Would you turn your dining room into a TV room?

[chicaguapa]

We have a side extension behind the garage. It leads off the kitchen, provides access to the garage and is our dining room. In reality we use it as a dining room 3 or 4 times a year when we have more than 4 people eating and the rest of the time the table is piled with washing and things which haven't made it into the garage yet.

I'm thinking of turning it into a TV room for the DC (15 & 12). It has French doors to the garden so is quite a nice room but it's narrow (think garage you couldn't fit a car in!) so it won't be a spacious room and a sofa and TV cabinet will pretty much fill it.

Pros are that it would give us another downstairs space. We do have a breakfast bar in the kitchen which we could replace with a table if we needed to.

Cons are that our dining table and chairs were really expensive so we are reluctant to get rid of them in case we change our minds. We don't have anywhere to store them in the meantime and they wouldn't fit in the kitchen.

We don't want to knock down the wall and make a kitchen diner as it would make the room out of scale with the rest of the house and it's not big enough to have a kitchen/ family room.

WWYD?

Do you have a floor plan?

Where do you eat normally? Do you have a table in your kitchen?

Your expensive dining table and chairs are a sunk cost - you've already spent that money so maybe that doesn't need to be factored into the pro's and con's of repurposing your dining room.

If you worked out the cost of the room that you currently only use 3 or 4 times a year would that make a difference?

Perhaps if you decide to go ahead (what do your dc think?) you might be able to sell your dining furniture to furnish the 'new' room?

We always have done this after our first home ( where it wasn't feasible as open plan and no dining table in kitchen. . We have a,ways had kitchen diners past that though, so we always have two living rooms, one is a play room with tv. Sofas, x box, play station etc and the other a more formal living room, both used all th time, and a seperate dining room wouldn't be used that often for us.

No, but that's because watching TV isn't important to us whereas mealtimes are. So a dining room is a more sociable space for us than a TV room would be. I think it depends on your lifestyle and family priorities.

I don't understand where you would plan to eat, though? Do you normally just use the breakfast bar, or is there another (smaller) table in the kitchen? I wouldn't get rid of the dining room if it meant meals would always be cramped.

I'd try harder to use the table first. Try and have a family meal at the table at the weekends. I think everyone sitting up together is the kind of thing that teens complain about at first, but actually like once it becomes habit.

I'm genuinely curious where you eat. I guess you have to make the space work for your family but if you've no other space to eat do you just have trays?

I think I'm a bit old fashioned and love a big family dinner.

I wish we'd done this - it would have got loads of use when the kids were growing up.

Conversely now they have grown up we use it a lot as a dining room when the family come round for tea and we also have no real use for a 'second' TV room.

So I'd flog the table and chairs and turn it into a TV room and then change it back once they are grown up.

(Caveat is we have room for 6 people to eat in the kitchen (just)).

We have this. Our dining room in this house is a bit awkward. it's not off the kitchen, is a bit poky and north facing so it hardly gets any light.

I put a sofa bed (cheap one from IKEA) in there and a TV and the kids use it as a gadget room.

Our kitchen is big enough for a table for four though.

I would if I had somewhere else to put the table . We turned our dining room into another lounge ( and large Lego display room) , but our dining table is in our conservatory and we also have a small breakfast table in the kitchen . I wouldn't get rid of the table altogether.

Thanks all. We currently eat together in the kitchen at the breakfast bar which seats 4+. It's not like we're all in a line. It's set out 2+2 so like sitting around a table but we're on bar stools instead of chairs. We're supposed to eat at the dining table but invariably it has something on it that needs clearing away so we end up staying in the kitchen.

Do you use if for big family things like Christmas? I can't imagine eating Christmas dinner at a breakfast bar. Having said that, the original garage in this house was converted to a dining room before we moved in. We had no use for it so it became a study with a sofa bed for guests. It is used all the time. Have you got room in your sitting room for a smaller drop leaf type table, or even in the dining room, and push it to one side?

We have turned what would generally be the dining room into a videogaming room for the kids. But we have a big kitchen diner (the dining area of it is the same size, or slightly larger, than the actual dining room) so we always eat at the table in the kitchen anyway. I can't imagine wanting to walk past that table to eat in the dining room instead.

I don't think I'd keep a dining room that I only used 3 or 4 times a year unless I had so much space I didn't know what to do with it.

I would do it! It sounds like a tv room would get more use, and be more fun.

No
We'd never use it!

Definitely do it if that's what would get more use. A TV room is great for teenagers, they would probably be more likely to have their friends round if they've got a separate room to hang out in, and less likely to shut themselves away in their bedrooms.
It would be nice through if you could have a cheap table and chairs, perhaps a foldaway one, to put into the room for entertaining, Christmas lunch etc.

Definitely! I have never wanted a dining room. Even when all four DC were living at home, we ate in the kitchen as I enjoyed the company and banter as I cooked and would find an alternative use for one if I ever inherited one. Your plan sounds very sensible and much more fun!