What's your dining room used for?

[Kronk]

Ours is our music room. Piano, two french horns, two trumpets, trombone, Eb tuba, Bb tuba, euphonium, synthesizer, guitar, and an antique clarinet.

Anyhow, I'm curious how many people have a traditional dining room and still use it as such.

 

[Darryl]

Dining

and homework for the kids.

 

[Nords]

What's your dining room used for?

Uhm, trick question, right? I think I saw this on HGTV's "Mission:Organization".

If we didn't set limits then every horizontal space in the house would be piled high with our kid's possessions. As it is we have to get her to clear her crap off the dining room table a couple times a week.

 

[flipstress]

Our house is so small that we don't have a dining room.

Our dining table is in the kitchen, and we use it for: dining; paying bills; writing notes and letters; piling books, magazines, and mail.

We shove all the non-dining stuff on one side of the table to make room for the dishes and silverware when it's time to eat.

At least we have a big dining table.

 

[W2R]

When I bought my house, the formal living room was set up as a dining room. I ended up buying most of the furniture with the house, since I needed furniture and the prior owner had been killed in a car crash.

So, my living room is still a dining room.

I spend NO time there at all, and I have been trying to sell the furniture (china cabinet, double buffet, dining table and six chairs) so that I can do something else with the room. No luck so far.

Guess there's no need to re-do that room if I'm moving out of state in two years. When I buy a house up north, if it has a formal dining room I will probably turn it into a home gym.

 

[73ss454]

Dining, about 4X a year.

 

[Gumby]

We have a separate formal dining room. Unless we are out to dinner, we eat there every night, never in the kitchen. We do nothing else in the dining room but eat.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Dining...every meal since thats the only place we have a regular table and chairs. We have a breakfast nook, but it was occupied by a treadmill that I regularly dusted before whisking it off to the garage in a simple surrender a couple of days ago.

In our last house, the dining room was Gabes play room. We had all his toys, a little plastic playhouse, and a 32" flat screen lcd tv with 24x7 Barney running on it.

My old mcmansion had a dining room big enough to bowl in. In fact, when I first moved in a couple of my friends suggested a bowling alley. I think I used it six or seven times the 7 years I lived there. But then again I had a bedroom that I think I only opened the door to two or three times.

 

[Sue J]

We have a nice breakfast room, so we rarely eat in the dining room. I have a petite china cabinet and a dining room table that has those drop down sides, so we keep it small and up against a wall and out of the way. Unfortunately, it tends to collect mail, coupons, laundry baskets and cats.

Since we so seldom open up the table and dine in there, the dining room has become a place for other things, like the carpeted cat climbing thing in front of the window, our coat rack and the small stand where I keep my purse and the bowl for keys. Also, I needed a place for the shredder. I bring the mail in, sort things into "keep, toss, or shred" and get rid of it right then and there.

When a holiday comes around and I need to open the table I have to move all these extra things out. Our dining room is small, only 10x10 and opening up the table and adding the leaves puts the room at it's limits.

 

[Peaceful_Warrior]

What's a dining room?

Or more loosely translated to: We eat in recliners at the coffee table or standing up with our son riding on my back in the Ergo carrier so what good is a dining room?

 

[bssc]

We actually have a table with chairs. We eat there 3-4 times a week. The cats love the chairs and sleep there almost every day.

 

[F-One]

Our dining room is used as an office, physical therapy, and ironing room (all for DW, she recently discovered that ironing is very relaxing to her - no joke) - it does have table and chairs for dining .

 

[ladelfina]

Another vote for ironing. Also, clothes-drying rack zone in winter/rainy weather (we don't have a clothes dryer). Table surface collects books magazines and mail. Used for dining maybe 8-10x/year.

 

[Ronstar]

Thanksgiving dinner only

 

[Sandy]

A natural history museum.

We bought (used) a hutch with glass front doors to house the kids' finds. The museum includes: skeletons (fox skull, deer skull and spinal column, piranha skull, bird skeletons and needle fish jaw). There are also bird nests, snake skins, large shells - fresh and salt water, fossils in limestone, horseshoe crab bodies, feathers, dried insects and various insect nests and cocoons. Most things are labeled as to what they are, where they were found, etc. The hutch is really not large enough to properly display all of it, but it is enough.

The functional name is "the drawing room". Not in the victorian sense, but in the kid's paint, markers, and crafts sense.

There is also an old table and four chairs and assorted items inherited from inlaws that we don't know what to do with and I hope we can get rid of soon (a guitar, organ, and 3 small tables - No one has any musical inclination).

The only ones who eat there are the cats.

Definately the most dysfunctional room in the house.

 

[Outtahere]

Our house is very small, we never used the dining room and it ended up being the clutter catch room. Removed the wall and made the living room larger then bought a table that folds down on both sides for the few times we need a table, we've only used it twice in 5 years.

 

[Moemg]

Mine is more like a dining area than room since my house is very open .We eat there all the time . Thanksgiving and Christmas I bring out the leaves and the kiddie table .

 

[simple girl]

We use ours as a workout room. We have weights and a stairmaster in there.

With being on the road for a work assignment, we opted to take our workout equipment with us vs. the dining table. There isn't much extra space in a 2 BDR apartment. Couches and coffee table suffice for eating right now!

 

[ijuba]

Wife's scrapbooking palace.....

 

[travelover]

Wife's overflow office.

 

[ziggy29]

When we had one in our last house, we only used it 5-6 times a year. It was adjacent to a formal living room which we also rarely used. When we entertained, we used those two rooms. Also if we had friends over for dinner, we'd use the dining room. And occasionally if we were making a special dinner for ourselves for a special occasion, we'd use it. All in all, maybe a half-dozen times a year on average.

Now all we have is a small two-seater table in the kitchen area...which we also rarely use since we rarely have dinner at the table. Sometimes I miss not having the extra space. But then I think about how rarely we used it, compared to the extra housing cost (including utilities and property taxes) for the extra square footage, and I'm happy with the decision.

 

[TexasGal]

I have an open floor plan with kitchen big enough to have small table, living room, and dining area. In the dining area I have a large table/6 chairs, big china cabinet, small 3-drawer buffet, AND my computer/printer.

I use the dining room as an office even though it is furnished for dining because I don't want to be spending a lot of time sitting in one of the smaller bedrooms.

 

[happy2bretired]

My dining area is all open with the kitchen and living room. My computer hutch hugs the dining room wall with my dining table behind me in the center of the room. Before my husband died we used the dining area every night for dinner but now the table tends to be a catch-all holding place for just about everything. It's a brand new Ethan Allen table....I gotta do something about that.

 

[kcowan]

1) Some projects that require more space on a surface not cluttered with computer and printer. Spreading out large maps when planning the next exotic trip. Doing presents and Christmas cards.
2) Meeting with professionals, e.g. investment advisor.
3) Cats like to stretch out on it in the afternoon sun.
4) Entertaining guests 6x a year.

 

[Khan]

Small, old house; main floor is a (too small to eat in) kitchen and an L-shaped family/living/TV/dining room.

Dining table is piled up with stuff; I eat on the pull-out shelf on the large desk that holds computer stuff.