Could you live without a dining table?

[87mum]

Could you live without a dining table?

Current set up is - round dining table in the living room with 4 chairs that take up a fair bit of space. It's quite compact, well the table is but the chairs don't fit store neatly under it.

We have a 6 year old with a 2nd on the way. Ideally we'd have a smaller dining table but I can't find anything that would be suitable/I like.

For those who got rid/don't have one, what do you do with your children at tea time? My 6 year old occasionally spills etc and we've always had one even though it's mostly used as a dumping ground/can be quite difficult to get into due to the location it's in.

We've tried rejigging the room but it's a weird shape and we are trying, again, to make the best of the situation.

I dont have one, we just don't have the space

Yes, it seats 4 adults comfortably but is fine for me, DH and 3 DC.

Presuming, as you say there is no room in your kitchen, you are asking us if we could live without having any table in the house ?

In which case, no.

I could potentially live without our dining table if I had to (say one of us became disable through accident or illness and needed a bedroom downstairs). But we have a kitchen table that sits 6, so could use that, and either never host, or do some jiggery pokery with patio tables and card tables for a bigger number. But I couldn't live life without any table.

Like 90% of the population, yes i can, and I am sure you too can survive 😏

Ours is a similar set up (round table in living room) but we couldn't do without it. We rarely all sit together for a meal and I'm happy to eat on the sofa but the kids always need to eat at the table. Plus that's where they do their homework.

My kids have appalling use of cutlery, struggle to stay on a chair and wander off at meals but we eat at a table. They're not preschoolers but a bit ND. 😂

Do 90% of the population have no table in their home? I can't believe that. I've never been into anyone's home without a table to eat at. It doesn't have to be in a separate dining room but I think most people do have a table

Most people have a kitchen table. Far fewer have the dining table specified by the OP. Or indeed a dining room.

Eh? Op doesn't have space in her kitchen for a table, and is considering getting rid of the (only) one in the living room.

I don't believe for one minute that 90% of UK households don't have a table and some kind of seating to use for eating.

I hate eating while sitting on a settee hunched over my food, so we have always had a table and chairs in the house - either in the kitchen, living room/diner or dining room.

We didn't have one due to size for 4 years in rental. Bit annoying for when visitors are there but other than that we learnt to eat on our laps...

However that was pre children. Have had one since being in a bigger place and child came 6 months later. I do prefer having one, but you can make do without if really needed

We eat every breakfast and every supper at ours, plus any lunch involving soup or something on toast.

Another who thinks you are completely making up figures @Honeychickpea
I can't believe for one minute that 90% of UK households have no table in their house.
I'd be prepared to believe 10% might not have, possibly.

This. Round tables arent good for small spaces. I would prefer to have a table than non at all.

This thread is blowing my mind a bit. To me it's
like hearing people say they don't bother with a bed and just camp out in odd corners of the house.

For me it's nothing to do with conversation and little to do with manners - it just sounds so unnecessarily uncomfortable and messy to eat off your lap every day and night! To me that's something you do the night before you move house, when everything's in the van! I would go mad within a day of that.

That's before you even get to "where do the kids do colouring and crafts" and all the other things that need a flat hard surface. I know what it's like to live in a small space, but a fold-out table at minimum has always been essential.

This is us 90% of the time. Child always eats at the table, I will join them more often than my DH, and once every few weeks when time allows we all eat at the table together

It's having to take the chairs out at every meal time, pulling the table away from the wall. My sister also got her fingers trapped in one when she was younger and ended up taking the top of one of her fingers off

It is messy and uncomfortable! In my parents home however we had 7 or 8 people and all their stuff to contain in a 3 bed house. The house was stuffed with things and people and there wasn't much room for a dining table and chairs and we wouldn't have all been able to fit round it anyway. Houses built these days are even smaller and rents are high, so I can imagine there are still a lot of families who sacrifice a dining table and chairs for extra storage space.

Edit, was attempting to reply to @Whiskerson

Both me and DH have spent the day looking at various different tables and trailing round the few shops we have that would stock such things.

As pp have asked, no space in the kitchen - long and thin. No space for a breakfast bar. We have some nest tables in our living room but they'd be too small for 3/4 of us to share and eat off of.

Wow, that's a lot of people! I must admit I've never lived with that sort of number of people, so I guess even the small spaces I've lived in will have felt bigger than that.

I would always have a dining table, especially with DC. They say children have better mental health, in families who sit down to eat together, where they can discuss their problems and learn social skills. If I were you OP, I would look for a drop leaf table, where both sides both fold down, so it’s about 6” wide and can go up against a wall between meals.

DS moved into a bed sit with his gf. They invited us round for dinner. She was in tears, as she said it was the first time her home had a dining table. Her parents had a flat with no room for a table. They always ate with a plate on their knees in the lounge.

Totally agree

I understand the points around conversation/manners but it's really not the primary reason for me - I eat at the table even when on my own with my kindle

To me it's just not an optional thing, it would be like saying "our place is too small for a bed so we just don't bother"

This and I like to do a jigsaw a few times each year.

Do people not find it uncomfortable eating a 'knife and fork meal' on the sofa (as opposed to a sandwich or similar') ? Maybe I'm too fat but it's just so awkward.
We are fortunate ... most meals are eaten in the kitchen where we have a table that easily sits four (only two of us at home now) plus a dining room with a table that can extend to eight for more formal occasions.
We've been out for lunch today so tonight as a rare occurrence we might just have cheese and biscuits in front of the tv ... but we don't do that very often.

Sadly in our current home we don’t have space for one. Yes we probably could have squeezed in a drop leaf and have had it sitting against the wall but that would have meant sofa on one wall with a door at each end, sofa and door on the shorter wall next to that, table and tv on long wall next to that and window and radiator on the other wall with no space for anything else. It just would have felt too hemmed in for me I think and I am not sure where we would have stored the chairs when not in use. Some people would have prioritised a table over a tv maybe.

Although we have to eat on the sofas we do still eat together every night and I think the kids manners etc are ok. We have eaten out enough and at tables on holiday that they’ve learned how to sit at a table and eat.

Actually having somewhere to play games is probably what I miss most and having somewhere to enjoy a leisurely Sunday breakfast rather than just evening meals.

Worth nothing I also grew up without a dining table so it’s perhaps not as strange to me not to have one.