We are in the process of moving. Our current table is showing it’s age and doesn’t fit the ‘dining room’ space. (Ie that side of the living room/dining room space. I don’t intend to put a table into the kitchen area).
I’m looking for a dining table meant for real people to eat real meals at, many times a week. I keep falling in love with tables that are beautiful but would never stand up to that kind of use. Lol.
It got me thinking that dining tables might be decorative for many families.
We use our dining room table every night. Granted, we’re in a city townhouse so there’s really no other option, unless we all sat around the kitchen island. We have a vintage wood table that the kids have absolutely destroyed. Lol
The room in our house that is meant to be a dining room - we currently use as a playroom. Our kitchen is large enough that there’s space for a large table, so that’s where it is. When we had the table in the dining room, it was far enough from the kitchen (only like 10 feet) that we rarely used it.
We have had our very basic (but real wood) IKEA table for 13+ years and I’m glad I’m not worried about the kids hurting it. We eat there, do homework there, do art there, etc. We originally bought it secondhand too. We recently replaced the chairs because they had gotten really worn.
If I cook an actual meal, we eat at the kitchen table. If we’re just all finding something to eat, ordering pizza, or doing takeout, we still eat at the same time, but generally my H and I eat on the couch and the kids eat at the island.
I hate it. But it tends to be my H’s preference…and I don’t have the energy to fight it. I don’t dream of meals from scratch and a picture perfect family dinner, but I do love when we’re all around the table together.
We have a small round table from IKEA that is extendable to an oval shape with the leaf stored inside. Super functional for small spaces with the option to cram more people around it if you need to.
Like others, the kids have really beat it up, but it’s honestly still in pretty good shape 10 years in. Not the nicest looking anymore, but absolutely functional. I’d buy it again.
They don’t appear to have ours anymore, but this looks like an elevated version of it and now I’m tempted to buy a table.
We don’t have a dining room but like a dining nook? It is part of the kitchen/living room. It’s all open.
I got my table second hand but it’s from World Market. It’s held up really well to daily meals there. We eat all meals that are had at home. Kids aren’t allowed meals in their rooms, and I don’t like eating on the couch.
Our kitchen/dining room is basically one big room with a kitchen island that can fit four. That's where we always eat.
I specifically bought a house that could fit a dining room table, then ours didn't make it in the move and we never replaced it. But, when I have looked it is hard to find! Esp a few years ago it was all farmhouse style with lots of crevices on the top which I didn't want.
It's just the two (or 3 if MIL joins) of us and we eat together for dinner every night that we're both around. Our dining table is in the kitchen (we use it almost like an island and it also can be converted to a pool table). We have put a waterproof cover on top of it and covered that with a table cloth. That is protecting it.
Household of one. I don't have a dining table inside. My house is small (under 1000 sqft) and it's not a priority for me. I have a lovely dining space on my patio that I use for entertaining. Sometimes I eat out there, but usually I eat on the couch. I have a drop leaf side table that I can serve dinner on inside on the rare occasion I entertain and can't use the patio. I never use it for myself.
Post by wanderingback on Jul 3, 2024 5:45:08 GMT -5
I grew up in a family that we always ate at the kitchen table as a family. The dining room/table was only used for holidays/special events.
As an adult I’ve never had a dining room.
Before kids my partner and I would eat at the kitchen table together for most meals. Now after kid one of us will usually feed her dinner around 730 and then ourselves don’t eat until about 9:30, but it’s still usually both of us at the kitchen table.
I remember eating dinner together at the dining room table growing up. I aspire to all of us eating together at a table, but not necessarily at a “formal” table. We have a more casual round table off the kitchen that fits the bill for me. We do very occasionally eat there but with the kids still so young we often end up eating in various locations like the couch, standing or sitting at the counter, or sometimes the kids will sit at their little ikea tables that they also use for coloring, etc.
HH of 3: we all eat together every night at the dining table in the kitchen (unless we go out).
We also have a large table in the formal dining room (meh, I could take it or leave it, but H really wanted it when we moved into this house 9 years ago) that we almost never use.
ETA: We have an island too, with 3 seats, but the cooktop is on said island and as such, it feels cramped to set it with placemats, silverware, plates. People sit there to hang out when we entertain, but not really to eat. It's different at our other property; we eat breakfast & lunch at the island and dinner at the dining table that's actually in the sunroom. There's a small pub-style table in the kitchen, but the seating is tiny stools and it's more comfortable at the island or full dining table.
Oh, we have a dining room table. And it’s not for decoration. Living in the city and having room for an actual table was a milestone that I’m still proud of!
Sadly, our table is covered with things like computers, mail, homework, papers galore, and god knows what else. We eat at the equally covered coffee table…
Post by underwaterrhymes on Jul 3, 2024 6:09:22 GMT -5
We have a kitchen table at which between two to four nights a week we all eat together at the same time.
The rest the kids will eat first because they’re eating something different than H and I are. It’s used multiple times daily, though. We play board games on it too
Our kitchen and dining room is one big room, but we have a traditional dining room table. When we first moved in together, we agreed to make eating dinner together at the table every night a priority. We've stuck with it for almost 20 years. It is also electronics free. We use this time to catch up on our days, plan for tomorrow, etc. The way it looks has changed over the years (DS1 has moved out of the house), but it's the one constant we count on. DS1 still comes over once or twice a week because he misses family dinner time.
Family meals are a priority for DH and I. Obviously as my kid gets older it doesn’t happen every night, but more often than not.
We have one dining area in our house. I hated the split breakfast book and formal DR in our old house, so when we built I found plans with just one dining space.
We have a solid wood John Thomas table with 2 built in leafs and 8 chairs. We’ve had up to 10 people around the table.
It’s 8 years old and has one tiny nick DH fills in with a brown sharpie sometimes. It’s held up beautifully. So much my mom bought one for our beach house.
I feel so guilty that I haven’t been able to make this a priority. I am hoping maybe with the new school year that I can.
Anyway, my husband and I mostly eat at the table. My kids eat 3 things and claim they are starving all the time and mostly eat at the coffee table in front of the TV.
HH of 1: No island. I have a small 2 chair kitchen table that I eat breakfast at. I eat dinner on the couch/at the coffee table in the den. I also have a lovely dining room table whose main job is looking nice. I don't use it often. Ex-H and I bought it when we bought the house. We used it when we entertained.
We have a little table built in the kitchen. We eat 99% of our meals there. We also have a dining room table that most holds our mail and amazon packages lol.
Dinner is sometimes the only time we can connect as a family. We are pretty disciplined about eating dinner together.
We have a dining nook off the kitchen and that’s where we eat most of our meals. Somehow this table has held up well considering it was a rooms to go cheapie! We do prioritize family dinner although on school days DD may rush through if she has a ton of homework. Activities can make it hard, too, but we usually make it work.
We have a formal dining room as well and use that for holidays. The table is also used as a Lego station and used to be where DD painted. It’s in horrible shape but I just cover it with a tablecloth. Replacing it just isn’t a priority.
We eat at our kitchen table together pretty much every night. If a kid has an activity, that kid + parent might eat earlier or later, but still generally at the table. Dinner together is not something we're like really intentional about or anything, it's just the routine we've developed over the years.
The kitchen table is a solid wood table... nothing fancy, but does need to be refinished and is covered in Sharpie marks.
We have two chairs at our island but generally they have stuff on them so rarely eat there. We also have a formal dining room w/table that just collects crap. If budget wasn't an issue we would expand the kitchen to occupy that whole dining area and make better use of the space.
Our house lacks a good 'touch-down' spot for bags and mail and packages and school crap, which means it ends up in the kitchen and dining room.
Post by expectantsteelerfan on Jul 3, 2024 7:00:01 GMT -5
We eat at a table in the kitchen area, and have another table in the dining room that does get used decently often (whenever my kids have friends over, they all eat in the dining room and leave the adults in peace, and I'd say that happens at least 2x a month, and my dd eats her lunch in there often, and holidays).
I keep the dining room table covered with a vinyl table cloth that is easy to wipe down and keep clean, and I remove it for nicer occasions, and that has kept that table in great shape.
Up until recently, I also used to keep those table cloths on our kitchen table. But I also started looking for a new table about a year ago, and the store I got the table cloths from stopped having the color I always bought that matched our kitchen, so I decided to just stop using them. The table has definitely gotten more wear on it in the past year, and that has made me put my search for a new table on hold (along with the fact that dh and I don't agree on whether to get another high-top table or not).
We eat dinner as a family almost every night, but that often means just me and the kids depending on dh's schedule. If he's home and done working when we eat, he eats with us, but we often eat pretty early due to kid schedules, so he often eats a little later than we do.
Our dining room table is in the kitchen. It's old and beat up but it's a table.
We eat most dinners together but there were seasons where it less often due to sports.
We are late eaters, mostly due to sports tbh and pizza nights we just grab and scatter. And during football Sundays, we all sit on couch eating wings and apps watching the games. lol
I remember one time, DH wanted to buy TV trays and I said "no way" because I knew we'd end up forming a habit of eating in front of the TV (how I grew up).
I'm glad I said no because it only reinforced us to eat together at the table since options are limited.
We eat all of our meals at our dining room table. It's a nicer table that we bought pre-kids, but has held up well to almost 10 years of kid dining so far. Our kitchen island isn't comfortable for all 4 of us. Table is custom order from Gat Creek which is also sold at Room and Board under the Caperton brand name.
We have an open floor plan. Our table sits 6, is very beat up and right off the kitchen. Our island sits 4. We generally eat at the same time with some at the table and some at the island. The kids end up fighting so I move someone to the island. I rarely sit down and just stand at the island so I can get the kids stuff as they need it.
Our floorplan is semi-open. Half the downstairs is the kitchen, the other half is the living room, separated by the stairs to the upstairs in the middle, a short hallway between the kitchen/living room behind the stairs, and then a powder room behind that.
We have an 8 foot farmhouse table that my husband built. It has a bench on one side, and 3 chairs on the other but it'll fit a 4th if we need to. Now that SDs have moved out, it's just the three of us left and we only use about half the table but when the girls are here they bring boyfriends now and it's nice that we all fit. It's held up pretty well, my H built it in 2015 or 16 I think? The dog chewed the legs though so it would be great to replace the legs but he hasn't had time.