Formal Dining Room or not?

[Panina]

Just put my house on the market this past week. My house has a huge separate dining room that we used from the start as a gym.

Most new homes have a room that is shown as a flex room that you can use as a formal dining room but is usually small.

I thought formal dining rooms were out but I have learned otherwise. Buyers just cannot visualize how big my gym is and it can be used as a formal dining room.

So I just put all my gym equipment in storage and created a formal dining room. My 8 seater table seems small in it. I must admit I didn’t realize how large the room is.

If you were purchasing a home would a formal dining room be important?

 

[SandyPGravel]

I would want a space for my antique dining table. My DH house when I met him was open concept, it had space for my table.

When we built our house we created a separate space for the dining table, but I don't consider it a formal dining room.

(I tried to take pix to show what we designed. The person who drew the CAD for our house suggested the wall in the third pic be eliminated or a half height wall. I insisted on full wall.)

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[sue1947]

I don't care about a formal dining room, but if selling, I would stage it with one. The old standard layout is better for selling and the limited furniture makes it look bigger. The folks who will use it differently, already can envision what they would do with it; gym or office or playroom etc.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

+1 @sue1947 Buyers often visualize themselves entertaining friends and family. It's part of staging your home.

 

[Talent312]

The trend seems to be to informal - open concept (no walls).
That's what we have... a great room that's about 30' x 45'.
It 4 distinct areas: kitchen, dining, living room & den-like space.
.

 

[Luvtoride]

Just put my house on the market this past week. My house has a huge separate dining room that we used from the start as a gym.

Most new homes have a room that is shown as a flex room that you can use as a formal dining room but is usually small.

I thought formal dining rooms were out but I have learned otherwise. Buyers just cannot visualize how big my gym is and it can be used as a formal dining room.

So I just put all my gym equipment in storage and created a formal dining room. My 8 seater table seems small in it. I must admit I didn’t realize how large the room is.

If you were purchasing a home would a formal dining room be important?

A formal dining room adjacent to a living room is very important to us. We just had our family and friends over for Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New year) dinner last night and although we had a “manageable” crowd of 17 adults and several kids this year we have had as many as 25 adults in the past. Being able to extend our dining area into the living room works well for us.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bucky]

Over the years we have found a formal living room to be a waste of space! Much less an added expense because you have to buy furniture to put in it. Our daughter just bought a new house and she’s using the formal living room as her office.

 

[Patri]

The house I bought three years ago had a small formal dining room. I knocked out the wall to the living room and made it one big space. The previous owners used an adjacent room with a fireplace as a den. I converted that into the dining room. No one has used the fireplace since it was built and we won't either. The space holds two tables, which I realized I needed if everyone is here. The house I sold had a formal dining room, but at family gatherings we had to split people between there and the kitchen. So your big dining room is a plus. People can do with it as they please.

 

[Big Matt]

I have a formal dining room, and have used it less than 10 times in 24 years. We also have a huge oak table in the kitchen area that we can use for entertainment. I'm all for a more casual/rustic look and would never buy/build a house with a formal dining room. Complete waste of space IMO. I would consider using mine as a game room (billiards, etc.)

 

[Sugarcubesea]

Just put my house on the market this past week. My house has a huge separate dining room that we used from the start as a gym.

Most new homes have a room that is shown as a flex room that you can use as a formal dining room but is usually small.

I thought formal dining rooms were out but I have learned otherwise. Buyers just cannot visualize how big my gym is and it can be used as a formal dining room.

So I just put all my gym equipment in storage and created a formal dining room. My 8 seater table seems small in it. I must admit I didn’t realize how large the room is.

If you were purchasing a home would a formal dining room be important?

We use our dining room for an in home office. I never wanted a dining room, so I’ve used mine for other purposes

 

[klpca]

We have a very 1980's layout with a big combo living room/dining room (which is decorated with a round table/4 chairs now and is mostly used for games), but for selling - I would make it look as buyers expect it to look. Once or twice a year we need more space than the eat-in area in the kitchen provides and if I thought that a house couldn't accommodate a holiday crowd, I would not consider the purchase.

When watching House Hunters I just crack up - everyone says "we can have our friends and family over", just like @CalGalTraveler said. And every woman announces to her husband that she will take the large closet and he will get the other one. The guys always need a man cave. When looking at something in the house, they always announce, "this has got to go!!"

 

[Dori]

Our dining room and living room run together, so we can extend seating into the living room if we need to, by turning the dining table (seats 10 with the leaves in), and adding a 6-foot folding table. I would not want to have a formal dining room that was a totally separate room.

Dori

 

[pittle]

We have a large Living Room Dining Room combination - there is a chandelier in the dining area and I have a large table under it. We use it when we have more than 2 people over for a meal. We do have a large great room/kitchen/breakfast area that we use for just the 2 of us and when we have another couple over. We have used our home for a lot of church events over the years and having 2 large spaces for break-out groups works well for us.

That said, I have seen numerous pictures of neighbors homes of our floor plan for sale and there is a pool table under the chandelier. Our son and DIL have a huge dining room, but chose to put a pool table there. Now that she has hosted Christmas dinner twice, she is thinking about a dining table as with our grandson in college, no one uses the pool table. Priorities change, so it is good to have options.

 

[Passepartout]

Hmmm. Good question, and might be a bone of contention when/if we leave this house. To me, a formal dining room is a little used waste of floor space. We have no nearby family, and are more likely to dine out with friends- who are all in the same 'empty nest' lifestyle as us. HOWEVER, my DW has her grandmother's ornate, antique table and 8 chairs, buffet, and whole passel of sterling, china and crystal to adorn it. I'm afraid to even breach the subject of getting rid of the stuff. Her ancestors live on in her mind through these posessions. So, along with her keeping her (now 40something) boys' cub scout uniforms and even high chairs, this is one of those fights best avoided.

Jim

 

[Icc5]

We love hosting family dinners and birthdays and our formal dining room works great. We have hosted 24 people in it. About 8 years ago we enclosed what was a patio into another large room we use for larger get togethers and my wife also uses for her hobbies.
Bart

 

[easyrider]

We didn't want a formal dinning room when we built this house. We went open concept that includes kitchen, dining area and living room. The living room has a 20 vaulted ceiling at it peak with three windows at the top of the vault. The thought was we would use these windows to vent the house. The reality is we are too lazy to open them.

Bill

 

[VacationForever]

Definitely yes for us. We host alot of dinners at our home, averaging one per month.


It also depends on the size of the home. We were in a 4600 sq foot 2-storey home with a purpose built indoor pool sunroom and the entire ground level was for entertainment. We had a large formal dining room, a large formal living room, a family room that connects to another space with our wine / wet bar sitting area and that continues into the large open kitchen with breakfast nook.

Our current home has a formal dining room but it is fairly open which extends into the family room.

We just love having a formal dining room setup.

 

[clifffaith]

We are now at the top of the waitlist at the Carlsbad CCRC we'll eventually be moving to -- we'll put the move off while we figure out the situation with my parents and sister. Top of the list means that our current dining room situation becomes a bone of contention at home. I have created a dining room environment in what other people would use as a family room. We have a "kitchen table" on the kitchen side of the room, and the big dining table in front of the fireplace. The old, much smaller, dining room became a library/sitting room area off the living room. Cliff insists we have to change the rooms back so people can "see" the house. For one thing I am hoping someone will want my 12 foot table, so want to show it fully extended, for another, once we say we want an offered apartment, the last thing I want to be doing is changing light fixtures and moving furniture to fit someone elses perhaps perception of where the dining room should be. As it is we have eclectic taste in color and decor, so all my time will be spent boxing up my Dia de Los Muertos stuff. We've already had the Smurf blue room painted. We will have 60 days to get our home sold and get ourselves moved when we accept an apartment.

 

[Luanne]

Since the house we have now does not have a formal dining room I said no. We have a great room, which is a combination livingroom, den and dining room. There is a light hanging where a dining room table should go, so that is where we put our table. We only use it at Thanksgiving or Christmas, or if we have more than 3 for dinner. We eat all of our meals at a small table in the kitchen.

 

[bnoble]

We have one, and use it. I enjoyed hosting the various holidays with extended family, and when our kids were both at home as growing teens, we used it as our primary eating space b/c it was much less crowded than the breakfast table. With them out of the house, it is back to just holidays, mostly.

Would it be a "must"? Probably not; we've owned a house without one. Would it be part of the decision process? Yes.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter if most people really want one or not if having one helps you sell the place.

 

[stmartinfan]

Interesting to hear that having a formal dining room is a plus. We have one plus a formal living room, but spend almost all our time in the large kitchen/eating area/family room that stretches across the back of our house with a view to a wetlands. We do use the dining room once or twice a year for holiday meals but could also fit the group in our less formal area. I'd been thinking the dining and living rooms were a negative. In fact we bought this house despite having them, not because they were there...we were coming from a home with an open main floor that we liked for its flexibility and didn't have the formal rooms.

 

[geist1223]

When watching House Hunters I just crack up - everyone says "we can have our friends and family over", just like @CalGalTraveler said. And every woman announces to her husband that she will take the large closet and he will get the other one. The guys always need a man cave. When looking at something in the house, they always announce, "this has got to go!!"

Remember most of House Hunters is scripted and the folks have already bought the House before the episode is filmed.

 

[geist1223]

Every house I have ever rented or owned since my first in 1978 has had a formal dining room. When we are by ourselves we normally eat in the breakfast room. But with guests or parties we use the dining room. I Remember When I moved to Salem in 1999 the Agent we were using asked for our minimums. We said 3 to 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, formal dining room, etc. He showed us several houses in a row that did not have a formal dining room. They mainly had small eating areas off the kitchen. I finally asked him did he know what a formal dining room was. Shortly after that we parted ways.

 

[clifffaith]

I would have loved to leave the tub out of the MBA when we remodeled before moving in here. We have never been bath people. Our first four homes the tubs were used for dog baths, the next home (a Victorian) I took one bath in the claw foot tub then had to have Cliff help me out so never again, have never been in our current tub. I felt that the house had to have a tub for resale, but I still resent having to have it.

 

[amycurl]

If none of you have read or seen stuff done by Susan Susanka, I would highly recommend it. Her Not-So-Big-House is really about designing houses for how we live now, not about how we lived in the early 1900s. https://susanka.com/not-so-big-house/