I have a kitchen table that seats 6, and a separate dining room with a table that could seat 10, with the leaf in the table.
The house is bungalow, or whatever you call them in the US (ranch?).
Sure, this is how my great-grandmother’s and grandfather’s houses were set up.
I guess this is more conman than I realized. Todays kitchens with Islands and a few stools are nice but they can’t replace a big table and chairs.
Yes, this is what we had growing up, minus the toaster. Grandma crammed on the end of the kitchen table when she visited. We kids weren’t even allowed in the grown-up part of the main floor where the company living room and company dining room were, so the kitchen was the only place we ate.
This isn’t to say it was a big kitchen or big table – my parents would host guests in the company dining room while we kids stayed upstairs. And we lived at a distance from relatives so we would only have one grandmother over at a time. No big raucous dinners for our family!
My grandmother’s house – built in the late '40s or early '50s – had a teensy kitchen and a small dining room. The kitchen did have a small table in it, but it could only seat two comfortably the way it was positioned.
The house I grew up in – built in the late '60s or early '70s – did not have a dining room. The kitchen had an extended space that functioned as a dining area; we had an expandable table, and I can remember a few occasions where all the leaves were in place. I don’t recall feeling crowded though.
My current house – built in 2006 – has a “breakfast nook” in the kitchen and a separate, very formal dining room (complete with wainscoting and a somewhat rustic hanging light fixture). The “breakfast nook,” like the dining area in the house where I grew up, is a big open area next to the kitchen; it’s also open to the living room. There’s ample space in the “nook” for a large, round dining room table, an old pie safe (currently holding china), and a couple of small bookcases. We’ve never actually used the formal dining room; it houses a small dining table and assorted pieces of antique furniture.
Yes - me and about everyone I grew up with. Our houses were designed without anything you could really call a dining room (unless you wanted the front door to open into your dining room) so we all basically ate in the kitchen. It is fine with 4-5 people but for larger gatherings it got real crowded and the “kids” (me among them) ended up at a smaller table in the basement. When actual eating wasn’t going on the table was pushed against the one wall and the chairs under it as best possible.
My house. Huge kitchen with a couch, TV, full sized dining table and two refrigerators.
At my parents house growing up, the kitchen table regularly sat six, and has been known to fit eight, although not that comfortably. My parents have a dining room, but only use it for special occasions.
My house growing up had what amounted to the kitchen and dining room in one big area. The kitchen mostly to the left and the dining area with a table that would seat 6 easily, 8 if you really liked each other, to the right. There was no other dining area in the house.
When I was a teenager we moved to a house with one “great room” that was the kitchen, dining, and living rooms all in one room, but I don’t think that fits what you’re talking about.
The house I grew up in. Except it wasn’t a table per se but a bar, and only a medium-sized one at that. But it sat four comfortably.
Yes, I’ve seen it. My parents had a huge kitchen with both island seating and a dining area that could seat at least 8. (Also had a formal dining room only used at holidays.) A lot of the houses that my husband and I looked at when we were house-hunting had similar (but slightly smaller) set-ups. In some of these houses, there were no formal dining rooms, or those formal dining rooms were now used as dens or offices.
It seems to be a pretty typical set-up here in upper-middle class neighborhoods. My husband and I wanted either a large eat-in kitchen with no dining room, or a dining room right off the kitchen that we wouldn’t make very formal. We got the latter because we did not want to move into the next price category, where the large eat-in kitchen was more common.
My GF’s mother’s house has a kitchen where the table comfortably seats 12. It is not a posh house, just fairly ordinary.
An ex of mine lived in an a house with such a kitchen. One of my daughter’s friends has a flat with a kitchen that can seat nine at the table comfortably.
Such kitchens are becoming more common now rather than less; I think small kitchens were a brief fad.
The house I currently live in has a large kitchen/dining room area, right next to the living room (no door separating the rooms, just a sort of archway type opening). When my siblings and their spouses and kids are over, whoever doesn’t fit at the table ends up eating in the living room, and no one gets mad because they get to watch TV while they eat.
Most standard houses these days here don’t have a separate dining room, the kitchen and dining area is one, so the only table is the dining table which is effectively in the kitchen.
Even in my grandparents house 50 years ago the kitchen table was a 6 seater and there was no dining room.
Two of the houses I grew up in (and the one my parents have currently) had eat-in kitchens. Parent’s table seats 6, with some finagling, and usually the table’s butted against the wall. My uncle’s house I took care of for 2 years in the suburbs has a huge kitchen with breakfast bar and a table that seats 6-8 with room to walk around with everyone seated, and a separate formal dining room.
My apartment now (built 1920) has an even bigger kitchen than my parents have. While my table and chairs are in the center of the room, there are two walls clearly meant to have the table and chairs oriented toward the corner, if I were to take the chair rails and wainscoting as a hint for where to put the table. But the microwave and shelving work better there. As it is, the table seats four with room to walk around with everyone seated. Put the leaf in and it seats 8-10 a little snugly. Since it’s usually just me with all the chairs tucked, there’s room for jumping jacks while waiting for the kettle to boil.
My family has 6 people and both the houses I grew up in had tables that fit all of us with no problems, you could even add a leaf to (un)comfortably get a few more in, but that usually meant people going between the wall and chairs or kids crawling under the table to get to some of the seats.
But we had a big family and my mom, likely, was trying to keep the mess of 6 people, eating three meals a day, contained to one, linoleum/tile covered room. So they were probably looking for that when they bought those houses.
My great-grandmother was anything except rich - her house was a double shotgun (two rooms by two rooms - “front room” and kitchen on one side, bedrooms on the other, bathroom taken in from an area that had been part of the back porch when plumbing was added. There was no dining room - the kitchen contained a large table with benches, probably seated about 10, 12 if you were skinny or friendly. My grandparents built their home next door to Granny’s in the early sixties. There was an enormous formal living room and dining room, but the kitchen was probably 20 feet wide and 24 long, open to the den. Without the leaves, the kitchen table seated 8. Twelve with the leaves. My mother’s house also doesn’t have a separate dining room, but we comfortably seat eight at her kitchen table, plus a couple at the breakfast bar. (Beyond that number, it’s either extra tables in the living room, or al fresco on the patio and deck.)
My current kitchen has room for maybe 4 to dine, but that’s a little tight. I’m considering just expanding the kitchen right into the dining room - we have the full suite of nice antique table/chairs, china cabinet, and sideboard, but I’d rather have an eat-in kitchen and more cabinets and counter space. The living room is plenty big to add more temporary table/seating, and we’re not formal people. Mostly, when we entertain, it spills over to the back porch and a bonfire in the fire pit anyway. Definitely an advantage to living in the subtropics, though, because it’s warm enough in south Georgia usually to plan seating on the back deck even at Christmas.
Not that I knew them, but Houston art patrons John & Dominique de Menil had Philip Johnson build a house for them in River Oaks, back in 1950–when he was “new.” River Oaks was full of gracious mansions in various styles of days gone by; the ones on busy San Felipe were hidden behind elegant brick walls. A chain link fence (now obscured by bamboo) “protected” the de Menils’ modernist box. After both the de Menils passed on, the Menil Foundation restored the house (flat roofs are a bad match for Houston’s weather); it’s not open to the public but there are occasional “events” for members.
Compared to today’s mini-mansions (& the inelegant “maxi-mansions” now popping up in River Oaks), the house is modest in square footage. Mrs de Menil insisted Johnson add windows to the windowless front wall–so there would be light in the kitchen. Then she hired Charles James, her couturier, to decorate; he painted the walls in lovely colors, built curved banquettes & mixed sturdy antiques upholstered in colored leather with midcentury pieces. (Johnson was upset but he got over it.) The de Menils proceeded to fill the house with 5 children & their stunning art collection.
The kitchen is fitted out with gray metal cabinets–and a large refectory table. I believe caterers could descend on the house & add tables inside & out for galas–but the family & their friends usually dined in the kitchen.
Yes, me.
Our house has no dining room, but it has a large eat-in kitchen. We used to have an oval table that could in a pinch seat 6 (or 4 comfortably). After we remodeled and somewhat enlarged the kitchen we have a big round table that easily seats 6, or up to 8. We don’t entertain much, but it’s actually a very nice and cozy way to have people over for dinner, they feel like part of the family, and it’s easier for the hosts to pop up and grab something we need, instead of traipsing off to another room.
I think there’s a lot of this in San Francisco. Our house style is called a Junior 4, with 4 rooms (2 bedrooms, living room, large kitchen; bathroom isn’t counted) and it was quite popular during and after WWII to house the newly arrived factory workers. The 5-room houses, with dining room, were for the middle class; our type was for the blue collar families.
I was going to say I’ve never been in a house with a dining room, but then I remembered we remodeled my grandfather’s house to have one. It had no actual divider, though, but it was attached to the living room and not the kitchen. (In fact, what we did was extend the living room to where the carport used to be, on the opposite side of the dining room.) Where the table used to be, we put in one of those kitchen islands.
Still, that’s the only one. I have been in a few houses with a den–though it was actually a repurposed bedroom. Both seems like frou-frou extra rooms to me.
Oh, and my own kitchen has enough room for an 8 person table, the stove, cabinets, and fridge, as well as a computer desk on the other side, and still probably have enough room for another kitchen table, and still be able to walk around. (We’d have to take out the portable dishwasher, though.)