Living dining room ideas: the chicest ways to incorporate a dining table into your living room
Over the past few decades, dining rooms have gradually been disappearing from our homes. As our resident agony aunt Fiona McKenzie Johnston explains in her response to the question ‘Is the dining room truly dead?’, the housebuilding programme of the 1950s resulted in smaller houses, with fewer, larger rooms designed to be used as more general living areas. More recently, the eat-in kitchen has proved incredibly popular, with spacious dining tables positioned alongside cooking and preparations areas for a less formal but more convivial arrangement.
Where does this leave those with small kitchens or no separate kitchen at all? Take city flats, for instance, in which kitchens come in two main forms: a tiny galley or one wall or corner of an open-plan living area. And dining rooms are rarely on the agenda, unless you are willing to sacrifice a precious bedroom or a quiet study. In such circumstances there is, of course, no option but to eat in the living room.
Luckily, there are plenty of clever living dining room ideas out there to help you pull off this concept in style, from built-in banquettes, to adaptable furniture and ideas for ‘broken-plan’ set-ups. We have rounded up our favourite examples to show you how to create a chic and practical space for dining and entertaining, however big or small your living room might be.













