arriving at the end of the month and my husband's parents also moving in during the first week in July (temporarily during a house move/remodelling of new home). In the day time there's always someone snacking or reading a newspaper at the table (often both), sometimes there'll be someone on a laptop or using the printer that's kept in the dining room. Then at dinner time the table is in use for hours as people chat and linger - often until almost bedtime.

In my class at school many years ago I asked the children (aged 9-10) how many of them ate a daily meal with their parents and only 3 of 33 children said they did - and one of those who did was my son.

I have a through room that is a sitting room/dining room. Most days the dining table is my sewing table and the sideboard is my cutting table and that works for me.

The table looks like a standard dining table but it is amazing. When I bought this cottage I knew I had to be clever with the furniture and when I saw the table I watched the shop to see if it went into the sale - I could never have afforded it at full price. It is a remarkable piece of German engineering and beautiful with it. It drops down to make a coffee table or lifts up to dining height when it will sit six. It then opens out up to seat eight.

I watched and watched, waiting for the sales. A kind assistant let me know that it would be reduced in a weeks time and I charged back on the due date ... no table! It had been shipped back to the warehouse. The salesman rang them up and I could have it but would have to pay a delivery charge. It was half price by this time so well worth the delivery. My daughter has said that if I ever think of getting rid of it she wants it

kitchen table will fit 4/5 at a push,have table from macro which will seat 6/8 ,folds up and sits tucked away in shed,garden has lots of seating and eating areas,including summer house...would LOVE open plan kitchen,eating living area all cosy with AGA and chintzy covers and kids paintings and a dopey Labrador in basket ( well have dopey Labrador) and sunny curtains,comfy sofas ....do read a lot of chick Lit but I SO WANT ONE...

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!"

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!

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!

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.

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 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!

Unfortunately our dining table is DH's dumping ground

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!,