Post by lavenderblue on Jul 3, 2024 7:44:51 GMT -5
I have an eat in kitchen and my table can expand to seat up to 6ppl. It's actually my grandparents table and is probably 50 years old. I looked at replacing it a while back but couldn't find anything that I felt would hold up as well and not cost a million dollars. That said, my dining room table is really only used for holidays.
My table is in the middle of my kitchen, we eat at it most meals. I don't have any additional dining room. DD usually eats before me, so I chat with her while I cook my dinner. She is usually done by the time I am ready to eat, so sometimes I sit in the living room rather than the table, depends on if she wants to keep chatting.
I have a 50 year old Ethan Allen dining table, the chairs are kind of a mess after years of moves, high chair attachments and general kid toughness, but the table itself is pretty decent. I plan to refinish the set once DD is older. My parents used it as their fancy dining table, so it didn't get much use during the first half of its life, but it's been my main table for about 12 years.
Our dining room table is in constant use, but not always for meals. Our little kitchen table in our kitchen is for casual meals. Our dining room is for larger gatherings, plus every day things like homework, art projects (see still life practice happening now!) board games, etc.
HH of 5. We have two dining tables, a stainless steel topped one in the kitchen (which is anwesome because it’s indestructible) and an antique (1920s) formal one in the dining room. We eat most meals at the table and try to avoid letting the kids bring food out of the kitchen in general because they’re slobs. Breakfast and lunch are rarely eaten together because we eat different things at different times, but dinner is together most nights and has been since H and I fist moved in together. Whoever is here at dinner time sits at the table and eats. My oldest has a lot of evenings they’re out for music things (gigs, rehearsals, etc) and they eat before or after and usually someone will sit with them for it.
We also use our formal dining room a lot. Our kitchen table just fits the 5 of us, so once there’s a single guest for dinner we move to the dining room. My ILs come weekly for dinner, plus random times friends will be over, so that room is used weekly at the very least.
We use our table for all sorts of things. We generally only all eat there together for more formal occasions or when something is particularly messy.
We often eat in the living room. It's also tight to eat with our leaf in the table. So if anyone else joins us for dinner- some people migrate to the bar counter or the sofa.
We converted our dining room into a library, since there’s plenty of room for a table in the kitchen.
We have one of those 50’s laminate and chrome tables that I got at a thrift store. It’s pretty informal but you can dress it up with a table cloth if the situation calls for it. 99% of the time, though, it was a workhorse that I never had to worry about. Our kids did a thousand craft projects on it in addition to our family dinners.
When the children were home, we ate dinner at the table every night; we don’t exactly have an entire dining room, but it’s in a space adjacent to the living area.
Rules were more lax than when I was growing up, though: the kids could leave the table when they were finished.
Now that it’s just H and I, we eat at tv trays and watch something silly on tv.
We have two stools at a counter in the kitchen and that’s where H and I eat if it’s just us. Dinner is always at the table with our kids, we bought an inexpensive table from Ashley a few years ago that’s holding up ok. I like that it has drawers as we also play a lot of games at the table and keep some smaller well loved games in there for easy access (Uno, Skyjo, etc.)
We have a kitchen table for 4 that we eat at. Even if one of us is eating alone we still eat at the table. We also have an island that seats 3 in the kitchen and a table in the dining room that seats 6. We use that when we have more people than will fit at the kitchen table or when my parents or in-laws visit.
This is something we absolutely prioritize and did even before we had kids. Because we moved several times before kids, we have gone through a few different tables to work in our spaces. We got a pretty fancy table before we had our daughter, and it just wasn’t big enough because my MIL joins us for dinner every night. It worked fine for 4 people but not for 5. So I got a crappy but solid wood table from Amazon that fits really well in our space and added a small upholstered bench on the backside for my kids and then it easily fits 3 more chairs around it so our family of 5 fits. The poor table has already been gouged because apparently our cats cannot resist running at full speed, landing on a placemat, and “surfing” the length of the table. If they partly miss the placemat or decide they want to stop… well, claws and tables are not friends.
Cats are assholes. In case anyone was unclear on that.
We're a family of two and MH works late most weeknights. If we're both at home for dinner, we both eat in the living room. I have coffee at our dining room table each morning and then we use it for dinner parties.
We have an open floor plan, so we only have one dining table. We always eat breakfast and lunch at the kitchen island (barstools), and dinner at our dining room table.
We’ve been able to prioritize family dinners together and usually make it happen 6 nights a week (usually at least one night, we will feed the kids early and my H and I will stay up late and do a takeout night together). My H works from home full time, and I work from home 2-3 days a week, so it’s not difficult for us to get dinner ready to eat with the kids, given the overall lack of commuting our household has to do.
ETA: our dining room table is from Crate and Barrel and is 14 years old. It is by no means in perfect condition, but it’s held up extremely well, even to kid abuse. We don’t use it for anything but eating though, and I’m pretty militant about not letting the kids use it for anything else (they can’t color or play there, etc. - they have to use the table in the playroom).
Our kitchen/living room/dining room are all open to each other. We have a kitchen table we eat all meals at. My kids are still a little picky, so depending on what DH and I are making for us, we might feed them nuggets first, etc. Otherwise, we eat together.
Our formal dining table we use for Legos, school stuff and I fold laundry there. We only eat at that table for holidays. We have an island but I've never put stools there since the walkway is just slightly too narrow IMO.
We use our table daily. It’s wood and has a few scratches, but we try to be careful with it. We have an open kitchen / dining area / family room layout, which is nice. If our only table was in a separate dining room, we’d probably eat at the kitchen island. I recently saw a TikTok where someone turned their dining room into a combo pantry / dog room / mud room and I loved it. It would be so much more useful than a separate dining room that barely gets used.
In our 20s we would eat on the couch, at the coffee table. I wouldn’t want to do that now. The furniture is too expensive, lol.
ETA: It’s just DH and me and we eat dinner together almost every night. We don’t usually get to have breakfast and lunch together during the week, but we sometimes do on weekends depending on when we get up and what we’re doing.
We suck - we eat in front of the TV. My H used to be gone a lot at dinner time, so I'd cook our meal while DS ate something more kid friendly/plain in the living room. That just stuck and I don't see us changing it now that he's almost 8 lol.
We do have a nice 8 person table that my H and his dad made, which we'll use when we host.
We have an island that seats 3 and a dining table in an adjacent room. Our family lives on two schedules - when H is home and when H is away. When it's just DS and I, we eat at the island together. When H is home we almost always eat at the table.
I wanted a MCM style table with very simple, clean lines. I happened to find an actual maple MCM table at a thrift store that was exactly the style I wanted. It came with its own set of dents and scratches, but structurally is so solid. I love that it can handle anything, but isn't too precious when I have preschoolers scribbling with markers at it. I am casually looking to replace it with the same style, but longer. It's getting squishy when we have company because all the kids in our friend group are moving into pre-teen years. I keep an eye on Marketplace and some local shops that resell MCM furniture. If something is already 60+ years old and still looks good, it's unlikely that my family will destroy it.
H and I ate in front of the tv until we had DS(8). Now we eat at the table but due to DS' feeding sensitivities we frequently have him eat right before or after us.
H grew up eating in front of the tv with his family.
I grew up eating at the table with the tv off but as I hit my early teens we'd all read our individual books to ourselves while we ate at the table.
ETA: we bought our current table at JC Penneys back in 2017/2018. It's held up well but is pretty scratched up from our second move in 2020. Those movers dinged and/or scratched every piece of furniture we own.
ETA2: we have a dining area that is clear across the open floor plan dining/living area from the kitchen so it's a game room. The area we use for dining is right next to the kitchen and has no lighting apart from the two lamps we added. Today (3.5 years after we moved in) we're having an electrician come to talk to us about adding lighting there.
We have a 4 person table that is literally 20+ years old in our eat-in kitchen that we eat all our meals at. I really want to replace it, but it is already so banged up that I don't care when the kids mess it up, so it is hard to spend $$$ on a new one. I keep saying we will get a new one when the kids are older, but I also can't find a style I like. I don't want a giant, heavy formal dining room set but I also don't want IKEA crap and there seems to be little in between.
We also have a formal dining room that we never use. It become my office during Covid and still is. I very much regret buying an expensive DR set for it when we bought the house 15 years ago, before kids. The room could have so many better uses/setup than it does now but it hurts me to think about getting rid of this set that we spent so much money on. At least I'm using the table for my computer LOL. The DR is basically my office and a storage closet for junk we have nowhere else put.
Post by InBetweenDays on Jul 3, 2024 9:46:19 GMT -5
I'd say with two high schoolers (well one just graduated) on average we're all home to eat together 2-3x a week. Other nights the kids have work, sports, social activities, etc.
We eat together at the table at least one of those nights, and the rest we usually eat together at our kitchen island. Except on Fridays which are takeout days and if we're all together we often eat while watching a movie.
I love our dining room table - it was a wedding gift from my grandma 23 years ago. We've had it refinished once.
The counter height island in my kitchen gets the most use for meals. The kitchen, in general, and the island, specifically is a great layout for prepping/cooking meals because it runs the length of the kitchen with bench chairs along one side/corner in an L-shape.
So, even though we have a nice table/chairs at the top of the kitchen, we hardly ever sit there. On nice days in the summer, we take a plate and eat at the table on the porch, and in the winter we’ll take a plate and eat together in the couch while watching a show.
There is a dining room next to the kitchen that I did not furnish as a dining room. It's been a great space for DD over the years, first as a play room and now as a kid’s office.
Post by purplepenguin7 on Jul 3, 2024 10:03:49 GMT -5
Family of 3. We eat at our dining room table most nights, but in fairness it’s our only eating area. No room in the kitchen for a table.
Pre- kids my H and I ate in the living room in front of the tv. Once our kid turned 3ish (out of a high chair) it wasn’t really practical to have her sit on the couch and eat so we switched to the table.
It’s not formal or anything and there at least a few nights where all 3 of us aren’t sitting/eating at the same time for various reasons.
Our dining room is our only eating space. We have an older house and the kitchen doesn't have practical space for eating.
We had a dining table custom made for our dining room and needs. It seats 6 easily and 8 when needed and it's extra wide to allow for easier "family style" serving and lots of glasswear, bread plates. That makes us sound formal, we're not, but we host a lot. The table is somewhat farmhouse style, with pedestal carved legs and a sealed wood top. It's beat up, especially where our kids sit, but I hope it stays in the family for a while. We use a tablecloth for more formal entertaining.
Our table is a rectangle, and our eating space is round, but we eat all meals there. I have some pretty strong feelings about family mealtimes, even if it's just order a pizza/grilled cheese, or in stages during really busy activity nights, but we always eat at the table. No phones, no tv at dinner. I'm more lax about breakfast and lunch tech at the table, but I wouldn't ever commit to a living space without a designated eating area of some sort. IMO, eating at a counter isn't the same as sitting around a table. I can see getting around not having a dining room if there's still an eating area/nook in the kitchen.
Also our kitchen table and chairs have been absolutely beat to hell, and are in no way "decorative," lol. The finish is chipping, it has the scars from toddlers banging forks into it, is stained with nail polish and paint (despite using drop cloths), and is a rectangle in a circular space. It's solid maple, and we had it custom ordered 20 years ago, so it will last forever if we want. It will eventually move to the basement, but I'm not willing to buy a cheap 'holdover' table that looks nicer because what I'm holding out for is a full kitchen gut. So I throw a table cloth on it when we have guests, and the square peg table will remain in the round hole eating area until then.
Post by pinkdutchtulips on Jul 3, 2024 11:49:32 GMT -5
It's complicated.
I'll gladly eat w J and his son at the table. R on the other hand, does NOT like doing that preferring to eat in her bedroom. I can't remember the last time she and I had a meal together at home.
Most of the time we end up eating on the couch or just the kids will sit at the table. We do have a formal dining set, it's actually in our living room (the room is big and long so we split it up into different zones).
We all eat at the table if I cook a big meal, usually during the school year when it's not so hot.
We are asynchronous eaters as a rule and especially over the summer. Everyone gets hungry at different times, and in DS's case it's always. (He's 13.) We have a dining room that we use to entertain and host but we typically don't eat in there just as our family of three, though it happens from time to time. I would guess we use it 3-4 times a month. We have a large table in the kitchen and an island that are used daily. DS most often eats at the island, DH at the table and I float around. I also am on a GLP-1 and don't really eat the same things as other family members so our meals don't come together at the same times. I sometimes will sit with DS if he's at the table and play a game or something while he eats.
We eat together at the table almost every night - the only exception is on nights where DH isn’t home, and we’ll eat at the counter since it’s more convenient.
I love our table, but it’s high maintenance and needs a coat of beeswax every few days or it will start to pickup stains from spills.
It's just the two of us, but we cook together most nights, and then eat on TV trays in the living room.
We have an absolutely gorgeous oak dining table with a fancy sliding mechanism for the expansion leaves. It's solid, and kind of too big for our dining room, but we've had it 20 years and we still really like it. But we really only eat at it when hosting people (and by people I mean my H's family).
Usually it just has flowers, a candle, or some kind of seasonal center piece. But right now it's messy and hosting my latest 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, a center piece, LEGO roses (because I don't know where else to put them), and some library books I need to return.