Part of our kitchen remodel/addition included a sitting area or keeping room as they're referred to down here. In ours there's a TV that's easily viewed from the keeping room and kitchen, a bench for the kitties, a club chair & ottoman for dh and I'm still searching for the right rocker. Have a large painting for the blank wall. One of these days it'll get hung. We rarely use the living room anymore and the dining room table hasn't been used once since the kitchen was finished. Well, at least not for eating. When the desktop PC went down I started using the laptop at the dining room table and have never gone back to the office. Anyway, we either eat at the raised bar or on the screened porch. I love having the space set up like this. Dh can be relaxing & reading or watching TV while I'm in the kitchen. It's easy to talk and we're together instead of in our own separate spaces.

I posted in the other thread that I had made the original dining room in my house into a TV room, but I also have a breakfast table in it. The old DR is completely open to the galley kitchen and is only about as big as a breakfast room. I replaced the (Gothic horror) chandelier in the center with a flush-mount fixture, and placed a swag lamp over the new, smaller table.

When we added onto our house (a first floor great room, and a second floor master suite) we moved our dining area into the former living room and I did just what you are thinking about - I have a sitting room where the dining area used to be. The spaces are not large - they all open to each other and the kitchen. We took the chandelier down from the old dining area and installed a ceiling fan. I have baker's racks with pottery, plants and baskets of table linens. I have a loveseat and a comfortable reading chair + ottoman in the space. I call it the "cook's nook". No t.v. - I refuse to have one in that end of the house. I have one of those compact Bose Wave radio/CD players and I listen to it all of the time.

My husband built bookshelves under the overhanging countertop of the old breakfast bar - we took the stools out. I have my cookbooks and gardening books there, and can display pottery there too.

So now we only have one place where we have meals, and that's at the dining room table. It's in front of the old fireplace that used to be the living room. We hung a chandelier from the cathedral ceiling in that space. There's a staircase in the room that goes up to the spare bedrooms. I have room for several large buffets, one along the staircase and one under a bank of windows.

Overall, we love the repurposing. We have no "only use it a few times a year" formal areas in our house. It works very well for us. The t.v. is in the new great room. I can get away from it whenever I want lol.

seagrass