No dining room, just a table in the kitchen?

[Clementiness]

FTB in expensive SE. Many properties within our budget seem to have a smallish living room/front room and then a dining area in the kitchen, rather than a separate room. Is it weird to have all family meals, including Xmas in the kitchen? I always had a dining room so feels strange but maybe it’s just me?
Would you consider this type of layout?
Space in the kitchen is enough to sit 6 people comfortably, 8 stretching a bit (but almost never have 8 people as it’s usually DH, DC and I + a couple of guests max)

You can sit and eat anywhere, you don't need a special room.

Totally confused at your posts, @housethatbuiltme
You hate kitchen diners, think dining rooms are a waste of space, think it’s weird to eat in the kitchen…

We have a living room and a kitchen diner converted from the old scullery and dining room, I say scullery because 2 owners ago 1990s there was a copper boiler and no central heating which was used by the previous owner as a family-dining-kitchen room but it’s not really big enough for all that (they didn’t have a family). We would love to extend to make it a proper family room but I do miss not having an extra reception.

Yes but all the posters (including OP) who are baffled by the concept of no dining room are making it so very clear that they are just that posh (and apparently somehow also never lived in uni digs despite the stats on people from the class they're trying to imply they're from showing they are far more likely to have attended uni). 🧐

A south east liver here. Most houses here have dining rooms, especially 3 bed semis. But plenty of people have the wall knocked down to combine into a kitchen-diner.

Nearly everyone has agreed that dining room are a waste of space not just me.

You will see open plan and kitchen diners (for the same reason as eating in the kitchen) are greatly disliked if you look on any of the 'what do you avoid in a house' threads' so also not just me.

Of course its weird to eat in the kitchen where you just cooked, many kitchen like mine don't even have any room to sit and eat.

Thinking you dont need a special 'dining area' is not hard to grasp at all. Millions of people do not have dining rooms (knocked though or otherwise) and if you can't grasp that you must be pretty out of touch.

I don’t think kitchen diners are greatly disliked at all! It’s probably what a majority of people want, and why is it weird to eat in the kitchen where you have just cooked??

I'm not out of touch at all, I just can't imagine essentially building the table and chairs every time I wanted to sit at it (as per your link), that's all.

Give me a "dedicated" space every time, regardless of where it may be.

@KaiserChefs
The 20s/30s houses wouldn't have had a downstairs bathroom next to the kitchen. The bathroom would have been upstairs over the kitchen, they were built with upstairs plumbing. The room sharing the wall with the kitchen was the dining room.
The protruding room at the back in a terraced house when the house was built is referred to as the extension in books on the subject. I didn't think that they were built on later like a modern extension!

Okaaaay

I guess it depends on what your kitchen is like. And I also now see that you have a table in your living room, so it all makes much more sense!

Actually, thinking about it, our first house as a couple, a really quite small Victorian 2 up 2 down was the only house that DID have a separate dining room. Someone, it didn't really feel like that because there was door directly to the galley kitchen which we kept open all the time. It wasn't a separate room off a hallway and it wasn't in addition to a small kitchen table. We spent lots of time sitting in that "dining" room, on comfortable chairs round a big table. Our sitting room (with sofas, chairs, tv) was, rather unconventionally upstairs. Even now, we probably spend more time sitting round our dining table (in the dining area of our kitchen/dining/family room) than we do either in the separate sitting/tv room or the sofa end of the big room.

I’ve seen quite a few small Victorian terraces which have a separate dining room as a ‘through room’ to the galley kitchen.

Do you live in magical steam and smell free kitchens?

Being surrounded by the mess of the food we just cooked would be stressful too and Im not washing all the dishes while the food goes cold before sitting down (only to have to then wash all the plates/cutlery etc... again after).

That’s fine if that’s your preference, sit where you like to eat your food, it doesn’t change the fact that most people want a kitchen diner in their home, you said they were ‘greatly disliked’ they are not at all.

I have a massive kitchen diner with a sofa in the dining room end, it’s why I bought the house. I would never go full open plan though.
.

Are you an unusually messy cook?

Growing up, our dining room was used 360 days of the year as the homework room. 4 children 9 years apart.
It was great to just leave projects and stuff we were working on and go back to them after dinner (in the kitchen). Our bedrooms were private spaces, and often cold in winter.
Then it was cleared for Christmas and Easter. It became a ghost room/2nd TV room when we all left home.

I grew up in London and have plenty of family and friends in London and the SE.

Most houses will now not have separate dinning rooms even if they were built with them as people have either:

• knocked through or put extensions on to make kitchen/diners
• knocked through to make living room/diners. (This actually started happening in the late 80s as the houses myself and friends grew up in had dining rooms and/or two sitting rooms.)

Even with the people who I know retained their dining rooms after they had extensions they were being used as studies/craft rooms even before covid.

But, to answer the OP, space for 8 around the kitchen table? No brainer, you eat there every day. You’ll be putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher as you cook and an extractor fan will keep the smells down. It also means people will be more willing to set and clear the table.

Do you not have an extractor fan or dishwasher??

I have a dining room but it’s only really used for Sunday lunch and special occasions. I think in an open plan kitchen diner is a much better option in a town house.

We have this deliberately. Small 3 bed semi. When we moved in there was a small sitting room, separate dining room and a tiny galley kitchen. It was miserable because it's a setup which is appropriate for there being most of the family sitting down resting and one skivvy (usually mum) doing all the work as there's only room for one person in the kitchen.

We knocked through to have a large kitchen diner with plenty of room for everyone to help get things onto the table and cleared away and no one is isolated.

We have a small 4 bed and use the dining room as an office so have a 6 seater table in the kitchen . It worked fine

I prefer a separate dining room as I'm a messy cook and don't want to sit where I can see the pans etc. However, kitchen diners are fine too, mostly it's just important to have somewhere tp put a table if possible.

Yes I'd much rather a larger kitchen diner than a separate dining room that gets used a couple times a year!