Thanksgiving dining room

The dining room. Is it a must-have? For some of my clients, yes. Others are happy as long as there is one place to eat, sitting down. Is doing without a dining room a space-cutting compromise you would make?

For millennials, china and silver are a thing of their grandparents. Are dining rooms also becoming a has-been?

When the subject of dining rooms comes up for house hunters we work with, I focus on how often the room will be used and how important those occasions are.

For some people, a few big family dinners a year are the occasions that make a house a home. It doesn’t matter if the table is a pseudo-desk and mail drop the rest of the year. The way around that for space-savers is to choose a place with a living room-dining room that is one big room. An expandable table can be put in one area and opened on the rare, but important, occasions.

For others, dinner in the dining room is a mark of civility that they will not do without on a regular basis. This demands a dining room that accommodates a dining table every day. If this buyer is really tight on space, a desk may live in that dining room, too. But the room is a dining room, first, and an office, second.

The other question that comes up about dining rooms is that some clients strongly object to dining rooms that are not close to the kitchen. They feel the same way about outdoor eating spaces that are far from the kitchen. Do you have the same pet peeve?

Happy Thanksgiving. How’s your dining room?