That would annoy me. Then again, is this a formal dining room that is only used a handful of times a year? If so, I think it would be a minor annoyance and each year at Christmas I would curse the house and then forget about it until Maybe Easter? If this is their daily dining area, THAT would annoy me to pieces.
We had a formal dining room, but it was small and you would have to squash yourself to get by people. We instead moved our couch, chair and table into the dining room and moved the dining room table to where the wet bar and fireplace were. So they could possible switch rooms if they have a family, living and dining room.

My kit is an L with the smaller line being a galley and a sitting area with TV in the larger area. Then the dining rm at the end of the long line in the L. My husband wanted to make the sitting area the dining rm but I refuse to look at a driveway from my dining table. It is no bother at all.

I certainly could not live in a house with the DR not being adjacent to the kitchen...design wise, it's all wrong and we use our dining room often (we entertain alot!) Our dining room is separated from the kitchen by a beatiful expanse of french doors and sidelites --and is accessible from the center hall, works beautifully!

Yes, bahacca, they only use it a few times a year, and I think it was only me that found it less than ideal. They have two islands in the kitchen, one for sitting at, and one for prep, another setup I wouldn't have gone for, but they renovated the kitchen to be that way.

Clarygrace- Can you post pictures? I'm sure you have before, but the french doors and sidelites sound beautiful :)

Iroll- Sounds like your brother and SIL might need a serving cart...like english manor homes had for servants to bring food into the dining room. At least you could wheel the dishes back and forth, rather than carrying them.

Lavender, we just finished the kitchen last week!!! Yay! DH will be taking some pics this week...plus I want to make sure it looks nice for all GW's to see! We are very happy with it, needless to say! Cheers!

yes, the french doors and sidelites are quite lovely going to the dining room -- light passes between the rooms, the transition is just enough and when we want to close the kitchen while entertaining, it looks perfect! Plus I love the doorknobs...!

We've looked at a lot of houses over the years (our own house hunts and just dropping into open houses to keep in touch with the market in our area). I don't recall ever seeing a dining room that wasn't next to or very near the kitchen. In houses that have a formal living room and dining room, there often isn't much structural that differentiates the two other than one being nearer the kitchen and perhaps a chandelier over where the dining room table is expected to be.

Is it possible that your brother and SIL decided to reverse the purpose of the two rooms and the room they use as a dining room could have been the living room and vice versa?

I don't think they switched the room uses, as the living room has a fireplace, and feels like a living room. The dining room is too small to be a living room, anyway.

Their house is in South Carolina, and was built sometime in the last 20 years; they were not the original owners. We were visiting, and I of course didn't say anything about it.

To me, if the choice were to eat all meals at an island in the kitchen or actually sit down at the DR table, I'd definitely eat most meals in the DR, not just a couple of times a year. So this would bother a few times a day, every day! bean