Dining rooms

kitchen table will fit 4/5 at a push,have table from macro which will seat 6/8 ,folds up and sits tucked away in shed,garden has lots of seating and eating areas,including summer house...would LOVE open plan kitchen,eating living area all cosy with AGA and chintzy covers and kids paintings and a dopey Labrador in basket ( well have dopey Labrador) and sunny curtains,comfy sofas ....do read a lot of chick Lit but I SO WANT ONE...

I have a through room that is a sitting room/dining room. Most days the dining table is my sewing table and the sideboard is my cutting table and that works for me.

The table looks like a standard dining table but it is amazing. When I bought this cottage I knew I had to be clever with the furniture and when I saw the table I watched the shop to see if it went into the sale - I could never have afforded it at full price. It is a remarkable piece of German engineering and beautiful with it. It drops down to make a coffee table or lifts up to dining height when it will sit six. It then opens out up to seat eight.

I watched and watched, waiting for the sales. A kind assistant let me know that it would be reduced in a weeks time and I charged back on the due date ... no table! It had been shipped back to the warehouse. The salesman rang them up and I could have it but would have to pay a delivery charge. It was half price by this time so well worth the delivery. My daughter has said that if I ever think of getting rid of it she wants it

My dining room is very much the heart of my home. At the moment there are seven adults living in the house, with another arriving at the end of the month and my husband's parents also moving in during the first week in July (temporarily during a house move/remodelling of new home). In the day time there's always someone snacking or reading a newspaper at the table (often both), sometimes there'll be someone on a laptop or using the printer that's kept in the dining room. Then at dinner time the table is in use for hours as people chat and linger - often until almost bedtime.

In my class at school many years ago I asked the children (aged 9-10) how many of them ate a daily meal with their parents and only 3 of 33 children said they did - and one of those who did was my son.

Our dining room is only used when the family visit. DH and I eat in the kitchen which suits us.
I am very pleased that DS and DIL insist on GC eating at the table with the family, so often now you hear of children eating their meals in front of TV.

We extended our kitchen with it's small dining area when we decided to stay put. We had lots of discussion about whether to take the wall between the back sitting room and kitchen/dining area down and eventually decided not to. Good decision to keep two separate rooms, one has the radio, the other the tv. I love having a bigger space and agree with mcem, newer places seem to squeeze open planning living into a very small space

We usually eat in the conservatory (summer) or kitchen (winter), though we do have a dining room and when entertaining we can seat 10. The table is a 1960s G Plan which I bought at auction for £7 and it came with four G Plan chairs. The table to is a bit scratched but it is always covered so no problem. The dining room currently is used for ironing and various craft activities.

When we moved I specified that the house must have a separate dining room. Trouble is, modern houses, when they have dining rooms, they tend to be long and narrow, so we struggled to find one that would accommodate our oval dining table with both extenders in it. We do eat in there most days. We had a dining kitchen in the last house and I hated it. I would love to be able to eat in the conservatory in the summer but it is always too hot even when fully ventilated. In the winter, it is freezing!