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Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Birthdays, Anniversary's New Years Eve we use dining room to make it fancy.
Kids do homeworks and projects on it inbetween.
I be pissed if one of my kids when they got married got rid of dining room as it means they are lazy pieces of crap who never plan on hosting a thanksgiving or christmas
I'm with many here that I love my small but elegant formal dining room, and use it every day- just not necessarily for dining. Mine is even smaller than gentlearts, a mere 10 x 11, but we designed a custom banquette and table that seats six comfortably and eight in a pinch. With a couple of nice antiques to compliment the detailed '20s architecture: inset coved plaster ceiling and arches; mahogany doors and trim; hammered metal chandelier and a triple window looking out on a pond/birdbath, flagstone terrace and 60 y.o. flowering Hibiscus, it is a pleasant place to be day or night.
We use it mostly as a study, laptop set up on it and I have a bunch of plans on the table right now for a project I am in the middle of permitting through the city. It is the go to place for a quick business meeting with clients or vendors and most importantly, we entertain often and it is used for a fun dinner party with friends at least once a month- with the swinging butlers door swung firmly shut to hide the kitchen mess lol. Card games at the table for hours after dessert often follows.
Because one must skirt the corner of it to enter the kitchen it is also an important room for daily circulation so just the fact that it must be briefly walked through constantly means it is used and enjoyed. This house would be irreparably ruined if it were somehow taken out or combined with the kitchen, and we wouldn't love or enjoy our house nearly as much as we do.
Oh, a banquette would be great. I unfortunately have a 5' round table and eight chairs that my DH would never let me replace, so with the buffet I have in there, its a really tight squeeze. I actually keep the two arm chairs in the attic most of the time.
Our house is two story and tiny. The living room is on the bottom floor. It doubles as my office. Now that DH needs a new hip we haven't used it in years.
The dining room is the biggest space on the main floor. The kitchen is a 10x10 galley. I could get away with a small drop leaf table and two chairs to have it be an eat in kitchen, but that would really just be a small dining table in the walkway from the dining room to the kitchen.
We live in the dining room. We each have a desk in each cornoer to compute, the dining set is from the mid forties and is formal, with a china hutch and a buffet. I have wonderful memories of semi formal holiday dinners with my folks when they would come up.
I dread our new house. It's a semi open floor plan, with a large kitchen (yay) and open space.
The thing I can't wrap my head around is isn't the dining room supposed to be off the kitchen? Which is currently a living space, and around the corner is the dining area. It's so weird.
It's not only a dining room.......it's a music room (piano), arts and crafts room, gift wrapping room and any other projects I don't want my cats to get involved in. I merely shut the door.
Just built a house. There is no formal dining room ., only "eating area" next to kitchen (same room).
technically we have an 11x14 room off kitchen that could be a dining room, but it wasn't designed to be one. in a pinch, maybe we'd set it up with a rental table or something.
"Formal dining room" is totally wasted space...just like a "front living room" - both are for show only.
For the dining room if it is adjacent to the family room you can try to turn the whole area into a "great room" - with the dining area as a slightly set off nook or conversation area but decorated the same as the rest of the family room.
Otherwise, I wouldn't buy a house with that kind of layout - something more open and usable would be more contemporary.
Formal dining room is like a defibrillator to me. I don't need it everyday or on a regular basis, but when I need it I REALLY need it.
For just every-day, the eat-in kitchen is the way to go. When guests come though and it requires more space, the formal dining room comes into play.
LOL
What he said.
We lived in our old house for over 4 years. Didn't use the dining room table at all, not once.
Moved to a new house with a formal dining room in December, had a family reunion in June. Used it twice. In this house, we plan on using it for a lot more occasions, it just so happens that my parents do not live too far away, and so for formal dining, we have usually been over there. Now that we have a child though, the Christmas dinner will be at our house from now on, and probably Easter as well.
Growing up the dining room table was the homework table, sewing table, laundry folding table and on occasion a dining table. If I had kids at home I would want one. My new place as a island with stools and a dining table area in my living room. I think will be enough for me (I can still fold clothes on it) :-)
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