To live without a dining table??

[inmyshoos]

Can't fit in a dining table in our new house. We have a massive corner sofa and it barely fits in itself. Aibu to just sit there and eat? I really love a table, feels weird not having one. Have even considered weird coffee tables that convert to dining tables but they look weird as heck.

Will I desperately miss a table? Aibu to think we can live without one?

Our dining table is old and cost 50 quid second hand, our sofa was 3k.

I grew up in the midlands, we lived in a flat shared with another family. The only place a table could be placed was the road outside.

How did that work ? Did one family live downstairs and the other upstairs? Were they strangers?

@userxx

I grew up in the midlands, we lived in a flat shared with another family. The only place a table could be placed was the road outside.

How did that work ? Did one family live downstairs and the other upstairs? Were they strangers?

Flats tend not to have an upstairs and downstairs. It works exactly the same as any flat share, you have private bedrooms and ‘public’ communal areas.

Sell the sofa, buy a table and a smaller sofa. I didn't have a sofa at my old flat (we were there for less than a year) and I hated it so much. Sitting on the sofa to eat every night was rubbish; my back hurt, digestion suffered and when I was pregnant it was truly awful. Both of us said "I can't wait to move and have our own table". We've since bought a home that has space for a big table and I love it!

I didn't have a TABLE at my old flat** 🤦‍♀️

@SimonJT I meant a flat that had effectively been split into two, but that would make it two separate flats!

"Presumably if people live in accomodation too small to have a table they won't be able to afford to eat out at restaurants regularly."

As another poster has pointed out, it depends how you budget.

I live in an area of the UK that has affordable housing. Large house for not much £££. Depends what is a priority in your life, I suppose.

As a messy eater, a dining table is vital haha!

When we were looking at houses we were looking at ones with dining rooms or with a suitable space for a dining table.

We use it every single day.

Isn’t it hard to eat at the sofa?? Growing up we always ate at the table and now we do the same with our own children. I find eating at the sofa really awkward and uncomfortable. Surely you need to be at the table at least for meals where you have two glasses and several utensils? When you have company, will you ask them to sit on the sofa with their dinner on their lap?

I would probably sell the sofa (which sounds too big for the space anyway) and get something better sized that will also allow some space for at least a little table.

There are so many folding tables available (cheaply) precisely because lots of people have limited space. A table is far more versatile than a sofa - for eating, games, homework, hobbies etc etc. It's not a luxury item.

It's a bit Marie Antoinette on here isn't it?
"We don't have room for a dining table"
"Eat at the kitchen table then".

@Averyyounggrandmaofsix

It's a bit Marie Antoinette on here isn't it? "We don't have room for a dining table" "Eat at the kitchen table then".

I do think some posters are confusing a 'dining table' with what I think most people mean, which is just a table, in a kitchen or any other room, folding or not, that you can eat at.

I dont have one. My dining room has had to be used as a bedroom and I have a tiny tiny kitchen and an even smaller front room with one small sofa squeezed in.

My kids are older now and eat on the sofa..teens..wasnt always like this. When they were younger we had the dining room and table and we always ate at the table.

I think the reason so many people end up in this situation isn't that they don't want a dining table — it's that the sofa won the space battle and there was no room left.

We see this a lot (I work at a furniture company that focuses on small flats). The number of people who've sacrificed the dining table not because they wanted to eat off their knees, but because a standard sofa takes up so much floor space there's simply nowhere to put a table. It becomes a choice between the two.

The thing that actually fixes it tends to be rethinking the sofa rather than the table — a sofa with built-in storage, or a smaller-footprint one, can free up enough floor space to get a compact dining table back in. A two-person fold-down table against a wall takes up almost nothing when not in use.

Eating off your knees every night is grim and I don't think anyone actually chooses it freely — it's usually what happens when the room wins.