The home I grew up in the 1950s didn't have a dining room. We ate in the kitchen and watched TV in the living room. It had three bedrooms and one bath. I imagine it wasn't much bigger than 900 square feet, yet it was plenty big enough for a family of six. To put things in perspective, the average home size in 2010, according to the National Association of Home Builders, is 2,377 square feet.
The NAHB predicts tomorrow's home buyers will demand smaller homes, larger family rooms, and combined living spaces that are used for more than one purpose. They still want more storage, though. I say get rid of all that extra crap; you don't need it. But I surely won't miss the formal living room or dining room. For example, my dining room table is used mostly these days to stack incoming and outgoing mail. What about yours?
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Technorati tag: smaller homes
At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Comments
Hi,
I have a small dining room attached with kitchen.Now a days, people prefer small rooms.
Small is always beautiful.
I am getting married soon, so looking for a North Virginia Homes for sale. Plz help me wid the details.
I guess I’m a throwback. I love having defined spaces. We eat dinner in our dining room every night, but breakfast and lunch in the kitchen. I love being able to sit and read in the living room in the evening while my husband watches tv in the family room. I love having one room that is easy to keep “company ready” without having to forbid my kids from hanging out in there. I love having lots of room to entertain without having to keep everyone in one room – this way the kids can go do their thing while the adults socialize. We purchased our home in September and anything without formal spaces was a deal breaker for us.
I hope home builders will realize they can’t just pick one style of home. Just like with skirt lengths, the time has come to let people decide what they want and not expect that everybody has the same desires. When my kids are gone I will probably want something different than I do now while they’re at home.
Nicole – My experience (and it is exclusively in Central Ohio) is that builders are not really “getting rid” of rooms. They are either going to wide-open floor plans or simply RENAMING rooms to “family room.”
So instead of being in a home and saying this is the dining room, but you could use it as a den or study — they are simply reversing it to “This is family room but it could also be a dining room.”
It isn’t so much a change in the homes being built (for the most part) as the marketing of the homes.
What I find hilarious is by the time 2025 comes around, home buyers will probably be rolling their eyes at these “great room concepts” and saying they look “Oh, so 2008.”
Thanks for the feedback.
Toby, We did end up with an older home instead of new construction because the builders here seem to be doing the same thing with the renaming and open spaces. I like defined spaces and being able to shut doors between rooms. I also like having a family room AND a dining room because both serve different purposes. I’m sure we drove our Realtor crazy. 
Elizabeth, I hope you’re right, we plan to be in our house at least 10 years and when we sell perhaps the tide will have turned and I can still get what I want. On the other hand the odds are good that what I want today won’t have any bearing on what I want in ten years! Luckily there are lots of homes out there and they’re not all the same.