Demise of the dining room

We always sat at the table with our children when they were growing up, and they in turn always use their dining tables. Now we eat in the dining room when the family come around for a meal, or if it’s a casual meal, we eat at the kitchen table. When it’s just the two of us we use trays and sit in the living room.

We have an open plan kitchen/ diner/ sitting area. We always sit at the table for our evening meal and I give stern looks if anyone has their phone anywhere near. We generally have our breakfast and lunch on our knees watching tele.

When the children were at home we nearly always ate at the table. I still have a separate dining room but nowadays I tend to eat off a tray in front of the TV. While we have had this lovely weather I have eaten out in the garden most evenings.

I have a habit of dumping stuff on my table, it needs clearing as I’ve had GC for a couple of days, there’s all kinds of clutter on there, another job to sort when it cools down, the list is growing!!

All three of my children & their families tend to eat at the table.

I haven't had a dining room for years, and my back hates hard or upright chairs, so it's a tray on the lap for me every time.

We had a massive dining room in the house we’ve just sold. It’s been used as an office/sewing room/library/junk room as well over the years. A number of people who viewed the house had plans to turn it into a music room, a cinema room or a model railway room!

We only used it for high days and holidays as we had a roomy kitchen & family room. Our new house will have a kitchen/dining/family room with French doors to the garden and we’re really looking forward to using that.

My DC with families all eat at the table, none of them is allowed to eat in front of the TV.

My bungalow originally had a separate dining room, a smallish room off the lounge and not near the kitchen. A previous owner built a garden room extension across the back of the lounge, it’s rather narrow but I managed to buy a suitable dining table from John Lewis so I use it as my dining room now. The original dining room is now my wonderful craft room.

I have room in the kitchen for a table and two chairs so I eat in there for all my meals, no tv but I read a book while eating - I live on my own! I use the dining room whenever I have visitors and often sit in there in a reclining leather armchair to look at the garden.

I cannot eat from a tray on my lap, I’d make an awful mess!

We generally only use the dining room for 'special' meals (birthdays, Christmas or other celebration) or when someone else is here. When we use it the table is set with glasses, linen, candles or sometimes flowers - just for the fun of it. Other times we use the table in the kitchen where we can clear up quickly.

I'm in my 6th house - in half of them I've had a loved and now much missed dining kitchen. There's nothing better than to sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a meal with the radio playing, and not far to walk to the sink. Only one of my past houses was big enough for a decent separate dining room.

Nowadays I've a table in the corner of the sitting room where I eat which has its advantages.

From childhood I always ate at a table in the dining room. We did the same with my own children.
When I was eventually on my own I hated eating alone at the table so I do eat in front of the TV now.

We inherited a beautiful oak table which extends to sit 12 and dining chairs which I had reupholstered but we never use them. We have a dining hall in the centre of the house but we always eat in the kitchen or the conservatory even when we have people over for a meal. If it's warm we eat outside. I just can't persuade myself to accept that I'll never use them. I'm told that "brown" furniture is coming back into fashion so perhaps dining rooms will too.

I love your rug, Sago! Our dining table is currently piled with childrens’ games, jigsaws, pictures etc. We are eating outside now as the sun has gone round the front by evening. I love these late alfresco meals.

Much the same as us Farzanah, except that the housekeeper eats in the kitchen with all the other servants. As it should be, of course!

I intensely dislike kitchen/diners! I don't want to sit down to eat in the room where the meal was cooked.
We have, and use, a separate dining room, with most of our meals being eaten in there, even though it's usually just the two of us.
There are two armchairs in there too, and my late DF's desk is in the corner, alongside a very lovely Walnut Chiffonier, which was one of our first 'good' antiques.
The dining table is a circular tilt top, but it's never tilted. It's also Walnut, and beautiful, so is only covered with a cloth at mealtimes.
We eat outside when the weather's suitable, yesterday evening was glorious, the patio nearest to the house had been in shade for a couple of hours and was wonderfully cool, we sat out there for ages enjoying the coolness.
We're having an Orangery built in a couple of months, just waiting on the builders, so we'll probably eat in there a lot in future.

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We have a formal dining room?and a much more relaxed dining kitchen.
We rarely use the dining room and since the good weather the kitchen table has been a dumping ground as we eat outside on the deck.

Our housekeeper eats in the kitchen. We eat breakfast in the morning room, the dining room for lunch, and the dining hall for dinner with visitors.?

We have a dining room which we eat all our meals at, except this time of year when we have our evening meal in the conservatory.

Actually, not at the moment as it’s too hot in there! We have an air conditioner but don’t feel justified in using it, waste of electricity.

Never fancy eating off a tray, but we like our evening meal early, then go into the sitting room to watch the news.

I have and use a dining room, I also have a table in the conservatory and which one I use depends on how I feel. I have french doors between the kitchen and conservatory and also the lounge and conservatory which are usually all open.

I’ve never lived in a house with a separate dining room since I left home, always a kitchen/diner. We use that area if we have visitors or family in the winter, the summer, if clement, we’re outside.
MrJ and I have lap trays or outside.

My dining room hasn’t been used since Christmas ‘20, when 3 households could get together. Since then DH has died, so if I have family, plus little ones now, we eat at the kitchen table, mainly because the floor is tiled.

We always used the dining table for meals and I still do, even though there’s only me now except when the family come round. I can’t eat off a tray, though DH was quite happy to if there was some sports thing he couldn’t tear himself away from.

We nearly always eat at the table in large kitchen/diner, whether or not we have company. I can't eat comfortably with plate or tray on lap - always drop something down my front!

I think it's a lovely idea for families to sit round the table, eating together and talking to each other.

But I think one of the reasons many don't, is because they just don't have the time. If both parents are working, there's a hundred-and-one things a mother / father have to do when they get home in the evening. Feeding the family is just one more job on the list...

We have a large kitchen and DH and I sit at the table there to eat. At one end of our living room we have a table which extends to seat twelve. Usually we have our computers each end of this, but Christmas or when we have lots of visitors we eat there. Much easier in the kitchen though

We have a dining room, but it doubles as a second sitting room, a ‘study’ and even a library (ie there are several bookcases in there), so it works hard. Mr Dog is winning his battle to get a TV in there too.

When we are eating separately, which we usually do for lunch, we eat off laps/trays, but we usually sit at the table for dinner and when we have people over. The kitchen table usually has too much mess on it to use regularly, and anyway I don’t like eating on top of dishes, and I would never tidy up before sitting down to eat.

I like having a separate room (as opposed to open plan), but we have never used it exclusively to eat in. If/when we do get a TV in there, I will try to insist that it doesn’t go on when we are eating though.

We still use our dining room every day, especially for our evening meal.

We had every meal in there when the children were young, so they learned that food isn’t eaten on our laps in front of the tv!