If you have a formal dining room, how many chairs?

[mollybrown]

I'm trying to decide how many extra chairs to buy to go along with the formal dining room table.  Feel free to add how often you use all of them, or if you wish you had more or fewer.

[mollybrown]

Ideally, I'd like to have 12. Just thinking about H, myself, our children, and his parents and siblings, it seems like we would need that many for holiday meals. I've never had more than 8 chairs, so I have no idea if that's overkill. The max we can likely fit comfortably in our dining room is 10 anyway.

[magdala]

Even with an open plan, our dining room is small. The table and 6 chairs fill the room with sufficient room to move around. When we squeeze in eight, it feels crowded. Because the family has gotten so large, we usually have buffets for events here.

[cajungal]

We don't have a formal dining room table right now, but I plan on getting 10-12 chairs for it when we do.

[Susie]

My dining chair collection is totally ragtag. 

I have 4 of these:


3 of these:


Usually I have 6 chairs around the dining room table:  the four figure 8 chairs plus two of the black ones.  The 3rd black one I either put at the head of the table or in a corner of the DR.

I also have 2 small maple chairs, a piano bench that I can pull out when needed, 2 maple seats that tuck under a sofa table, and a few metal folding chairs for big groups.  So a total of seating for 12-13 on furniture (16-17 w/ folding chairs), but only 6-7 out around the table on a regular basis.

[sierramist03]

We have 6 chairs and that makes our table start to feel crowded I don't think we could fit more

[Marmee]

6 right now. I'd like a new set with 8. I don't think a bigger table would fit in my DR. If I had a huge DR, I'd get 12 but my 113yr old house definitely has a finite space (not an open layout).

[my4girls]

we have 6, that is all that can fit comfortably in our DR. Our table has two leaves so we could have 10 if we had the room

[AmyRI]

We own 8. With our small family (that lives locally, at least) we've never had a need for more. Our table has a big leaf in it that is only used when we have company, so we normally have 5 or 6 at the table and the other 2 or 3 against the wall in the dining room. They bug me when not in use, but we don't have anywhere else to put them and I'm glad we have them for when we do have company.

[adhdfashion]

I have six chairs because that is what my table fits. I would like bigger set.

[michelelouise]

We currently have 4 (and chair with arms that matches but is broken). We keep 2 wooden folding chairs for guests and our desk chair is actually a dining room type of chair. But we live far from family and have no kids so we rarely need more than 6 or 7 chairs at a time. I will probably get 6 that match when we get a new set and then fill in with the others when needed. 12 seems like a LOT of matching chairs!

[mollybrown]

Thanks everyone! I'm really surprised by the results. I figured 8 would be the average. We have 8 chairs for our informal dining table, so maybe we're just chair hoarders

12 does seem like a lot, until we start thinking about the times we'd actually use the table. We have 2 children and plan for one more, and we have 3 immediate family members that are local and regularly at our home for holidays. That's already 8 chairs. Add in BIL, SIL, and niece from out of town, and that's 11. If H's other sibling gets married and has children, 12 chairs seems like nothing, before even taking other people that visit like grandparents and aunts and uncles into consideration. We'll probably go with 10 chairs and do a children's table the few times a year we have more than 10 people.

[Deleted]

We have 8 total. 6 came with our DR set and my parents bought us two more as a housewarming present. We could easily fit 12 at our table if the leaf is in. When it is in, it is something like 110" long. I need 144" long tablecloths.

[RoxMonster]

The table I fell in love with came with 4 (well four chairs and then a bench that seats two). It's just H and me and many times we don't even eat at the table. I would say we have used all 6 chairs once or twice since moving in last year. But I do like having the extra seats and I needed a bigger table to fill our dining room.

[boiler717]

The set we brought over from the old house has 8. When I bought it, the intention was to use it as a game table in the basement here. We plan on getting a new dining set in the next couple of years that will seat 10-12 (low priority right now).

I don't think it's backwards, SBP, especially for small homes. Our bungalow didn't have an EIK (well, we added a rolling island that had two barstools but not really). All we had was a formal dining room. I would prefer a bigger formal dining room with room for entertaining over an EIK in a smaller home.

[Deleted]

We have 8 now but I'm with you, when we buy our new set we'll have to get 12 and keep the extras downstairs or something. With the family expanding (our kids and DH's brothers marrying) we don't have enough chairs for everyone.

[Deleted]

We have 6. When we have more people than that we have 6 very nice padded seat, wooden folding chairs.

[WOT?*]

We have six at the table but technically, because in our old house we had two dining tables with matching chairs we have eight total chairs and at holidays we use all of them, plus a few others we have lying around. We don't have room (or inclination or need) for a bigger table than the one we have (that technically can seat 12 if fully extended but we never go there. We stop at 10 and it's crowded enough.)

[FoxInFiji]

We have 5 chairs because we got a good deal on an antique mahogany set that matches our dining table but it was missing one of the arm chairs. We don't have a formal dining room but instead have a big everyday dining room. It works well for the holidays we host every year. We add the leaves into the table and put a card table on the end. Extra chairs are folding chairs. We host 10-18 people at a time. For 2-3 times a year it's just not worth it to us to deal with a whole bunch of chairs we never use and can't fold up to store in the basement/garage. I guess is you have a bunch of extra space go for it. There are some nice wooden folding chairs you can get if you do want to go that route.

I've never actually been to a family gathering where everyone sat in non-folding chairs so it's not a big deal to me. DH's family is +50 people and mine is smaller at only 12-14 but no one on my side has a formal dining room so there is always a card table or two out.