<p>Our house has a very large kitchen that opens up to our family room. We spend the majority of our time in these two rooms. In fact we very rarely even use our living room or dining room. When we entertain, everyone congregates in the family room and kitchen. Are living rooms and dining rooms becoming obsolete?</p>
<p>This house has a great room. We do eat in the dining room portion of it. Since we haven’t chosen to get a new sofa that leaves a lot of space in the living room area, which is actually just fine for us. My husband has his desk there, and I use the open space for working out.</p>
<p>We say that we have a dining room where no one dines and a living room where no one lives. A few years ago, we had a built-in computer cabinet built in a corner of the dining room. We then had a hole cut between the family room and family room, so the living room does get used during parties and to cut through to answer the front door.</p>
<p>We have a living room where the piano lives. Unfortunately, since the D’s left home nobody plays it. On cold winter afternoons it’s the best place to read. It is seldom cold here and I work so only can read on winter afternoons on the weekend.
We have a dining room where we eat 5 meals per year.<br>
I would be happy to do without the living room but wouldn’t want to give up the formal dining room.</p>
<p>I use my formal dining room to do homework and as a work office. I put the papers into plastic bins and clear out the table for holiday feasts, but that only happens a few times a year. We do have a home office, but it is used as our exercise room.</p>
<p>My son, the one with the wicked sense of humor, threatened me. He threatened to go into the formal living room and SIT ON THE SOFA!!! And he was wearing JEANS! </p>
<p>When entertaining I admit to serving white wine only…nothing with red sauces…and no chocolate. If we are having a sit down I will serve saues, chocolate and red wine. But only in the dining room. We have two pianos in the room, one a concert grand. When my daughters played piano they were in there a lot.</p>
<p>yes, and we use both of them.</p>
<p>We have a living room and a formal dining room. However about a year ago I gave away the formal dining room furniture and made it into a second living room except it doesn’t have a TV.
Before it was hardly used. Now I use it all the time. It’s nice to get away from the noise of the TV when I’m reading or on the laptop.:)</p>
<p>I use the dining room as an office area and my younger D does her homework there.</p>
<p>Our living room has a computer that the girls use, though older D now has a laptop. I also read there sometimes.</p>
<p>We put french doors on the entrance to our dining room and use it as the library. I have small couches, an ottoman and end tables in there and it gets used quite frequently - it is just quieter than the open family room/large dine in country kitchen where everyone watches tv. </p>
<p>Our living room was the music room. With both girls gone, the piano and music stands (clarinetist) stand mute. It is right off the entry hall, so we use it to greet guests for parties and family get togethers (we even put a coat rack in there for winter events).</p>
<p>I love our living room. It’s the only room in our house without any clutter…ever. We often read in there, or just sit and talk. Our piano is there too, but it gets used.</p>
<p>Our dining room is like my office. I like the bright windows and the space on the dining room table. I also clear it off for holidays and special dinners.</p>
<p>We also have a family room open to the kitchen. And yes, it is the main gathering place.</p>
<p>We have a piano in the living room. Son and I both play it. I use the dining room often enough. The cream colored cushions of my dining room set were ruined years ago. I feel no stress about having anyone sit on them anymore!</p>
<p>My house has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large room that is a kitchen/dining room/living room. They all get used because it’s all one room haha. Definitely forces people to interact as we rarely go in our rooms :). I liked the set-up growing up.</p>
<p>We recently sold our home of 23 years. It had formal living and dining rooms that we never used. DH would sometimes read in the living room. The dining room held my grandmother’s dining room suite. Other than that it was wasted space.<br>
We’ve built a new house with one big kitchen/dining/family room. We like it so much better. No wasted space.</p>
<p>Don’t have a family room and don’t have an eat-in kitchen. Our “living room” is a dining room and we spend all of our time sitting around the table if we are not in our bedrooms.</p>
<p>Don’t use the living room much. The dog uses it the most as she sits on the blanket on the couch to look out the window when people are gone!</p>
<p>I have always longed for a formal dining room. We eat at our dining table every night but the room is technically part of the living room</p>
<p>We don’t have a family room or eat in kitchen either. We dine in the dining room, we live in our living room, we sleep in our bedrooms. Our old house had a small table in the kitchen. We ate breakfast and maybe lunch there, but we always had dinner in the dining room. Even when I grew up with a separate TV room, we still spent a lot of time in the living room. It’s always seemed like such a waste to have these giant houses with spaces no one ever uses.</p>
<p>Growing up the dining room and living room were strictly off limits except for holidays. I always joked that those rooms were the museum and should be cordoned off. In my house we eat in the dining room every night (although we breakfast and lunch in the kitchen and use the living room frequently (although the family room is our main living space.)</p>
<p>We use the living room at Christmas time and the dining room approximately four times per year. We have a decent sized kitchen with a large eat-in area and a sunroom that is a continuation of that. The room that gets the most use at our house is the bonus room. DH and I hope to sell this house in a couple of years and downsize to something about half the size. My ideal home would be a single-level home with two bedrooms, two baths, two car garage, eat-in kitchen, and a nice sized family room.</p>
<p>Our jumbo living room was big enough to swallow our dining room set, so there it all went. Lighting the dining table electrically was difficult because there’s a high vaulted ceiling right there. We bouht a floor-sitting Eames arcing lamp, which shines in my eyes only, like an FBI interrogation. </p>
<p>Instead, we use the dining room as a home library/study for my husband and me. When our D moved back home, we added a third desk in there. Most nights we’re all in there, tapping away. It’s very well lit, with that chandelier overhead.</p>