Do you have a dining room? Do you use it?

[BoogleMcGroogle]

We've just ( very excitingly) has an offer accepted on a house we love. It's a small farmhouse/ large cottage. Victorian with a modern but sympathetic extension. At the moment there's a kitchen (big enough for a farmhouse style table which is where we'd eat day to day), large living room and snug. There's also a gorgeous dual aspect room with an open fire which is currently a formal dining room ( with lovely antique table and chairs).

I'm just wondering whether it's worth keeping it as a dining room or whether it would be better turned into a library/ study ( there's currently a small study upstairs). While I absolutely love the idea of big family meals around the dining table, it also seems mad to have a room only used for its intended purpose a few times a year. We love entertaining but not really the sort of entertaining that involves sitting around a formal table.

I'd be grateful for your dining room thoughts, views and experiences.

We have a separate dining room but have never used it as such. It's currently where DS22 hangs out with a sofa, TV, his computer and a table for hobbies.

When he eventually moves out we are going to turn it into a library/study.

Yes and we use it for all meals we eat together, which is at least once a day, and some people chose to eat other meals there (the other dining options are standing in the kitchen, on your lap in front of telly, somewhere random where the Wi-Fi works). It also houses the piano. The craft cupboard and a toy cupboard and the clothes horse/maiden is usually in there too.

In the old house our living room was large enough to hold a large dining table as well as lounge stuff, so I turned the dining room into a playroom. (But we had fewer kids and less stuff in those days)

If I had a large enough kitchen to comfortably sit us all at a dining table I would totally change the dining room into a schoolroom (we home educate) and a gaming den combined.