Welcome to my dining room! Which is now my kitchen blog office.
This is Cottage Instinct's dining room on the build, which is now a home schooling office. This is looking mighty professional, Cindy! Don't you love the two sided desk in front of this window?
It's the Little Things' Karla morphed her dining room into a playroom/bedroom. Oh my gosh... they did such a great job you'd never have known it's original purpose!
What's going on here anyway?!? Builders, are you listening?
I have never used a dining room for a dining room in any house I've ever lived in. One house I had a piano in that spot. In two others, I just stuck my kitchen table there instead and enlarged the kitchen work area. I just always found my homes too small to include an extra table and chairs.
Before renos in my current home, I indeed moved a kitchen table in the dining area, but after renos, it was no longer necessary. After I found I was only dusting it on occasion, I built the office instead and was able to finally move the laptop off the kitchen island. :)
The new open floor plan allowed my one of a kind double sided island to take care of all the eating requirements, which freed up alot of square feet for other needs for our smaller home.
(details on kitchen island HERE)
(full kitchen renovation HERE)
Now, if my home was larger, and I actually entertained more, I think I'd LOVE to have a real dining room.
Dining rooms can be a wonderful place to escape from the sight of the kitchen mess when entertaining. Miss Mustard Seed has one of my very favs on the net. Who wouldn't love this?!?
I think what's happening though is, the art of fine dining is diminishing due to our busy schedules. The ones with growing families are requiring the space for other things with higher priority. Is a house ever big enough? Generally not. And that's why some of us are grabbing what we can as an effort to use up every precious square inch in our homes. We simply need the space for something we do more of.
I have a confession to make. Every time I sit in a formal dining room, I do stupid things, like clank plates too loud or knock something over. I'm not comfortable in a formal environment so that's very possibly why I shy away from the thought of having one again. Guess the farmer's daughter/tomboy never left the building. :)
We can only afford homes just so big. So what's the answer? Should houses just be built with large country kitchens in lieu of the traditional dining room? Or would you have one anyway if space allowed?
Do you use your dining room for a dining room?
Or would a large country kitchen be enough for you?
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I've always DREAMED of having a formal dining room, where we could celebrate holidays and whatnot. My grandmother always elaborately decorated hers and holidays and just thinking about doing it myself made me giddy. However, our current house has a formal, and we've lived here since Spring, and it is still a junky room. :/
ReplyDeleteSadly, I had to do away with my dining room. We're renting a cottage and needed the space.
ReplyDeleteI do love a good dining room.
we have a dining room, but it's not formal, it's where we eat dinner every night. Breakfast and lunch get eaten in the breakfast nook. (Sounds so uptown, trust me, it's not! LOL)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the dining room is also a school room.
Most dining rooms are not used...I don’t think they ever were except in unusual cases. Ours has a table and chairs but is used to visit and do bills and I eat my lunch there!
ReplyDeleteI've been debating this myself since my boyfriend works mostly from home, and right now he's sharing his "office" with our guest bedroom. I am trying to decide if I should fit his desk into my craft room or if he should have his own space by putting his stuff in the dining room. In all honesty, maybe I'm just afraid he'll make a mess of my "sanctuary" that is my craft space. But I really love the idea of a formal dining area so we're not always stuck in the kitchen for eating.
ReplyDeletewell yes, when we have company...but the 4 of us usually eat in front of the tv (head hung in shame) If you can believe this...we live in a mobile home and the layout is such that it actually works as a dining room. Also has been the homeschool room but with my baby about to turn 18 not so many books and projects are there now.
ReplyDeleteWe have a dining room that is currently being used as a sort of storage/craft room because we're in the process of remodeling our new house and needed the space for supplies. I wouls LOVE to be using it as an actualyl dining room (especially since my dining table is in there), but for the next few weeks, thats not a possibility.
ReplyDeleteIn the house we are fixing up, it didn't have a dining room at all, so I made one out of one of the bedrooms. I have to have a dining because I like to entertain and no dining room reduces that ability. And also, I think it's important to sit down at a table and talk to each other after a long day, NOT eating in front of a TV. And our kitchen isn't big enough for a dining room table.
Personally, my home isn't a home without a dining room. But like you said, its all about lifestyle.
I have a dining room, with a table & chairs & a sideboard and it's used 96% of the time as a photo studio. If I have dinner guests, everything has to be moved. I think I need to face reality here. :-)
ReplyDeleteIn the last home we had a dining room, but it was a necessary part because the kitchen was not big enough for a table, nor was it laid out so that a table could fit in there. I would much rather have had a huge kitchen. I think dining rooms are going the way of the dinosaurs, personally. Everybody is just so busy all the time anymore and eating a meal at the table just doesn't seem to be as much a priority as it used to be.
ReplyDeleteI have a dining room and in the two years that I have lived here, we have only used it 4 times... that makes me so sad!! I love the room, but it seems easier to just eat in my kitchen which is larger...
ReplyDeleteMy vote is for bigger country kitchens! Our "dining" room is the kids' tv/computer room (no food allowed - how ironic). It was very rarely used as a dining room and now it's used all the time.
ReplyDeleteI have the same setup as you, the island seats 4, maybe six if I had 2 more stools. But I don't entertain like I used too.
ReplyDeleteWe do use our "dining room" for our meals. That's in quotes because it's really just one half of our family room. Which makes it a very informal dining room. Our kitchen is so tiny there is no room for an island or a even a little table.
ReplyDeleteSince our kitchen is bare bones(from 1820) and theres no extra room in there for table and chairs we DO utilize our dining room. And since my husband loves to have people over, we use the dining room for company as well.
ReplyDeleteIts all dependent on the family. I do agree with you that dining room spaces are dying out though due to how busy families are. Its sad that no one has time to sit down for meals together anymore:(
My dining room is now another living room its wide open to the kitchen & a bar with stools separates the 2 rooms...We tried it out as a dining room when we first moved in but we always ate at the bar(or in the living room..lol) & the table got piled with junk..We now have a hutch & a couch that is as deep as a bed..Great place for naps! No dining rooms for me! Plus we dont have time to entertain!
ReplyDeleteI use my dining room all the time. Its definitely a luxury when you are short on space but I love it. (Now if you tell me that formal living rooms are a dying breed, I'll be in favor of that!)
ReplyDeleteWe use our dinning room every night- for dinner.
ReplyDeleteAs part of Feng Shui it is very important to the energy of the home and family to have a 'formal' eating area for dinner.
My dinning room is not formal- it is a reflection of us.
By transforming the space into -lets say a play room- the focus is shifting thus creating an unbalancing effect in the home.
I could go on and on about this but I don't want to seem as if I am criticizing- Feng Shui has really been a blessing in our lives and continues to help us.
I love my dinning room and would never consider a house without one.
This is coming from someone who doesn't really see the point in "fine dining". To me if the food tastes good it's considered fine dining ;) Besides isn't the kitchen counter or the couch a fine place to eat?! haha
ReplyDeleteI have a kitchen nook with a small bar height table and 4 stools as well as a "formal" dining room. My dining room does have a 6 seat table in it (brought from another house where I ony had a dining room and not and eat in kitchen) but we almost always eat at teh smaller table with the stools. LOL
We live in a 1920's home with a small kitchen so we use our dining room every day. It's a pretty room and I don't keep a formal look in there at all. Our kitchen is only big enough for a tiny table but the kids will eat breakfast and lunch there. All dinners are in the dining room and we have enough room to open the table up for parties. I love having the dining room but I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a big country kitchen that is just one open space. I would love that!
ReplyDelete~Michelle
...great inspiration!
ReplyDeleteWe recently enlarged our 1970's kitchen by taking out the walls between the dining room, kitchen and family room (they were in a row). We still have the same size "dining room" but it is now just an extension of our kitchen without a wall separation. If I still had little kids I know we would just eat at the dining room table every night, but we are down to one teen left at home so the three of us eat at the island. To me it's the perfect solution - I still have a full size dining room table but it's a well used space instead of a hidden room. At the moment it's my sewing area and is a complete mess, but that's okay!
ReplyDeleteAll of the folks on the the home and garden real estate programs SAY they want a formal dining room ... but who of us has enough house to waste a room like that. Why have a space that is reserved for 'entertaining' and left to rot the rest of the time? In our house, the kitchen and dining room are in an addition that was built in 1967. When we remodeled the kitchen, we opened the wall between it and the dining room to create a larger space with great flow, and we couldn't be happier with our decision.
ReplyDeleteConnie
EXCELLENT point and post! I agree 100%...people rarely use a dining room for dining. Mine is an office. ;) I SO loved seeing all the photos in this post too.
ReplyDeletewe do actually use our dining room for dining. It is the only place for us to eat. though we use it for homeschool, crafting, painting, sewing, etc.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have a formal dining room. We actually like to entertain and have dinner parties. We still have them but in a much more cramped space.
ReplyDeletebeautiful interiors, the living room has been done really pretty, it looks good and has been decorated very tastefully
ReplyDeleteWe have a dining room but it is not at all formal - I live in an older home and my kitchen is too small for a table, but there is a swinging door between the kitchen & dining room, which is pretty cool when I don't want to look at the mess I just made! By the way, I just became a follower.....I love your blog! And I love what you have done with your dining room.
ReplyDeleteI try to use EVERY inch of my home, which is a very open floor plan. I do have an area where I have a antique sideboard and a table that can extend out to hold 12 people. And it does, quite regularly. I entertain alot as I subscribe to the Erma Bombeck school of thought in that if you wait to entertain until everything is perfect, then you'll never entertain at all.
ReplyDeleteThis Sunday the table will be set for a messy bbq. I expect people will sit on the upholstered chairs in their wet swimsuits. Sauce will be wiped from hands onto cloth napkins. Hopefully you'll join us because it would be perfection if plates were clanked. :)
Our dining room is rarely used though it is needed here for resale. Everyone asks for a formal dining room but most never use it. I would prefer to have the extra space in our family room. Hugs, Sherry
ReplyDeleteI love this awesome post...great job!!
ReplyDeleteI have a large dining room and we use it A LOT.
Having 10 grandkids, a great-grand, boyfriends coming with the grandgirls and girlsfiends coming with grandboys...6 adults..we often have 20 people, just our family. Also we belong to a home church that meets in different homes each week for fellowship and a meal, with anywhere from 16 to 36.... My dining table, with the use of two long benches, seats 10, 12 in a pinch...4 at the kitchen bar, 2 at the bistro table in the breakfast room and 4 at the table in the hearth room...
sooooo, YEP...I do use my dining room..:))
i WISH i had a dinning room. in these parts... hehehe... you dont see them often. My dream is to have a HUGE kitchen with and island and bar and we'd prob eat there all the time. but because ive never had one and our dinning area right now is smaller than our guest bathroom!!! i would love love love to have a dinning room. can we say dinner parties! we cant do that now cause well we can only fit 4 people (me, my hubs, my son, my dad... oh no room for guests!)
ReplyDeleteI still love a formal dining room. Although I confess mine gets used for craft projects and sewing and stuff like that most of the time. But come around the fall....it will all be decorated up for Halloween, then Thanksgiving and then Xmas. Then it will go back to being a place to do projects. I usually have one or two formal meals a year. But I feel like you have to have a place for that. I have to have a formal meal for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. It's tradition in our family. You set the table with your best and dress your best whether it's 25 people or three. I've had formal dress up dinners for just two. I have to have a dining room. Although, my sewing machine sits on my dining table as I type this.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a dining room and if I ever buy again, I will definately have one. When my kids were little...I didn't care about one, but now that they are grown and have kids of their own, I do not have a place with a big enough table for us all to sit comfortable around. And I am sure there will be more added. So, I am for the dining rooms.
ReplyDeleteWe recently built & I personally avoided homes with a formal dining room because it does seem like wasted space at least for our family. I'd rather have more sq footage in other rooms than devote it to a dining area. So we have a large open floor plan where I have a large farmhouse table to seat my family off the kitchen. Our family is so large that no dining room could truly seat us all!
ReplyDeleteWe had a formal living room (unused) and a very small eat-in kitchen. So we knocked down some walls, opened up the stairway and now have a formal dining room. You can make a big circle from the kitchen to the dining room and it is fantastic. Thanks for the picture of Miss Mustard Seed's dining room, I have been looking for curtains for my dining room and that is what I want. Thanks for all your inspiration.
ReplyDeleteWe have a separate dining room and an eat in kitchen. We use both because I have a huge extended family. However, in our next home, there will not be a separate dining room, rather a huge kitchen where two or three tables can be lined up, and then extras put away when it is just us. Also, room for a couple of buffets or old cupboards. I hate having to eat in two or three separate rooms when we are all together.
ReplyDeleteI have considered turning our smallish dining room into a sitting room, but we have a family room and living room on the same floor, plus a tv room in our basement. To do it over, yes I would prefer to have the dining room square footage added to the kitchen.
To be honest I think dining rooms are an American thing. I don't know any European house (on the continent, can't speak for Britain), except for palaces that have dining rooms, or family rooms for that matter. Here a dining table is typically part of the living room and if you are lucky your kitchen is big enough you might have a table in there too (mine is not).
ReplyDeleteIf I had a dining room I'd probably use it as an office/craft room/ tv room or something but definitely not as a dining room. It wouldn't get used at all.
We more often had an eat-in kitchen, kind of divided between prep area and seating, but overlap between both. I prefer that to a formal dining area. When we had large family gatherings we covered the pool table and ate in the basement! Now we've moved dining outdoors, weather permitting, or to a restaurant.
ReplyDeleteI finally got my country house with a long dining area and have not used it for dining even once.
We have such a large extended family and are always throwing most of the parties so we kept our dinning room. But when we knocked our wall down I couldn't get rid of our formal living room fast enough :)
ReplyDeleteXO
Kristin
I love having a dining room! Even though the space is not used daily or even weekly, it always seems like a special occasion when I pull out the "fancy" dishes and set the table for a nice meal. I would miss mine, but I understand the need for using the space as something difference, especially when you already have a fabulous kitchen which can do double work.
ReplyDeleteinteresting observation. my current house is a small ranch with a sun room. between the sun room and the finished basement, we didn't need the front room to be a formal living room, as the previous owner's had it designated. so i made it a dining room and it's been great. however, we're building in the spring and we've opted to make the dining room my husband's office, because the eat-in area of the kitchen is so large that it will accommodate a table with eight chairs. i like the idea of eating and entertaining and cooking all in one large, open space. if you are a formal person who entertains formally, a dining room is probably a priority. really thinking about how you live is key.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a small cottage so we have a very small kitchen. We actually do eat in our dining room, but it still doesn't get used as often as I'd like.
ReplyDeleteWe have a dining room, but it is small, and unfortunately it has become a catch all. The chairs have clothes draped over tha back of them, and the table looks like a tornado hit a garage sale.
ReplyDeleteMy preference would be to have a LARGE kitchen with a dining area. Kitchen should have long counters and one that you can use for lunch/breakfast.
I did away with my dining room. The furniture I had in the room made it through 3 moves but sadly I admit I only ate at the table 5 times. So, instead I sold the furniture and bought a baby grand piano. I definitely use the room more than I ever have. My kitchen table seats 8 so when I have large groups over we eat there.
ReplyDeleteI am a regualar reader, but new commenter. I have a large dining room. We have 8 children so we got the largest table we could from Amish furniture makers. It seats 18 when pulled out to it's full length! We do that for special occasions and holidays! I have had fun decorating it, and I love to decorate it for seasons and holidays! In the summer we eat on our large back porch.
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion. First house we bought, we had a good sized, eat in kitchen (old house). No dining room. Our second house (also old), had a separate dining room, plus a space to eat in the kitchen. I LOVED having a separate dining room.
ReplyDeleteFor our 3rd (and current) house, there is no dining room but a big family room. At first, I was bummed about not having a dining room...but if we have a lot of people over, I set up several tables in the large family room.
I know SO many people that do crafts, home schooling, computer work, etc in their dining rooms, but they don't eat there. Or they just dump stuff onto their dining room tables and still never eat there or even use the room at all.
I think the dining room "culture" of old has passed. Sad in a way...but I think the move is going back to eat in kitchens. Or, people are just using their dining room for other things.
I don't really like that this house was built with a family room AND a living room (really, do people need both??), but we use the family room for a dining room. It's mostly empty because we just remodeled it. We are trying to figure out how to decorate in there.
I would not have bought a house with an extra room like that (that we really don't have a use for!), except we could NOT find another house that met our needs in other ways. This house meets our needs in all other ways (kitchen size, layout, garage that DH wanted, and a quiet side street).
We have a dining room but it is not formal because we do not have a breakfast area. It is off of the kitchen but really all in the same room. I would always choose a breakfast nook over a dining room area any day.
ReplyDeleteI love the dining room, but then again I don't have an eat in kitchen,so my dining room is more farmhouse chic than fancy formal. But I used to have a huge victorian with a ballroom sized dining room and i LOVED it! I was the one that could have all the cousins over on thanksgiving etc..however the current owners turned it into a family room. I just think it is a luxury if you have the spare space.
ReplyDeleteDitto on what Irene said (important to sit as a family;there are statistics). We eat dinner and on the weekend breakfast and dinner there. When we have company we use it for all meals.
ReplyDeleteI have a kitchen island that only seats 2 and if there are only 2 of us we eat there, sometimes.
We rarely sit in front of the tv and if we do it is a treat, like game night or the Oscars.
Builders need to address the "new" needs of the family, i.e. computer station in the family room and a big country kitchen, which I would probably like. We nixed the idea of a nook and a formal dining room when building our house; too many eating spaces.
I have a formal dining room, but it only gets used on Holidays. When my daughter's were little they referred to it as the "Thanksgiving Room". I design kitchens in new homes and formal dining rooms are still a standard feature, but formal living rooms are going by the wayside. Many new house plans have a large great room with a smaller "keeping room" right off of the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteMy hubs and I were blessed to inherit his grandmother's beautiful dining set, and to have a formal dining room to put it in. We only use it for holidays and special occasions, but it ia a room that makes me happy. I love it, and hope never to move to a house that doesn't have a formal dining room. We also have a breakfast nook in the kitchen where we eat everyday meals.
ReplyDeleteNO WAY!! Do NOT need a dining room!
ReplyDeleteJust a big comfy area to hang and eat.
We just moved and I put my harvest dining table to work in "MY ROOM" the craft/office/scrapbook/sewing/blog room.
And I am loving it!
That big table just for me.
Rather dine outside when we can.
I have a dining room which is open to our living room. It isn't what I call 'formal'as it's not a separate room with 4 walls. Our home is a raised ranch or split entry style, very popular here in Canada. Given my druthers, I'd never live in this style home again, at least not one this small, but that's not going to change. If it did, I'd have a very large country kitchen with room for dining and even a fireplace and comfy chairs. I'll keep on dreaming.
ReplyDeleteWe don't use the space designated as a dining room for dining. We have a large kitchen that will eventually have an island with seating, and already has a "bar", and opens to a "breakfast nook." We use the nook for dining as there are only two of us and plan on having the dining area be a book nook of sorts, to hold our collections, etc. Keep in mind the dining room and breakfast nook are literally five steps away from each other. I couldn't justify having two tables that close to each other! That would look silly.
ReplyDeletethe room in our house that is supposed to be the "formal dining" room is my office / craft space. We have a big book shelf in there for most of our books too
ReplyDeleteWe wouldn't use a formal dining room because we really don't "entertain" much like some people, it seems like every time hubby and I watch a house hunter's episode together the couple always talks about they need space for entertaining.....
Our kitchen / dining area / living room space works for our family!
I haven't ever had a dining room in any apartment or house I've been in. The kitchen always just has a table and chairs in it. I have a big table and with like six chairs because I always envisioned myself with a family larger than my daughter and me and I just never had the opportunity to be a bigger family (suck, prolly my fault to boot). Apartments always had those "breakfast bars" that I never really understood or used either.
ReplyDeleteI seriously would use my dining room as a play room, but everyone has to walk through it when they come in the front door, so I couldn't handle a room full of Fisher Price and Playschool.
ReplyDeleteAt our old home, we ate in the tiny kitchen & dining area was for piano & computer, also tiny area. This new little farmhouse has four rooms, so two bedrooms, a living room & kitchen. So no area for 'dining', definitely an eat in kitchen. So in 1900 farmhouses I wonder if all of them were smallish & everyone ate in the kitchen. The bathroom is off my kitchen so had to move the table to east side and there are six door ways going through my kitchen: entry, attic, double wide to living room, pantry, bathroom AND bedroom. Having trouble laying out a real kitchen as there are no walls to move NOR any budget to add on. It'll work and be, uh, cozy, if we ever get it finished. I love your posts so much.
ReplyDeleteI have a gameroom/saloon bar in mine...lol I love it...My breakfast nook is huge!!!...so that is my dining area...We are informal and it works for our home...BUT I have pictures of a client's dining room on my blog right now...That is so fab! Hugs, Meme
ReplyDeleteWe just got rid of our formal dining room. We turned it into a den a few months ago. We found that we only use it, except for the Holidays. Whenever we have a party we generally stay in our open eat in kitchen/living room. I think they may be a dying breed.
ReplyDeleteWe've used our dining room all summer long. (It's the shadiest place in the house in the afternoons.) We still eat breakfast in the kitchen, but really enjoy the feeling of our cozy cottage dining room each evening. I'm glad this house doesn't have a bar. It was known as the horizontal-surface-that-collects-clutter-really-fast in our old house which made it pretty unusable.
ReplyDeleteI live in an older home. My kitchen is too small to have a big enough table where all of us could eat. We use our dining room to eat. I also have my computer desk in the dining room since I don't have space for a seperate office. But if I did have an eat-in kitchen, I would probably not use my dining room for eating.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your island! Is that wrapped Steel? I use my Dining room, but it is very casual, an extension of Living Room and the table is reclaimed Farm House planks and instead of chairs, there are benches, also made of the planks. Two formal chairs sit at the heads. Sometimes I truly wish we had a "formal" dining room, we do entertain often, but then our table is so large, and can extend quite a bit more that we can have a pretty good gathering and everyone can sit elbow to elbow.
ReplyDeleteI love homes without formal dining rooms. It is so much more family friendly to have a larger kitchen/dining space open to the family room. Save the extra room for a reading room to relax in!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid I would dream of having a nice dining room. But now that I have 6 kids of my own...I can't wait until I can have a big open kitchen of my own...with a nice big table. So my vote is for a big country kitchen, with NO CARPET in the eating area!!! O.K., there's my rental vent. :)
ReplyDeleteWe eat in our kitchen and the dining room is now the office/holder of all things paper-like!
ReplyDeleteMay be . . . We had a very formal dining room in our first home, which rarely got used. Here, in our second home we built 17 years ago, we changed floor plans to omit the dining room creating a larger powder room and small "den" off the kitchen. As much as I love my little "den" which originally served as kid's playroom, now my studio, I long for a dining room again. We host the family's for T'giving and C'mas now, and would love the extra dining space. My plan is to now convert the living room into a dining/sitting room/homework station/etc. Hubby thinks it's crazy. What does he know???
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to realize a home's rooms shouldn't be labeled, but used relative to the family's needs.
When we were looking for our current house I had two must haves, a dining room and a stand alone laundry room (no walk throughs). Ours is a combo dining / living room. Love it. Adds charm when you walk in and when we have big groups the living room works so well as overflow. My kitchen is not quite that large, does a have a table and four chairs, but can't do without the dining room. It is the "cozy" at the front of our house and we can make it formal or not.
ReplyDeleteOops forgot to mention. Most amazing conversations can happen at the dining room table. Enough said.
ReplyDeleteAW, thanks for the shout out. As you can see, we don't use our formal dining room, and never have in any house we've had one in. It's always either a toy/play room or school room. In one house it was my craft/sewing room.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right, formal dining rooms are becoming obsolete for many of us. In the older homes there was only a tiny breakfast nook and a huge dining room....then the breakfast nook began getting bigger...now they're part of huge kitchens that open to the main 'great room'...again relegating the formal 'living room' into a non-used space unless it's repurposed.
My dream layout would be a huge eat in kitchen open to a huge great room so everyone feels a part of life. Then I'd like a cozy office for hubs, and a big craftroom, and a separate school room. I'm trying to make my many small spaces live large in the home we're in.
Hopefully I can get that dining/homeschool room finished soon so folks can see how it turned out. :)
Too cute about being the farmer's daughter. That is a privalege to grow up on a farm! We knocked out the wall between the kitchen and the diningroom. It brightens the whole area.
ReplyDeleteI love your table!!! Beautiful and so different!!!
ReplyDeleteI have a crazy long and narrow dining room and if you go to my blog, it's called Dining Room Dilema's! How on earth do you make that work? I'm still working on it! I love dining rooms, but yes, who has time to formally dine? I am also blessed with a big eat in country kitchen.
Cindy
xo
We have both a breakfast room and dining room and although I wouldn't call it "formal' we entertain in there quite frequently. We love to cook and love having friends and family over. Even when it's just the two of us we eat in the dining room. I feel that mealtime should be a time void of TV, radio, and video games...a time when families connect possibly for the only time that day. Often during the day I use the room for projects I'm working on so it does often serve dual duty and we're also lucky enough to have a separate study and two large living areas.
ReplyDeleteLove what you did in your dining room!
xo
Nancy
I use our dining room for every meal, but don't have an eat in kitchen. I like it. You can't see the dishes when you're having dinner. We have lots of company for dinner too, which makes it more comfortable than being in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're sending messages to builder, can we ask them to make a place for a trash can in the kitchen? Lisa~
I would vote for the large farmhouse kitchen because that is were my large family congregates anyway. By the way, I would opt for the large rock fireplace in my kitchen too. :)
ReplyDeleteWe have a dining room and we have a large kitchen eating area so no we do not use our "dining room" for dining, we are in the process of turning that room into an entertainment area for our teens so they have a place to take their friends for movies and games as we don't allow girlfriends and boyfriends in the bedrooms. And it also works great b/c it's right next to the kitchen and they can serve themselves snacks when they want. Many years ago we had added french doors to that room to close off the opening just off of the
entry, because at that time it was a bedroom for our boys who are now grown and gone. We had five kids in a three bedroom house. The doors have windows and were draped for privacy at that time, but now they aren't and the doors provide a open view.
Messages to builders...bigger laundry rooms! We had to expand ours and now it's nice a roomy!
We most definitely use our dining room! Family meals take place at the kitchen table, but the "adults" eat in the dining room when we have company. I love the feeling of an adult dinner without the restaurant bill! Plus the kids love when they have the opportunity to let loose at the kid table with their friends. A win win for all! On a side note, I have to agree with an earlier comment that formal living rooms are a dying breed.
ReplyDeleteWe turned our dining room into a PUB room. I have a large rustic kitchen table, and that is where we like to eat, then we entertain at the PUB!~ Best thing we ever did!
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog and I absolutely LOVE it. I'll be following you now :)
ReplyDeleteWe raised our two sons in a cottage that had a tiny kitchen and a very small eating area, (though they called it a dining room on the floor plan) and then when they were grown we sold that house and bought a new one with both a formal dining room and a breakfast room. Hands down we LOVE the formal dining room... it is so nice to be able to entertain and have everyone seated at the dining room table. And I have a confession to make I just enjoy being able to have the dining room table set all the time, it is great!!!! So my vote goes for the FORMAL dining room ...
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you and yours
Curtis & Sherrie
I remodeled my dining room into office / spare bedroom a couple years ago. I could not stand having a room that we hardly used. Your makeover is stunning!
ReplyDeletewe don't have a separate dining room, its part of our living room & kitchen combined. We eat family meals there, entertain there with extended family & friends. Not sure we might use a separate actual dining room if it was called the formal dining room. But since its part of the whole main living area it works for us.
ReplyDeleteI am back from my little getaway and came home to this massive response to this post. WOW! I have much reading to do. I'll be back again. So interesting!
ReplyDeleteThe topic seemed to really hit a note. Thanks so much for your comments!
Donna
I love your kitchen renovation. I WANT that island!!!
ReplyDeleteHonestly the best part of the whole post was seeing your amazing desk. What a great use of old saw horses and boards. Just found your site and adding your button to my blog right now.
ReplyDeleteI have a formal dining room, but don't have a formal table in it as of yet. But it gets used... to eat in, do crafts at the table etc. Occasionally we have people over for dinner.
ReplyDeleteI have a breakfast bar that has carpet under it ( hate carpet under eating areas) and so if the kids are eating spaghetti or something like that, I make them eat it in the dining room where it will be easier to clean up.
Excellent! Didn't know dining room can be use in so many different ways. Thanks for the great inspiration!
ReplyDeleteI live in a townhouse that is basically a ranch style home on the second floor. The floor plan is somewhat open and has high ceilings which I love...makes the 1,500 sq seem so much larger. Unfortunately my only "dining" area is part of my tiny kitchen and affords only enough room for a four stool bar height table and no more. We have an office right off our living area that I'd like to turn into a dining room...then make a second bedroom into an office. No kids...only dogs so we can do this! I want to paint the walls a warm pumkin color and I have a wonderful primitive step-back cupboard thats painted an old blue (teal) color. The room is reletively small for a dining room...but I think it will work. I'm going for an mixed bag of styles here...primitive mixed with rustic contemporary...mixed with a bohemian vibe. Wish me luck! Ideas welcome!
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