[Quixote]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I find we can read in our living room, read on the lanai, front porch, and in the den, all quite cozily. We cannot, on the other hand, seat six or eight for dinner with no dining room furniture. We frequently have need to seat that many. Eating on the lanai is not a given in the winter cool weather.

I like having a dining room. I like the way it looks and like the additional storage.

I too like having a dining room that is used from time to time for dining and the rest of the time for other things, like craft projects. There are a table and four chairs in the kitchen nook as well; the kitchen is a room separate from the living/dining rooms.

Since I'm not a television watcher, I have never had a set in the living room, which frees up that space to really be a living room and not a TV room. One of the small bedrooms serves as a combined television room--perfect for streaming movies, videos, and so forth--and my home office; the other small bedroom is the guest room.

I did add a second ceiling fan (balanced with the original fan) to the large room that makes up the living and dining rooms, "lost" the builder's fixture over the dining room table (actually traded it for a wine rack...), and put up track lighting, so nothing interferes visually with what's on the walls of the dining room. An L-shaped sofa with the long part of the L serving as a room divider creates two very separate rooms out of the one big room. Works for me....

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I too like having a dining room that is used from time to time for dining and the rest of the time for other things, like craft projects. There are a table and four chairs in the kitchen nook as well; the kitchen is a room separate from the living/dining rooms.

Since I'm not a television watcher, I have never had a set in the living room, which frees up that space to really be a living room and not a TV room. One of the small bedrooms serves as a combined television room--perfect for streaming movies, videos, and so forth--and my home office; the other small bedroom is the guest room.

I did add a second ceiling fan (balanced with the original fan) to the large room that makes up the living and dining rooms, "lost" the builder's fixture over the dining room table (actually traded it for a wine rack...), and put up track lighting, so nothing interferes visually with what's on the walls of the dining room. An L-shaped sofa with the long part of the L serving as a room divider creates two very separate rooms out of the one big room. Works for me....

Quixote, you have just described our condo setup in Michigan (just sold). Now you are giving me an idea for the dining room. We too went without a chandelier in the condo because of triple windows looking out over a marina. So standing in the kitchen, there was an unobstructed view through the dining room. We put cans in instead, over the dining room table.

Thanks for that description! Now I'm thinking cans in the dining room ceiling of our Begonia. We have two pictures for the dining room, and I just realized the builder's fixture is going to obscure those. And whoever decided where to place that fixture to begin with has a bad eye. No way would it ever be over the center of the dining room table without moving the table way too far out from the wall.

Love this forum and the many ideas people have. Thanx!

Originally Posted by KathyW

why not just build one of the models that doesn't have the nook and dining room? I agree that most of the models have way too many dining areas (breakfast nook,dining room, stools at counter, table in lanai).

We did just that.We built an Aspen & one of the reasons is we didn't see the need for more then one dining area.

[MR&VAF]

We have a dining room table that is used for dining occasionally, but for the most part it is used for our lap top computer.

[JP]

Make it a walk in beer cooler.