How Do You Use You Dining Room?

Reading another discussion made me think of this question. Most of us have dining rooms.I have one but it is rarely used except for special occasions. I know some have broken walls and now have informal kitchens. Others like a more private kitchen.What is your preference? It's nice when we don't all think the same way.

We use our dining room as a walk through to the kitchen and on Thanksgiving and if we have a house party. Other than that, no.

we use our dining room (for dining) when we can't fit on the kitchen table  (more than 6 persons) and special occasions.

At the moment, kitten fostering room.

We eat dinner there because the kitchen (still) isn't organized for more than one or two seats.  It also holds the piano, my laptop, a small desk, and built-in china cabinet.  I pay bills on the dining table.  Yes, not ideal.

Same.

oots said:

we use our dining room (for dining) when we can't fit on the kitchen table  (more than 6 persons) and special occasions.

We were not using the dining room table for eating and the table had just become a place to put things...including a cleaning container that leaked and left a stain (grrrr).  We've removed the table and chairs and turned it into a family room that we now use daily.

If needed, we can quickly covert it back to an eating space, but for entertaining I'd probably go casual with more of a buffet setup.

ETA,  I prefer our kitchen as a separate room given the layout in this house.

Open plan downstairs.  Dining room is part of the living room.  Husband used it for a home office.  Now a multipurpose space good for everything from entertaining/meetings, to home-based projects, to board/card games, to doing jigsaw puzzles when the cat is occupied elsewhere.

I actually use mine as a dining room.

It is set up like a dining room, but when it is only the two of us, my husband and I tend to eat in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. For bigger groups we use the dining room. When it isn't being used for dining, it's where I sort the mail and take care of bills/correspondence/etc. 

ours is set up like a dining room also but we probably use it 2x a year. I was thinking about making it my office but no closets. Maybe we should make it a cocktail lounge area

We eat in it.  Dinner every day and breakfast for the grown ups on the weekends when we want some time to ourselves.  I honestly didn't think I would use it when I bought the house but I love it.

Yeah, ours is set up like a dining room complete with table, chairs, centerpiece, etc., but it's empty of people 90% of the time. Our kitchen / family room combo is the next room over so the poor dining room gets no play.

Klinker said:

We eat in it.  Dinner every day and breakfast for the grown ups on the weekends when we want some time to ourselves.  I honestly didn't think I would use it when I bought the house but I love it.

Same here, same pattern.   I have a breakfast nook, currently cluttered with my stuff, but even when it isn't, it is roomier and more pleasant to be in the dining room.  Interesting to see so many different responses.

We use it as a dining room, former homework spot, bill paying area, entertaining space, etc.

When I was designing my kitchen in the space formerly a dining room (that we used as a family room when we moved in) I wanted to give myself as much counter space as possible for cooking and serving buffet style. We also have a large butler's pantry with tons of storage, so that aspect was less crucial. It didn't make sense to have a cramped dining space in the kitchen when we had this large adjacent dining room. We put four stools on one side of the raised island, so there is enough casual dining/homework/paperwork space there too. 

When I designed the dining room, we actually thought we might use it as a living space, so we added built in bookcases and closed storage, and a large built in bench with storage and seating. Now the bench can hold lots of paper goods and party supplies, large appliances, tablecloths, and the built ins still hold books and decorative items because I think that's kind of nice and warms the space up. The bookcases also have some open storage which can work as a small bar area but I tend to put that elsewhere. When we have a crowd I pull the table closer to the bench and either extend the table fully and add another small table or use it as additional buffet space. 

Dining room is used for dining if there are more than 2-3 of us (since our only other eating spot is small), so we use it constantly when both kids are home, also entertain frequently. But I still feel the room is underused, and would like to correct that. How?

We use ours as a family room and use our maplewood room as a dining room. Works great. ( we have a breakfast room with a table that can expand).

We always thought about doing that in our South Orange home. Would,have meant dining room further from kitchen but made much more sense to have least used room tucked away in that always too cold/ hot, never quite comfortable room!

irishclan said:

We use ours as a family room and use our maplewood room as a dining room. Works great. ( we have a breakfast room with a table that can expand).

We can seat 6 in our kitchen, so usually eat there.

Dining room is a swing space.  4 - 6 times a year we host holiday meals there using various configurations of folding tables and chairs.

When packing for college or camp, we stage there.

Last month, it was a framing workshop.

The piano is in there, too.

One of my kids had a desk in there through middle and high school.  Earlier, before they got laptops, the family computer was there.  Both these arrangements helped with supervision and learning good habits.

It's also the gallery space where I display my most recent work.

It is almost always in use, rarely as a dining space. 

We use our dining room to eat (gasp!) and also as a catchall for mail, bills, and at times when the kids were home, it was also a homework spot.  (We don't have an eat-in kitchen.)

My house is a foursquare so it’s 25 percent of the first floor. I dine there, work there. 

Most of our eating happens at our kitchen island, but that only really seats 4, so if there are more we eat in the dining room. So while it's not used that often, it's used more than it would if we were only having our 'formal' holiday meals in there.

It's also ended up being the room that tends to have most of our seasonal items, so I guess there's a bit of stuff in there just for 'show' as well - but nothing terribly formal (one of the things that's on display are my seasonal Lego displays), so it doesn't feel too odd when we do eat in there.

I remember when I was in high school visiting my friend's house. We were not allowed in the dining room at all. They had wall-to-wall carpet in there that was perfectly vacuumed in one direction. If anyone stepped into the dining room, they would have left footprints. So... it was off limits except when they had company.

Our dining room is currently my kid & spouse's hobby area. We clean it up and use it for dining about 5-10 times per year.

j_r said:

My house is a foursquare so it’s 25 percent of the first floor. I dine there, work there. 

Ditto. Because of the walls, we just can't play foursquare there.

we use ours as a playroom, we don’t have a Maplewood room. When we have people for the holidays, we shift the furniture up from the basement and toys down to there. 

sac said:

We use our dining room to eat (gasp!) and also as a catchall for mail, bills, and at times when the kids were home, it was also a homework spot.  (We don't have an eat-in kitchen.)

Same. Smaller standup kitchen, so all dining is in the dining room. (One of the things I wanted but didn't get with our house was the eat-in kitchen. Alas.)

In our Maplewood house, we furnished the dining room as a living room and the living room as my wife's music studio, leaving us with no dining room. We ate in the kitchen.

A rarely used room except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and if we entertain.  Otherwise it is a repository for bills, mail and other papers - a large table and several other flat surfaces which beg to be used.  When it gets too cluttered every few months we clean it up.

We have an open plan where the kitchen counter and stools separates it from the dining room.  Homework and eating is usually done at the counter.  Dining room has table and chairs, but is usually piled with mail.

Open floor plan so living and dining room are one large room and used daily for everything.   I prefer to not have a table in the kitchen so the dining room table is the place to go for eating, and for that reason it is kept neat and clean.    In my two colonial homes I turned the dining room into a play space (when kids were little) and then just a holiday/entertaining room.  With a smaller house all the rooms get used and I like that.