Repurposing a Formal Dining Room

CeeCeeSugaPie

Have any of you repurposed a formal dining room? I am thinking of possibly doing this and would love to see any pics you could possibly provide. I just don't know how much we would use a formal DR.

~NB~

I used to have a formal DR and a galley kitchen. The DR was the largest, and least used, room in the house.

I remodeled to build a new eat-in kitchen where the DR used to be. Now it's an open, spacious kitchen with a small dining area.

In the space where the kitchen used to be, I made a mudroom and a half bath.

It's a much better use of my floorspace/square footage. In the past 15 years I've hosted exactly ONE dinner party, and the tiny galley kitchen could barely even support it, so this way makes much more sense.

Cortney1982

I once had a formal dining room and it was just there to look pretty with the exception of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.  I used it for sewing projects and crafting projects a few times a year but that was it.  Would you have enough space in your home elsewhere if you hosted dinner? 

What kind of space do you need?  If your crafty you could use a buffet/sideboard/chest, etc to hide your craft items and have a large table to craft on.  That way you still have the table there when the occasion arises.

CeeCeeSugaPie

We do have a breakfast nook and a large open kitchen. The nook would be a little small for a formal dinner, so maybe we will keep the formal DR. It will need some revamping though. The light fixture in there is hideous and I would like to replace the carpet with possibly hardwood floors.If you can't tell, we just bought a new house and I am trying to think of what to do with this room. I think, with your help, I just talked myself into keeping as a formal DR.

julygal

The way our TH is laid out the living room and dining room are really more of a "great room" and the eat-in kitchen is maybe 5 feet away from that.  We decided that we were OK with just the eat-in kitchen.  The table is cramped for holiday meals, but those only happen at our house at most once a year (rotate to other families' homes).   No pics, but we redid ours as a library/alternate sitting area.  We put up a wall of tall bookshelves (wish we could've afforded built-ins) and have comfy seating.  We changed the light fixture to a semi-flush mounted light.  The bookshelves actually hold minimal books, as we have a stereo system, decorations, kids toys hidden behind cabinet doors, etc also on there.  

Sisugal

We have not used our DR for other than that purpose, but I have seen it used as an office (closed off with french doors), a play room, and also a "library/reading/ quiet" room.

kaitylin

My parents old home had a formal dining room and they converted it to an office space. It worked really well!