Dining rooms - do you use them?

[TrinaLowsln]

We are shortly to be moving (touch wood) to a new house which, downstairs, has a kitchen diner, living room, study and second reception room which is currently used as a dining table. We are only four - me, DH and two DC, and although we do have visitors who come to stay, and host dinners with friends etc, I don't feel that these happen frequently enough to really justify the use of an entire room for a big table and chairs, when the diner part of the kitchen diner is big enough for a table to seat us every day. I would prefer to use the second reception as another living area or a playroom etc. We home educate so I am also quite tempted to use it as a homeschool room to keep the main living room free of "school" stuff.

If you have a dining room do you use it much?

It's now where I wfh but we use it as a dining room when we have guests/Christmas etc.

I love it as a place to work and I love it as a place to dine.

Everyday dining is in the kitchen.

We usually use ours for every meal. However we haven’t over winter (except for Christmas day and birthday buffets), because there’s an empty fireplace there and it tends to get a bit cold over winter, as well as not using the heating there since the cost went up!

We have a big kitchen diner (the diner section big enough for a table that seats 8-10 and a sofa), and a separate room that’s officially the dining room. We turned this into the study/library and the smaller “study” into a playroom. Much better use of the space for us.

Yes. Use it constantly. Eat at the table every evening (just the two of us now but always used to eat as a family. I have the laptop on the dining table so use it a lot for that. I have a comfy chair in the corner with a reading lamp above it - thats my reading nook. Built in shelves full of books. I also occasionally do jigsaws and other little hobby things in there that need to be laid out on a table.

I think it helps that you have to walk through ours to get to the kitchen. Its not open plan but you go from the lounge to the hall, through the dining room and into the kitchen. So its never become a dumping ground.

We’ve got a spacious dining room - 16ft by 15ft. We’re about to turn it into a second living room as we only use it a couple of times of year as a dining room so it’s wasted space. We have an eight seater table in our kitchen so that’s plenty big enough for us.

Yes, but I have an open plan house so we still watch TV and eat 😳 I like the idea of if children are older to eat and actually have a conversation. We also use it if we have guests (and obviously TV is off). Not sure I'd dedicate a whole room to it unless I had a lot of dinner parties or nowhere else to sit (I like sitting at a table, and definitely if I have people over)

Same

Yes separate dining room.
Rarely used - Christmas.
When my son lived at home he would use it s a lot
His friends would come over and he'd cover the table with stuff.
I do wish it was used more.
We have a piano in there and 2 book cases.
We have do have another Separate room used as a snug / sofa room and even those the kitchen could take a table we don't have one there.

Our dining room is fairly open plan, it's up a couple of steps from one end of the living room, then you go down a couple of steps from it into the kitchen. But no doors dividing it from those areas.
We use it as a play room as the DC are too little to be trusted eating dinner in a carpeted area and we can't afford to get the floor redone! We can comfortably fit a table in the kitchen though so it's not a big issue.
Works brilliantly as a playroom as we can still keep an eye on DC, but it creates a definite zone to contain their stuff and keep it out of the living room.

We have big kitchen and no dining room but my sister has both. She uses it only for family gatherings at Easter, Christmas, birthdays. She’s got big house with extra guest bedrooms so it’s not a bother for her but in your shoes I would use it as a homeschooling room or playroom depending on light/ noise.

Ours was used as a playroom when my ds and dd were children. It’s now back to being a dining room.
use it for what you need now. It can be changed at any time.

Do what suits you and your family. In our last house we had tiny kitchen with no room for a table and so we used our dining room every day. In this house we have a large kitchen diner with a 12 seater table in the dining section so we use the second reception room as a playroom/family room. The previous owners had it as a dining room.

We own the house with an elderly parent.
Down stairs was; kitchen diner, laundry, toilet. Study and 2 reception rooms.

The study is now a bedroom, the toilet is now a shower room and one of the receptions in my parents. they do have a dining table in there but rarely use it for dining, more jigsaw puzzles etc.

The kitchen diner is large and we have a table that can seat 10+ if needed.

Currently yes because its the only dining area however when I redo the kitchen I will try to fit a table in the kitchen because I prefer kitchen diners. I'm not sure what I'd use the dining room for then though, as it's open plan to the living room.

I grew up with a kitchen diner and a separate dining room. The dining room was rarely used, and has now been changed into another living space. My parents said if they were doing it again, they would have had the room as a playroom as that would have had far more use.

Now I have a kitchen diner and another downstairs room which could be a dining room, but it’s DH’s study. I’ve been this house for three years and never once missed a second dining area. This is actually the first time I’ve thought about it.

Ours is a second living room as we have a kitchen diner and can seat 8 for dinner. We would seldom use a formal dining room, so we use it as a second living room come games room. It gets used most days.

So it has sofas, the play station x box etc, tv, sound system, and can be used for quiet work, homework/study, gaming, reading , music, or even if we want to watch different things on the tv.

we also set it up as a bedroom when we have a lot of guests to stay and need over flow , as we have a yawn king size blow up mattress we can plonk down in the middle .

We built a house and decided not to put in a dining room. But we have a decent sized kitchen/dining/living room with room for a big table so it makes sense to use that space to entertain. I didn't see the point in having a separate dining room. But I guess I would use it if I didn't have space for a larger table in the kitchen

We use our dining room for every meal during the colder months, but eat in the conservatory when it's warm.

We have a kitchen diner and turned the separate dining room into a reception room for the kids. I love having a kitchen diner and would never use a dining table in a separate room, even for dinner guests.

My front room is quite big so my dining area is in there and I like that - not a fan of a separate dining room at all, it just wouldn’t get used.
The separate dining room I have was my music room at first - piano etc. I now have it as my downstairs workspace with computer etc.

Yes but:

• we entertain a lot

• our kitchen table only seats 8, we after often more than 8

• it's well located in our house so gets used as a office space, home work space, board game space

• it's a really beautiful room and a pleasure to be in. If it wasn't so lovely we'd probably use it less

In your circumstances I probably wouldn't use it as a dining room

Only a few times a year. I much prefer an ear in kitchen snd if yours is big enough to host then yes turn the dining room into a second reception - maybe for the kids to hang out with their friends?

Yes but it doubles as an office space when we want to spread out (office areas are tiny), kid’s homework and annoying craft project space - we do also eat in it at the weekends and when we have people round. We also hang out in it a bit - maybe cos partner is part Danish and they seem to hang around tables like Brits do sofas

It’s really useful - but in your shoes I would absolutely use it as a homeschool room.

Nope - kitchen diner and the dining room is my office when working from home.

If I home schooled I'd be setting it up as a dual purpose room - have a dining table and comfy enough seats for working at (or a gate leg table that folds down smaller) so you can eat there for nice evening meals and Christmas dinner etc.

And a big set of cabinets with door on so all the home school stuff can be hidden away if you want to. You can get doors for the classic billy bookcase from IKEA etc.

But day to day everything can stay out. Best of both worlds this way?