Do you still have and use a formal dining room?

[SusanL]

Just curious, as we had a large one in our former house, everyone seemed to congregate in the small family room or kitchen. We now have a small formal living room, that is also rarely used. I think that how often it is used is determined by its location and furnishings, but was wondering if others have one that is rarely used? (Maybe it is because we have antique furniture in there~) Wanted to throw out this question, as I am seriously considering doing something else with that room, not sure what I want to do with it but may do something else.

[Lauren]

We use our dining room often. My mission-style dining room furniture is informal and comfortable. If it's just the four of us, we eat in the kitchen, any additional guests, we eat in the dining room right off the kitchen.

[SusanPC]

We have a formal living and dining room and use the dining room all of the time when we entertain (huge round table). The LR we don't use much and I banked on that when I recently ordered a pink/cranberry silk couch I suspect we'll use it if we have more "formal" parties but with a 17 month old....our entertaining is all about family friendly these days.

I was at a playgroup the other day and was surprised that the people had converted their Living Room into a playroom to house a big slide, strollers and push toys! That was a little much for me, but to each his own. I am sure they think my room is frivolous.

[1grl1by]

Most of the time when it is just the four of us, we eat in the kitchen, but whenever we have guests or sometimes just because we eat in the dining room.

Our neighbors turned their dining room into a music room and it's lovely. They have a different arrangement in their kitchen that allows more people to be seated there so they did not have as much use for dining room.

[claire909]

Mostly would like to have our food in kitchen rather than the dinning hall

[Kiwismommy]

Anytime we have company we eat in the dining room. If it's a larger group I will set the food up on the kitchen table for a buffet style. I find this so much easier than passing the food around because inevitably someone isn't great about moving the food along

[wallycat]

If we build with the current plan we have, we will have a "farmstyle" kitchen that has a huge dining table in it, the living/family room will be off the kitchen and the only room for TV/reading/etc...

I prefer bigger rooms and less of them but I don't like the total open concept because of noise from kitchen into TV area.

I don't entertain a lot, but even if i did, I'd rather have one bigger area for eating and not a small kitchen eating area and a formal dining area.

[ChristyMarie]

We have two!

Our formal dining room seats 6. Our library has been turned into a second dining room (eating among books and a fireplace, very cozy) that seats 10 but can extend to 14 if needed.

Our kitchen table seats 6 as well.

We use them often. We end up using the library more because it is rare for us to only have 6 for dinner. But we use that for just us, smaller gatherings, and really large ones where both rooms are used.

[TexasCook]

Yes, but we use it for special dinners. We have a casual table/chair set in our patio room which we use daily.

[Trishinomaha]

We have a long narrow living room so years ago we put our dining room table and chairs at one end of the living room. The small formal dining room became our home office - we have two computers because we are geeks. We have identical desks and probably spend more time in that small room than almost any other in the house. When the family comes for dinner the dining table gets pulled out from the wall n the living room and seats eight comfortably. Our family is getting ready to grow again so we're going to have to figure out an alternate dining arrangement soon.

[TieKitty]

We have a formal dining room that is used for special occasions and when we have company for dinner. We have a beautiful formal dining room set that we have had for over 20 years. I'd hate to get rid of it.

We also have a formal living room that I could definitely live without. It is never used.

[pointerhaven]

We have a great room! Kitchen, Dining and LR all in one. Table seats 6, bar seats 4 and when we have more I pull out a folding table and can seat 8 additional people in LR area and small table of 4 in Foyer area. Most our our entertaining is outside, where we have a choice of pool deck, porch, or fire pit area.

[SDMomChef]

We have a formal dining room that we use for special occasions and when we have guests. I love our dining room set and I like having a separate formal dining room.

[hlao23]

We use our dining room because we can't not Our kitchen has no room for anyone to eat in it.

[sneezles]

We have a formal dining room and these days it's used infrequently...holiday dinners is about it. I'd love to redo the kitchen and include the dining room area but then I'd have to figure out what to do with all the stuff that's in there...and DH would think I'm nuts at this stage of the game.

[aggie94]

We do have a formal dining room, but it's rarely used for eating. Our formal dining table doubles as a pool table , and more often than not, the table top is off so DH can shoot pool. We've used it as a dining table a few times when we've had dinner parties, but more often we have just a few casual friends over for dinner (in which case we eat at the breakfast table) or we have larger parties that aren't sit-down events. And in that case, we want the pool table available for people to play so we leave the top off.

[TieKitty]

Originally Posted by aggie94

We do have a formal dining room, but it's rarely used for eating. Our formal dining table doubles as a pool table , and more often than not, the table top is off so DH can shoot pool. We've used it as a dining table a few times when we've had dinner parties, but more often we have just a few casual friends over for dinner (in which case we eat at the breakfast table) or we have larger parties that aren't sit-down events. And in that case, we want the pool table available for people to play so we leave the top off.

We have a friend who does this. I think it is a quite clever idea!

[Litehouse9]

In our former Seattle house (old Craftsman-style Bungalow) we had a HUGE dining room, which was a complete waste of space... I had little kids then and it ended up being a play room for them... rarely used it.

In our suburban house, the dining room is small and we use it for a Music room, sort of-- and I do crafts in there. Only for Thanksgiving and Xmas do we use it as a dining room.

If I had the $$ right now, wish I could remodel our kitchen to include that space, and not have any formal dining room.

[LakeMartinGal]

In our Ohio house, which was a central-entrance type, we had a formal DR right off the kitchen, and used it rarely - some Sundays, if we had company, and holidays. We spent most of our time in the family room, and the LR was our office. We had a small business.

In our current house, we have a DR that's open to the great room, but still has all the 'regular' dining room furniture in it. DH pressures me to use it more often, but I'm a casual hostess, and prefer the kitchen eating area. But we use it for large groups and holidays.

In the new house, we will not have a DR, just a large, informal eating area off the kitchen, and I think I'll like that lots better! It really is a giant waste of space, if you don't use it!

[Canice]

I have a large formal dining room off the kitchen and I love it (but I love rooms with doors). There's no place in the kitchen for a table, so that's it. I live in an old (1917) apartment building, and as they remodel the apartments they turn the livingrooms into bedrooms and make the dining rooms a combo living/dining room.

Originally Posted by ChristyMarie

Our library has been turned into a second dining room (eating among books and a fireplace, very cozy) that seats 10 but can extend to 14 if needed.

My ex turned his large living room into a library - hardwood floor and custom-built floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Then he put his large Stickley dining table in there. I couldn't agree more about the books and fireplace; such a warm room!

Originally Posted by Litehouse9

In our former Seattle house (old Craftsman-style Bungalow) we had a HUGE dining room, which was a complete waste of space...

A Craftsman bungalow in Seattle...sounds like heaven to me

[shoyski]

We're slowly turning our dining room into a study for the kids, 5 and 8. Currently, we have a wall unit with built in desks. Eventually we'll also have two comfy chairs with a table in between so the boys can do their school reading in the study.

Our kitchen table can seat eight and we have a space at the kitchen counter for two more seats. We do Soup Night for our street from October through March and are now in our fifth year. The first year I had a dining room table all set up to go and no one even went in there! They all stood around in the kitchen. When we do have dinner guests, I'm very informal hence, the decision to turn our DR into a study.

[VALERIEA234]

Built a new home about 5 yrs ago, without a formal dinning room, we were able to increase size of our kitchen as well as our dinette.
Plus it gave me a chance to have a walk-in pantry, which i love....
Val

[Blissful_in_TX]

We use it regularly, or at least whenever we have guests. The table in the breakfast nook (where we usually eat) is just too small.

We do not have a formal living room - though we have in the past and they were never used except to display the Christmas tree.

[Goin' Coastal]

We've always had a formal dining room and while we did not use it often, we used it for holiday meals. We also used it as a buffet table when we had larger gatherings. As we are in the process of relocating and down-sizing, I am still unwilling to give up my dining room! Downsizing means one less bedroom and no formal living room. We are moving to an active retirement community, and we have discovered a number of people who wished they did not do away with their formal dining room as they are entertaining more now. Besides, what would I do with all my dishes I store in my hutch!!

[armel]

My house has a formal living room/dining room. And then I have the family room / kitchen area which also had room for a table that seats 6. And I have a patio right off there with a table for 4.

So when I started working virtually, the best place for me to put my office was where the dining room part of the formal living/dining room was. The furniture looks fabulous there. I get a great view out my front window all day. Plenty of light.

And I no longer waste the space in that room. In fact, I undock my laptop and also work on the sofa / ottoman in the formal living room part of the room too when I want to mix it up.

I've gotten to the point where it seems rather silly to dedicate space to entertaining when most of the time my entertaining is at the kitchen table and kitchen counter (where I can seat 3 more). I would maybe use the formal dining room a couple of times a year. Not worth it to me.

[leightx]

We rarely use ours, since our kitchen table seats 6-8 (if we squeeze), plus an additional 3 at the bar. No matter what kind of party we host, most of our friends stick to the kitchen. If there's overflow, the kids will head out to the back porch and eat at that table, since it's directly off the kitchen. Of course, we aren't really the type for fancy shindigs, even though we have people over at least a couple of times a month, with larger parties a few times a year.

We use the dining room for holiday gatherings, when we're likely to have 30 or so at a time (and that's only b/c we're using every available flat surface in the house).

If I were building, I'd forego a breakfast area and dining room in favor of a combination of the two - large enough to fit a huge farm style table (a 12-seater would be great), but casual enough for eating Cheerios. And I'd prefer it directly off the kitchen - our dining room is across our foyer, and it's totally removed from all the action in the kitchen.

Our dining room is a combo "formal" LR / DR situation, right off the foyer, before you get to the kitchen and the rest of the house. I HATE that setup, because it's the largest area in the house, but we've never had any use for a formal *anything* - so that room has served different purposes through the years. When the kids were small, we had toys strewn everywhere, since it was one of the few places I could easily corral them downstairs. But I hated that guests were bombarded with Little Tykes when they walked in the front door. For a while we had an extra hand-me-down couch in there - our nicer couch was in our den, where we actually spent most of our time. Now we've moved nicer hand-me-downs into the formal LR, and I got a bookshelf from IKEA to hold our dozens of board games. We play frequently with the kids, so it gets a lot more use now. The piano also lives in that room, and Neil and I kick back in there with a glass of wine when the kids are watching their shows on TV in the den (we only have 1 TV).

Still, the DR sits neglected. If I had a way to wall off that area, I'd convert it into an office.

[clairea]

We have a formal dining room. We do not use it often, but I do like it for holidays and large gatherings. A lot of the time someone has a puzzle or sewing project or something like that set up on that table, though, since it is out of the way.

We generally eat at the table in the kitchen. We are a family of 4 and the table seats 6, so we only need to move to the dining room if we have a lot of guests.

I use the formal living room as my home office.

[LakeMartinGal]

Oh, yeah! Jigsaw puzzles! Gotta have a DR table for those 500-piece jobs! Love jigsaw puzzles, but now I almost always do them on-line!