7.30.2013

Formal Dining Room: Yay or Nay?

I'm looking for some advice/thoughts from you all!

We are in the process of starting to get quotes to renovate our kitchen and we're thinking about taking down the wall between the dining room and kitchen to form a more open floor plan and expand our kitchen.  Our thoughts are that we would extend the kitchen into the dining room a little but then put a big farmhouse like table in the dining room area also so we would still have a place to seat a lot of people but it would be more informal.   We are also planning to get rid of our eat in kitchen area and get an island with bar stools on it.  We will also have hardwood floors going through out the whole first floor so ignore the carpet. 

My questions is do you have a formal dining room?  Do you think they're necessary?  I don't see us using a formal dining room very often and since we don't have a lot of space we what to make sure we utilize what space we have to best of our abilities.   Our house is a very traditional center hall colonial so we want to try to bring it up the times as best we can but at the same time we don't want to regret not having a formal dining room space. 

I've included some pictures of our house below. 

This is our kitchen and eat in kitchen area- this whole area will be reconfigured.

That little doorway to the navy blue wall is our dining room and we would rip down the wall where the microswave is... we're not sure if it will be the whole wall or a half wall yet

Here is our dining room... just keeping it real this is where half the baby stuff lives 

We would get a new farm house table and possibly open up more into the living room so that we can have a large table.  



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11 comments

  1. If you don't feel that your family will use a formal dining room, I say go for the farmhouse table, open up kitchen plan. I have always thought that my parents' formal dining room was such a waste of a room since it gets used exactly 3 times per year.

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  2. I vote for the farmhouse table. :) We don't have a formal dining room and we are ok with it. If you don't think you'll use one then I say definitely go with the farmhouse table.

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  3. Yes yes yes go for it! You will love it and it will be great for resale!

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  4. we have a formal dining room, but we never use it...even when we have guests. so i say go for it! although, i'd keep it to a half wall tear down, so you still have a division, instead of just one enormous room on the first floor.

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  5. We have a formal dining room in the new house plus an eat in kitchen area but if I could, I'd probably do exactly what you're contemplating and expand the kitchen and have one dining area. So long as the dining space is large enough to accomodate big family dinners, I'm personally fine with one dining area. I prefer casual vs. formal when it comes to decorating anyhow so I love the idea. A big farmhouse table sounds awesome - as does a big kitchen!

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  6. I prefer open floor plans, we have "formal" dining room which we only use because we don't have an eat-in kitchen however it does open to the living room and has a pass thru to the kitchen so it's still pretty open. I like your idea.

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  7. YES YES YES!! Do it!

    I will be in the same boat soon. All of the houses we are looking at purchasing next have a formal dining room. I do NOT want one! Waste of space for us!

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  8. My parents just moved to a new house and did away with a formal dining room. We never really used the one we had growing up and I love the open floor plan. I say do without the formal space!

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  9. We had a formal dining room when I was a kid and I can only ever remember us using it at holidays.

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  10. The dining hall interior design images given in this blog was excellent. The cupboards and the lighting effect makes room more luxurious.
    with regards
    Residential Interior Designers in Chennai 

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