We built our house 14 years ago and ditched the formal living room for a large den/open kitchen format. We have 6 seats around the kitchen bar, and eat most of our meals there unless we are watching TV. We do have a formal dining room too that includes the mahogany table and chairs from my parents. We generally eat there for special occasions and larger family gatherings: probably 10-12 times a year. We also put out food on the dining room table for large parties about 6 times a year. So it gets good use and I like the room. I think I always want to have a small dining room at least.
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Iāll play too. Love all of your multi (large) dining places. This is what you get in NYC
Those chairs are antiques from my old house when I used to have a formal dining room. The table is new and mid century modern. The large black painting I have a matching one on the other side of the wall.
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Our dining table is currently covered in toys belonging to older GD that arenāt safe for toddler GD. I may soon put a lockable display cabinet in there to house big kid Legos. Itās nice to no longer have to entertain Hās business associates at formal dinners.
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Here is one!!! Our nook table. 
Currently used as a plant stand. 
Covered with baby stuff and my husbandās ātiny projectā and complete with the cat in the background.
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I donāt think Iāll be posting my dining room!
I got my mix&match dining room table, six chairs and china cabinet from a former coworker as she was cleaning out her parentsā house. We used to eat there when we had guests, but it doesnāt get used much any more. If we had a big crowd, weād pull out a folding table/chairs perpendicular to the DR table and use the kitchen table for staging food.
Would be glad to chuck the DR table and its wobbly legs, so weād have a nice view onto the screened porch (with table that seats eight) but I donāt think H would go for it. He likes the horizontal storage space.
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I am on the team of ākeep the mess out of sightā. We use our dining room every night we donāt eat outdoors. We got the set when we bought our first townhouse but have since replaced the end chairs. I host family Sunday dinner almost every week with kids and grandkids. I love the dining space I can set ahead of time. The entry to the hall is large enough to expand more when we need to.
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Our DR. I have all sorts of pitchers and bowls that I change seasonally. It is a very bright room. Note the small China cabinetā¦tapeā¦thatās one of the unfinished projects in this house!
Table is walnut, and there is a small buffet cabinet on the opposite wall.
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You might get one a little later when Iām at the house. But maybe it will inspire some of the other residents to clean up, though I wonāt hold my breath. My spouse was working from home today, so there will probably be two monitors on it, not to mention the fact that heās kind of commandeered the buffet area for storage. And both the kid and my spouse like to keep their bikes in the dining room, rather than in the backyard shed. And Iām sure the kid has some stuff on the table as well.
All that to say, is that I will take one for the cluttered-house team and show a pic later on.
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Infamous sewing room. Itās 10x10 and used to be S1ās bedroom. Claimed it and moved sewing gear in when he moved to CA, added a futon sofa for guests, but didnāt sew in here til Covid. I have another seven large tubs of fabric elsewhere in the house.
Unfinished quilts and various thread/batting/beading supplies are packed in the closet. Iāve just donated/sold six laundry baskets of fabric (woohoo!), so one of the metal shelves now holds my office supplies and tons of synagogue documents.
cutting table and sewing supplies/collectorās items
main sewing machine/work station, more project bins underneath, Ikea Kallax bins of supplies. Computer and sewing machine are side-by-side these days competing for attention. This is occasionally my dining area, though I try to keep food away from fabric and machines.
Ironing station, ruler shelves, patterns, more sewing stuff, stack of medical EOBs and bills. The two sewing machines there are on their way to donation/sold for parts once I can get the accessories together. Need to hang the metal bulletin board so I can hang tools.
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Oh no no. Iāve currently got crap in spades. I normally love our dining room because itās crap free and calm and relaxing. But H retired from 32 years of teaching and brought home tons of gifts and accumulated stuff from his office. And one of the cats had a field day with our stack of napkins.
The sunroom we donāt even pretend to eat in. That is where H does his hobby stuff. And itās also a catch all for his crap. And the ironing board is for newest adventure which I might brag about later.
But hopefully in a month or so, it will be cleaned up. He actually cleaned up a fair amount last weekend.
And the booth in the sunroom actually came from a Subway when they remodeled. And yes, those are all my running shoesā¦
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We have a formal dining room and we use it when we entertain. Occasionally, weāll use it even it is just the four of us.
The eat-in kitchen area was where we ate all meals when the kids were home. The two counter seats were often used for breakfast when I made pancakes, but now, they are hardly ever used. Same goes for the kitchen table too - the couch serves as the dining area more often than not now 
Thinking of getting built-in bench seating or furniture similar to that as a replacement for the eat-in kitchen set. We can use our bay window better than. Anyone have a similar set up?
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Oooh, I love your house! Iād buy that table!
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There are so many threads on here that remind me how much less money we have than many of you. We have never had a house with a formal dining room, but then weāve never had a house with more than 1800 sq ft. Currently we are at 1300. But itās okay, we always had enough space for a table big enough for the 5 of us daily and extendable into living space when we had company. And we are totally not formal people.
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We are still working on getting settled into our new townhome. The downstairs is open concept. We have six available seats for eating, and all are counter height. I went back and forth on that aspect as well as whether or not to do a table for four or six. Dh really liked this four-top, so thatās what we chose even though there is room for a longer table. It was inexpensive, and we are going to live with it for a year or two and see what we think. I kind of think a longer table would have been a better look for the space. I eat breakfast and lunch at the island, but we eat dinner at the table.
I have had large dining rooms and done formal entertaining in the past. I used to love doing it, but itās just not my jam anymore.
I wonder how much family size is a driver of dining room existence and/or oneās chosen size of table. We only have one ds. Heās single, but if he gets married and has two kids, I can seat everyone - lol
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If you needed or wanted to, you could move that counter height table next to the counterā¦and have seating for a bunch there! Not a bad option.
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But once young kids are out of high chairs, Iām not sure a counter height table will still workā¦
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Brilliant!
He doesnāt even have a girlfriend.
I guarantee you Iāll have a new table (of one kind or another) before I have grandkids.
Iāll definitely take that into consideration, though!!
As promised, our dining room with monitors, a remote, a cup, and a bag of something (plus other misc. items) on the table, a very cluttered buffet, and a dog toy under the table.
The dining room from the other side of the room, which also shows my crafting cabinet next to the fireplace, and a better view of one of the two bikes in the room. China cabinet is on the right with a floor mat in front of it that shouldnāt be there.
ETA: We live in 1350sf (you can see our laundry and the fridge of our kitchen as the swinging door to the kitchen is wide open), so not everybody here is in big houses.
I will say that growing up I lived in an upper middle class area, but some of my favorite high school memories were at a friendās house that was only about 1/4-1/3 of my parentās home and had an old Mopar minivan as the only vehicle, and paid careful attention to how much they purchased at Wal-Mart. The house, the car, the food wasnāt what made the place special: it was the people inside of it and their warmth, humor, and down-to-earth nature.
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Our dining room is open to the kitchen. We use our dining room table daily for dinner. It is also used for sewing, projects, laptops, paperwork and breakfast. Iāll call it a flex table. The space is about 14x16. House is about 25 years old.
Our furniture in there is over 120 years old- The table was a wedding gift for Hās grandfather (Iām sure itās hand made.) The chairs are on the small side. The rocking chair my dad refinished when I was born and the barrel chair is from his childhood.
It is my favorite room because this is where we are most likely to see wildlife.
Mountain lions, bobcats, deer, golden eagles and others. I think that the animals are not aware we can see them and they roam freely here.
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