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If you enjoy having your seating area near the kitchen opening then go ahead, you have to live there! You might place a drop leaf table against the wall near the front door and simply put down a nice area rug near the front door and perhaps a larger plant like a ficus tree in the area between the front door and seating area to define the entry. Then if you need a diningroom, you could pull the table to the center of the room and open the leafs. If there is enough room, you could place a chair on each side of the table and store the rest of the chairs elsewhere.
i would put the dining room furniture nearest the wall by the kitchen, leave the living room where it is, and turn the area immediatey coming through the door into an entry hall. that little table under the windows is perfect for mail and keys. i would also add a small seating area and a nice pice of art on the wall. it could be a more "formal" area where you greet guests--even though they can still see the rest of the house.
Our home is that way. It's different, but not a problem in any way. You walk in and you are in the dining room, and it is totally open into the kitchen. It's not formal at all, that's just not our style. It actually worked out well for Thanksgiving; it was rather warm that day and before and after our meal, family kind of milled in and out of the dining room to enjoy the porch and the view, rather than the living room like I would have expected.
My parents house (1950's ranch) is set up like that. Front door on the far right of the house, open the door - dining room. (living room is to the left, but there is no wall division between living/dining).
What they did, and many people in their subdivision did - is MAKE a division between the front door and the dining room space. In their case they did a floor to ceiling divider, with open shelves. Some of their neighobrs did 1/2 walls with a wall cap. Something that physically stops you from walking into the dining room, as well as something that makes the area right in front of the door into an "entry" instead of just a door in a room.
I think you can easily make that a dining room, but using furniture (Screen/Divider shelves, whatever) to distinguish the areas will help others to make sense of the arrangement.
Our dining room is also at the front of the house. The Kitchen and dining room are in an open environment with an island of sorts coming out of the wall conecting the two. As you enter the home from the front door their is an entry into the dining room to your right. Ahead would be a hall or foyer if you will. and then the main hall to the home with the living room to the left of that hall and the bedrooms and bathrooms to the right of that hall. When you enter the focus is more toward the foyer area and not the dining room. The former owners and I am sure the original owners had a door that devided the dining room from the hallway. We wanted a more open look and I removed the door and smoothed out the door jamb to make it look like an entry way and not a former doorway. The dining room/ Kitchen area has another pair of doors that lead into the living room. We kept those so as to make sure that the TV remains in the living room and we can spent meal times without the TV getting between us and our family. I would like to eventually reatange the kitchen and open the wall up to create a more modern great room, with the Kitchen, dining room, and living room working together.
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