in your apartment or house with a partner or friends? i guess this question goes out to people without children...for me about once a month...
what brought this question to mind is after looking at several floor plans of condominiums currently being built in the marina del rey/venice area (they're targeted to singles and young couples without children)...the designs pretty much plunk down a dining table in the leftover space between the kitchen and the living room and call it dining room...people who buy these condominiums seem to just eat and run most of the time...what do you guys think?
In my experience, young couples in LA still have formal meals (or semi), but not always in that residual space we call a dining room. I have to add, though, that along with the formal dinner comes at least one baby crawling around so maybe we aren't the same demographic. I am young, dammit!
my house has a dining room. it sat empty for the first year. partly because this is the first house i've owned and we didn't have a lot of furniture. my wife's family [at that time 8] came for christmas at the end of that year. with no where to sit, we went out and bought a big dining room table and it looks great in there. does it get used all the time? no. i'm i happy i have it? you betcha. it beats sitting around a coffee table on the floor trying to balance your plate on your lap. we have no children and use it for dinner parties about the same as you dammson. i also use it for other things including client meetings, playing poker, and a nice central space for laying food out when we have parties.
my wife and i sit down and eat dinner together almost every night...we probably split about 50/50 between eating at our table in the kitchen (which is large enough to seat 4-6) and at our countertop bar...
our condo/townhouse has one of those leftover spaces that was labeled 'dining room' in it...although it is really just a living room that is too long to be considered 1 room but too small to really be considered 2 rooms...most of our neighbors do in fact use the space as a dining room, but they all have no style (crappy neo-traditional furniture and the like)
i have ours set up as a bar with a big cabinet from DWR that houses our fancy china as well as our liquor, wine, and drinking glasses...everyone always remarks at how open and airy our place feels in comparison to the neighbors...i think this is because i didn't cram 2 rooms into 1.5 rooms worth of space...also helps that are furniture is low, sleek and modern (i.e. corbu lounge, breuer nesting coffee tables, low tv console from DWR, etc)...i also replaced the clunky lighting that everybody else has with some nice, unobtrusive low-voltage spots...
we also eat dinner at home most nights. we have a small table in the kitchen for this. it just feels odd at the dining table with just two people. the dining table can seat 6 comfortably and 10 with the additional leaf in.
I have dinner parties at my place 2-3 times a month (right before the dining room turns into the poker room). When it is just the two of us, we eat there maybe 1/3 of the time but really enjoy it when we do. We also use the dining room for projects (halloween costume fabrication, etc.)
I would never purchase a home/condo without a dining room. And not one of those faux dining room/left over spaces as per above post. My dining room is open to the living room as one long space, but is defined by a large bay that pockets the table perfectly.
What I would not want is a bar seating area in the kitchen, the kind with stools.
We have a family (not "formal") meal at table every night with our toddler. This is an incredibly important part of my child's upbringing, IMO, ad I plan to conitnue this practice until he goes to college.
When we bought our house, it had a little nook in the kitchen that was used as a "breakfast table". Problem was it was located about 4' away from the "formal" dining area (I have a very open-plan ranch house). So we deleted the breakfast nook and eat in the "formal" dining room, which is actually part of the same space as the living room, for every meal.
Althought, truthfully, because the bamboo flooring isn't down in the dining room yet, just the cork underlayment, right now we're eating at a crappy table with crappy folding chairs in the family room. But we hosted dinner for five at that crappy table on New Years Eve, so it works!
I think the notion of a "formal" separate space to eat holiday meals etc. has sorta gone by the wayside. We can have a party wnd use better tableware, candles, flowers, etc., or grab cereal and coffee on the wya out the door, in the same space. That's the advantage of an open plan house.
What I would not want is a bar seating area in the kitchen, the kind with stools.
strawbeary- my boss insists on those to be added to our plans...i don't care for those either...when i'm in my house or at someones else's house, we drink around the television or in the backyard
our dining room is the where my girls have their doll houses, train tracks, slot car tracks, and where i keep about half of my tools.
we all eat together every night in the open room next to the kitchen too lb.
been married six years, and i don't think we've ever "entertained" anyone... not on purpose anyway. i think we both work too much to worry about any of it. we still eat together almost every night, and most of the times when we get food out, we bring it back home and sit at the table.
as for the table, it is used for many things.... studying, eating, preparing food (wife's in culinary school and needs massive counter space), painting, building models, when i used to bring the laptop home from work, if i am using the drill press (neighbors don't like that), reading, and sleeping cats. basically it is the only table we have that doesn't have a computer on it, so it gets used for everything... we don't have a lot of furniture.
i would also add, that while this is one of the nicer and newer apts we've had, it is also laid out the worst. it looked really good to us (especially where we were coming from), that is until i got all the furniture up 2 flights of stairs and tried to figure out where to put it. this is really saying something considering we don't have much furniture.
i think most people in "our" generation (i dunno...20-35) are comfortable entertaining at a table in the middle of the kitchen or in the middle of the dining room. we have basically all the spaces in one (in a not-as-bad-as-it-sounds triangular plan) and nobody seems to mind seeing the kitchen when we entertain (2-3 times a year). i think as we all get used to / enamored with less space the whole "formal" dining thing will be less and less important. i know i certainly don't care about it. we are buying a condo with a similar open plan (although not triangular in plan).
hell, i can imagine in manhattan people have entire parties in tiny little studio apartments and the only problem is if someone wants to smoke indoors but others don't want to be around smoke. (at our place the smokers just go out on our similarly-triangular balcony)
I agree with ochona, the idea of hiding the kitchen is long (long) gone. Or at least in our generation(s). These days, the hidden kitchen is more of a novelty than a luxury - and even then, people with these compartmentalized dining areas rarely use them (in my experience).
I think that seeing the kitchen is a big part of dining. Having guests see how we make what we make is part of the entertaining.
i have guests about once a week, with the 2 kids and my wife, usually means about 8 people at the table (i used to be a sous-chef and like cooking for company).
other nights, like LB i try to eat with the family. It is very important as i work so much and such long hours that that time is icassionally all i get with my kids...so maybe kids DO make the difference.
my single playboy (-girl) friends dine out most nights, but we live in a big city where you can get really good food for less than 20 bucks easy enough, 10 bucks if it doesn't have to look nice.
Humm.. Formal...Yes I dress up in Banana Pants and my starched white shirt and of course I put on a Bow Tie, just about every evening. I'm joined by Matisse and Frito Jack, cause they want to eat what ever is on my plate. Oh ya I do dishes afterwards, in the sink.
(screw dishwashers).
I don't care for formal dining rooms. My folks had one for 10 years, never got used once. We always eat in the kitchen, at the bar. My loft has a bar adjacent to the kitchen/stove and I love it. Allows for easy conversing, easy and casual entertaining, etc.
I am seriously considering buying a high dining table (probably won't), that is like a bar. It's just so much more casual and I have never been to a formal dinner party, I don't think, beyond the holiday parties at grandparents (that are long gone).
A small table for a romantic dinner would be good, but nothing more.
my dog sleeps in my bed , which is situated in the livingroom, in the livingroom we have diner , my beautifull wife and I . Interiordesign my goal in life
how often do you have formal dinners...
in your apartment or house with a partner or friends? i guess this question goes out to people without children...for me about once a month...
what brought this question to mind is after looking at several floor plans of condominiums currently being built in the marina del rey/venice area (they're targeted to singles and young couples without children)...the designs pretty much plunk down a dining table in the leftover space between the kitchen and the living room and call it dining room...people who buy these condominiums seem to just eat and run most of the time...what do you guys think?
In my experience, young couples in LA still have formal meals (or semi), but not always in that residual space we call a dining room. I have to add, though, that along with the formal dinner comes at least one baby crawling around so maybe we aren't the same demographic. I am young, dammit!
my house has a dining room. it sat empty for the first year. partly because this is the first house i've owned and we didn't have a lot of furniture. my wife's family [at that time 8] came for christmas at the end of that year. with no where to sit, we went out and bought a big dining room table and it looks great in there. does it get used all the time? no. i'm i happy i have it? you betcha. it beats sitting around a coffee table on the floor trying to balance your plate on your lap. we have no children and use it for dinner parties about the same as you dammson. i also use it for other things including client meetings, playing poker, and a nice central space for laying food out when we have parties.
my wife and i sit down and eat dinner together almost every night...we probably split about 50/50 between eating at our table in the kitchen (which is large enough to seat 4-6) and at our countertop bar...
our condo/townhouse has one of those leftover spaces that was labeled 'dining room' in it...although it is really just a living room that is too long to be considered 1 room but too small to really be considered 2 rooms...most of our neighbors do in fact use the space as a dining room, but they all have no style (crappy neo-traditional furniture and the like)
i have ours set up as a bar with a big cabinet from DWR that houses our fancy china as well as our liquor, wine, and drinking glasses...everyone always remarks at how open and airy our place feels in comparison to the neighbors...i think this is because i didn't cram 2 rooms into 1.5 rooms worth of space...also helps that are furniture is low, sleek and modern (i.e. corbu lounge, breuer nesting coffee tables, low tv console from DWR, etc)...i also replaced the clunky lighting that everybody else has with some nice, unobtrusive low-voltage spots...
we also eat dinner at home most nights. we have a small table in the kitchen for this. it just feels odd at the dining table with just two people. the dining table can seat 6 comfortably and 10 with the additional leaf in.
I currently live with 4 other guys. We have a booth.
(I'll be staying with the gf during recovery.)
on that table
I have dinner parties at my place 2-3 times a month (right before the dining room turns into the poker room). When it is just the two of us, we eat there maybe 1/3 of the time but really enjoy it when we do. We also use the dining room for projects (halloween costume fabrication, etc.)
I would never purchase a home/condo without a dining room. And not one of those faux dining room/left over spaces as per above post. My dining room is open to the living room as one long space, but is defined by a large bay that pockets the table perfectly.
What I would not want is a bar seating area in the kitchen, the kind with stools.
We have a family (not "formal") meal at table every night with our toddler. This is an incredibly important part of my child's upbringing, IMO, ad I plan to conitnue this practice until he goes to college.
When we bought our house, it had a little nook in the kitchen that was used as a "breakfast table". Problem was it was located about 4' away from the "formal" dining area (I have a very open-plan ranch house). So we deleted the breakfast nook and eat in the "formal" dining room, which is actually part of the same space as the living room, for every meal.
Althought, truthfully, because the bamboo flooring isn't down in the dining room yet, just the cork underlayment, right now we're eating at a crappy table with crappy folding chairs in the family room. But we hosted dinner for five at that crappy table on New Years Eve, so it works!
I think the notion of a "formal" separate space to eat holiday meals etc. has sorta gone by the wayside. We can have a party wnd use better tableware, candles, flowers, etc., or grab cereal and coffee on the wya out the door, in the same space. That's the advantage of an open plan house.
dammson, how'd you know? Do I know you? If I do, can you tell me who uses all of my Tapatio? And my Cholula too. Nah, we share.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Those silly Chinese cups are always up to no good!
strawbeary- my boss insists on those to be added to our plans...i don't care for those either...when i'm in my house or at someones else's house, we drink around the television or in the backyard
yeh, i especially hate them when they are adjacent to the kitchen, sharing counter space and upper cabinets overhead. BLAH....
our dining room is the where my girls have their doll houses, train tracks, slot car tracks, and where i keep about half of my tools.
we all eat together every night in the open room next to the kitchen too lb.
been married six years, and i don't think we've ever "entertained" anyone... not on purpose anyway. i think we both work too much to worry about any of it. we still eat together almost every night, and most of the times when we get food out, we bring it back home and sit at the table.
as for the table, it is used for many things.... studying, eating, preparing food (wife's in culinary school and needs massive counter space), painting, building models, when i used to bring the laptop home from work, if i am using the drill press (neighbors don't like that), reading, and sleeping cats. basically it is the only table we have that doesn't have a computer on it, so it gets used for everything... we don't have a lot of furniture.
i would also add, that while this is one of the nicer and newer apts we've had, it is also laid out the worst. it looked really good to us (especially where we were coming from), that is until i got all the furniture up 2 flights of stairs and tried to figure out where to put it. this is really saying something considering we don't have much furniture.
i think most people in "our" generation (i dunno...20-35) are comfortable entertaining at a table in the middle of the kitchen or in the middle of the dining room. we have basically all the spaces in one (in a not-as-bad-as-it-sounds triangular plan) and nobody seems to mind seeing the kitchen when we entertain (2-3 times a year). i think as we all get used to / enamored with less space the whole "formal" dining thing will be less and less important. i know i certainly don't care about it. we are buying a condo with a similar open plan (although not triangular in plan).
hell, i can imagine in manhattan people have entire parties in tiny little studio apartments and the only problem is if someone wants to smoke indoors but others don't want to be around smoke. (at our place the smokers just go out on our similarly-triangular balcony)
I agree with ochona, the idea of hiding the kitchen is long (long) gone. Or at least in our generation(s). These days, the hidden kitchen is more of a novelty than a luxury - and even then, people with these compartmentalized dining areas rarely use them (in my experience).
I think that seeing the kitchen is a big part of dining. Having guests see how we make what we make is part of the entertaining.
i have guests about once a week, with the 2 kids and my wife, usually means about 8 people at the table (i used to be a sous-chef and like cooking for company).
other nights, like LB i try to eat with the family. It is very important as i work so much and such long hours that that time is icassionally all i get with my kids...so maybe kids DO make the difference.
my single playboy (-girl) friends dine out most nights, but we live in a big city where you can get really good food for less than 20 bucks easy enough, 10 bucks if it doesn't have to look nice.
Twice a week with my folks ...
rest of the week - chineese takeaway and leftovers ... lol
everyday. in fact, im about to start eating right now...
Smithers! Please bring out the first course and tell the trubadours to start playing music.
Humm.. Formal...Yes I dress up in Banana Pants and my starched white shirt and of course I put on a Bow Tie, just about every evening. I'm joined by Matisse and Frito Jack, cause they want to eat what ever is on my plate. Oh ya I do dishes afterwards, in the sink.
(screw dishwashers).
and - madame est servie!
I don't care for formal dining rooms. My folks had one for 10 years, never got used once. We always eat in the kitchen, at the bar. My loft has a bar adjacent to the kitchen/stove and I love it. Allows for easy conversing, easy and casual entertaining, etc.
I am seriously considering buying a high dining table (probably won't), that is like a bar. It's just so much more casual and I have never been to a formal dinner party, I don't think, beyond the holiday parties at grandparents (that are long gone).
A small table for a romantic dinner would be good, but nothing more.
my dog sleeps in my bed , which is situated in the livingroom, in the livingroom we have diner , my beautifull wife and I . Interiordesign my goal in life
why you married a dog?
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